JULIANNE Whyte (The Border Mail, June 14) asked for evidence that needle and syringe programs are effective. How about the U.S. Surgeon General's recently released comprehensive review of the scientific literature? It concluded that needle and syringe programs: * Reduce new HIV infections; * Increase the numbers of injecting drug users referred to and retained in drug treatment; and, * Provide excellent opportunities for referral and entry into medical care and other services. This report is available on the internet at http://www.harmreduction.org/shalalalttr.html [continues 73 words]
THE letter from Dr Campbell Aitken (Opinion, The Border Mail, June 10) is interesting, coming from such a major research centre. He describes a variety of measures (variables) introduced to control HIV/AIDS infection, but makes no mention of any control group to prove that needle exchange made the difference in reducing the number of new cases (incidence rate) of that infection. This was the same comment that the World Health Organisation made when it reported on the Swiss trials of safe injecting rooms. [continues 201 words]
JULIANNE Whyte has interpreted epidemiological data in a most odd manner and allowed her own bias to colour her vision. Everyone else who looks at this data cannot help but draw the conclusion that Australia has done very well in keeping the incidence of HIV very low, and in reducing the rate of hepatitis C. Considering that the hep C virus is very infectious and that it had a 20-year head start before we took it seriously it is a major triumph that the rate of spread is decreasing. One of the reasons for this triumph is needle and syringe programs. Let us not emulate New York where every year hundreds of kids are born infected with HIV. Who does that benefit? Dr A.R. Macqueen, Orange [end]
IN her letter to The Border Mail (May 31), Julianne Whyte made some poorly-argued assertions about needle and syringe programs (also called NSPs) which require refutation. Ms Whyte claimed that programs have not shown any benefit in terms of reducing HIV infections in Australia, but she skirted around the fact that the vast majority of HIV infections in Australia, as in most western countries, have been diagnosed in men who have sex with men - not drug users. As a result of the introduction of harm reduction strategies (including the promotion of safe sex messages and freer availability of condoms) HIV incidence in gay Australian men, and therefore overall incidence, has declined. [continues 245 words]
