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31
have become a priority issue for the
Atlanta-based CDC. The agency this
week released draft guidelines for
family doctors, encouraging them to be
more careful about prescribing opioids
for chronic pain and urging the
increased use of naloxone, an overdose
antidote.
The CDC released the overall tally last
week. On Friday it provided more
details, including numbers for
individual states.
Staff & Agencies,
The Guardian
(19/12/15)
A
FTER DECADES
, C
ONGRESS
EFFECTIVELY LIFTS BAN ON
FEDERALLY FUNDED NEEDLE
EXCHANGES
AN DIEGO: In the waning days of
2015, congressional Republicans
agreed to essentially end their decades-
long opposition to federally funding
state and local needle exchange
programs, slipping a repeal of the ban
into the end of the year omnibus
spending measure with virtually no
fanfare.
The decision – purportedly
spearheaded by House Appropriations
Chairman Hal Rogers and backed by
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, both from Kentucky, as
well as West Virginia Republican Sen.
Shelley Moore Capito, who is on the
Appropriations Committee – came in
response to a massive HIV/AIDS
outbreak in Indiana, as well as
their home state’s decision to
implement its own exchange to combat
growing heroin use.
Hal Rogers and Mitch McConnell Win Mcnamee
Rogers and Capito spokespeople did
not return requests for comment, but a
McConnell aide acknowledged that
Rogers pushed for it and that
McConnell ensured the language got in
the bill.
‘If you’d spoken to me at the beginning
of last year, I’d have said we’re playing
the long game, can we even identify a
single Republican to champion this,’
said Michael Collins, Deputy Director
of the Drug Policy Alliance.
HIV/AIDS experts and activists hailed
the decision. The ‘partial’ repeal passed
by Congress in late December will
allow exchange programs to pay for
‘staff, the vans, the gas, rent,
everything but the syringes. It’s
basically a giant work around’ to
conservative opposition to needle
exchanges, said Dr Steffanie Strathdee,
Associate Dean of Global Health
Sciences at the University of California
at San Diego.
‘It will take a lot of [financial] pressure
off these groups,’ Strathdee added.
Collins agreed, noting that ‘the actual
syringes cost almost nothing,’ but that
in keeping the ban on funding needle
S