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E-mailEx-addicts laud benefits of needle exchanges
Speakers must register in advance with the Allegheny County Health Department at (412) 578-8008.
Written comments will be accepted until Aug. 27 at the Allegheny County Health Department, Office of the Director, 3333 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213; e-mailed to bdixon@achd.net; or faxed to (412) 578-8325.
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Karen Roebuck can be reached at or .
"There is no life that's not worth saving," she said Wednesday at the first of three public hearings that the Allegheny County Health Department is conducting on whether to allow the two-year-old needle-exchange program to become permanent.
The Board of Health plans to discuss the trial program at its Sept. 1 meeting.
In November 2001, the health department declared a public emergency for HIV and hepatitis C. Four months later, the Board of Health authorized the nonprofit group, Prevention Point Pittsburgh, to operate the needle-exchange program on a trial basis.
The program is privately financed. Needles are exchanged from noon to 3 p.m. Sundays at the health department's Forbes Avenue offices in Oakland. Intravenous drug users also can get some drug paraphernalia, condoms, HIV and hepatitis C tests and drug-treatment referrals.
Simpson, 56, who has been off drugs for 15 years and works for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Pittsburgh AIDS Center for Treatment, was among nine experts, former addicts and members of the public who unanimously urged the health department to allow the program to continue. About two dozen people attended the hearing yesterday.
Speakers cited numerous statistics and studies from other cities, states and countries that show needle-exchange programs have reduced HIV and hepatitis C infections. Data from the local exchange program is inconclusive, according to the health department.
About 11,000 intravenous drug users live in Allegheny County, according to Caroline Acker, a founding volunteer of Prevention Point Pittsburgh and an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
"Needle exchange remains the most cost-effective means of preventing the spread of HIV and hepatitis C among injection drug users," she said. "It costs as much to fund Prevention Point Pittsburgh for a full year as it does to pay for the medical care for two patients with AIDS."
"Say yes to a better world and support needle exchange," said Clifton Maxwell, 54, who said he is HIV and hepatitis C positive and has been off drugs for a year.
"I've been an addict for 33 years. Imagine the number of people I've had sex with and shared needles with," he said at the hearing.
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