Health News
- Louisville Opens First Needle Exchange In State; Officials Predict Rural Counties Will Be Slow To Follow
Photo by Scott Utterback, The Courier-JournalLouisville Metro Public Health & Wellness opened its mobile needle-exchange program Wednesday, June 10, making Louisville the first place in Kentucky to implement such a program. Lexington and Northern...
- Hepatitis C Is On The Rise In Appalachian Kentucky, And Dirty Needles Are To Blame; Officials Predict Surge Of Hiv To Follow
Kentucky has the highest rate of acute hepatitis C in the nation and public officials predict it could get much worse, Claire Galofaro and Dylan Lovan report for the Kentucky bureau of The Associated Press. Dirty needles shared by drug users...
- Congress Is Taking On Opoid Abuse And The Nationwide Increase In Drug Overdoses
Federal officials have become increasingly concerned about the rapid increase in drug overdoses across the country. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a series of hearings on the topic, is looking at how states are dealing with this problem....
- Kentucky Led The Nation In Hepatitis C Cases In 2013; State's Rate Rose 357 Percent From 2007 To 2011
By Tim Mandell Kentucky Health News Kentucky had the nation's highest rate of hepatitis C in 2013, with 5.1 cases per every 100,000 people, says a report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As many as 3.5 million people...
- Uk Researcher Calls For Change In State Law To Allow Syringe Exchange Program To Curb Hepatitis C Epidemic In Eastern Ky.
Despite the benefits associated with syringe- or needle-exchange programs in preventing the spread of hepatitis C, Kentucky law still prohibits them, and a researcher from the University of Kentucky is calling upon policymakers to help curb this public...
Health News
Researchers ask Congress to lift ban on needle-exchange funding
Because of dirty needles, Kentucky has the highest rate of hepatitis C in the nation, and public officials say it will get worse. The state legislature recently allowed localities to start needle-exchange programs, but Congress banned federal funding for such programs in 2011.
Congress should remove the ban to fight sudden outbreaks like the one among citizens in Scott County, Indiana, near Louisville, according to Chris Beyrer, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and Steffanie Strathdee, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of California-San Diego.
"There are going to be more of these outbreaks, and what's urgently needed is a public health response before things get even worse," Beyrer said. "We can't put politics above public health. We have a cheap tool to prevent this."
Drug abuse is a problem affecting people in many demographics, and overuse of prescription drugs can be a gateway to heroin. In Indiana, needle exchanges are illegal but can be authorized by the governor; Gov. Mike Pence did that to address an HIV-AIDS outbreak in Southeast Indiana. The area has been recording only about five new cases of HIV per year, but by June 10 of this year, 169 people had been diagnosed and more than 80 percent also had hepatitis C.
"Regrettably in the case of needle-exchange programs, other Indiana counties contemplating authorizing them must first demonstrate the existence of a public health emergency?a requirement that ensures that they can only respond to, rather than prevent, new outbreaks," the researchers write. Another issue, the authors write, is that to obtain clean needles, people have to provide their initials and birthday, which could deter some people.
Another way to curb the outbreak is to screen more people for HIV and ask them about their drug use. A third way is to increase use of opioid replacement therapies, which involve replacing those drugs with methadone or buprenorphine, less dangerous alternatives.
"Drug use is changing, and before this gets any worse, we need to change our approach to fighting it," Beyrer said.
Congress should remove the ban to fight sudden outbreaks like the one among citizens in Scott County, Indiana, near Louisville, according to Chris Beyrer, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and Steffanie Strathdee, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of California-San Diego.
"There are going to be more of these outbreaks, and what's urgently needed is a public health response before things get even worse," Beyrer said. "We can't put politics above public health. We have a cheap tool to prevent this."
Drug abuse is a problem affecting people in many demographics, and overuse of prescription drugs can be a gateway to heroin. In Indiana, needle exchanges are illegal but can be authorized by the governor; Gov. Mike Pence did that to address an HIV-AIDS outbreak in Southeast Indiana. The area has been recording only about five new cases of HIV per year, but by June 10 of this year, 169 people had been diagnosed and more than 80 percent also had hepatitis C.
"Regrettably in the case of needle-exchange programs, other Indiana counties contemplating authorizing them must first demonstrate the existence of a public health emergency?a requirement that ensures that they can only respond to, rather than prevent, new outbreaks," the researchers write. Another issue, the authors write, is that to obtain clean needles, people have to provide their initials and birthday, which could deter some people.
Another way to curb the outbreak is to screen more people for HIV and ask them about their drug use. A third way is to increase use of opioid replacement therapies, which involve replacing those drugs with methadone or buprenorphine, less dangerous alternatives.
"Drug use is changing, and before this gets any worse, we need to change our approach to fighting it," Beyrer said.
- Louisville Opens First Needle Exchange In State; Officials Predict Rural Counties Will Be Slow To Follow
Photo by Scott Utterback, The Courier-JournalLouisville Metro Public Health & Wellness opened its mobile needle-exchange program Wednesday, June 10, making Louisville the first place in Kentucky to implement such a program. Lexington and Northern...
- Hepatitis C Is On The Rise In Appalachian Kentucky, And Dirty Needles Are To Blame; Officials Predict Surge Of Hiv To Follow
Kentucky has the highest rate of acute hepatitis C in the nation and public officials predict it could get much worse, Claire Galofaro and Dylan Lovan report for the Kentucky bureau of The Associated Press. Dirty needles shared by drug users...
- Congress Is Taking On Opoid Abuse And The Nationwide Increase In Drug Overdoses
Federal officials have become increasingly concerned about the rapid increase in drug overdoses across the country. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a series of hearings on the topic, is looking at how states are dealing with this problem....
- Kentucky Led The Nation In Hepatitis C Cases In 2013; State's Rate Rose 357 Percent From 2007 To 2011
By Tim Mandell Kentucky Health News Kentucky had the nation's highest rate of hepatitis C in 2013, with 5.1 cases per every 100,000 people, says a report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As many as 3.5 million people...
- Uk Researcher Calls For Change In State Law To Allow Syringe Exchange Program To Curb Hepatitis C Epidemic In Eastern Ky.
Despite the benefits associated with syringe- or needle-exchange programs in preventing the spread of hepatitis C, Kentucky law still prohibits them, and a researcher from the University of Kentucky is calling upon policymakers to help curb this public...