Source: Orange County Register (CA) Contact: http://www.ocregister.com/ Copyright: 1998 The Orange County Register Pubdate: 23 Oct 1998 Private Donors To Fund needle-Exchange Clinic Hit with a congressional ban on funds for its needle-exchange program, an AIDS clinic in the nation's capital has set up a private group to distribute clean needles to drug addicts. Congress, as part of the $520 billion spending package signed into law Wednesday, banned use of local and federal funding for any needle-exchange program in the District of Columbia. The Whitman-Walker Clinic, which gets $7 million a year in federal and local government dollars, has operated a clean-needle exchange for three years. It has now created a private, nonprofit group to run the program. - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski