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Ethical Issues Raised by Needle Exchange Programs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Sana Loue ,
Peter Lurie  and
Linda S. Lloyd
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Extract

United States public health experts have long expressed concern about the prevalence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among injection drug users (IDUs). The United States has the largest reported IDU population in the world: 1.1 to 1.5 million. Recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that 50 percent of incident HIV infections occur among IDUs, with additional infections occurring among their sex partners and offspring. More than 33 percent of new AIDS cases occur in IDUs, their sexual partners, and their children. Almost one half of all women diagnosed with AIDS in the United States are IDUS. Many of the remaining infected women were infected as a result of sex with a male IDU.

While public health agencies, legislators, community leaders, and religious groups have engaged in vigorous debate over the merits of needle exchange programs (NEPs) as an intervention to reduce HIV transmission, the programs, some legal and some illegal, have been implemented in fifty-five cities across the country.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , Winter 1995 , pp. 382 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1995

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