HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/aids.needles.and.minorities

Text File | 1996-05-06 | 8KB | 150 lines

Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.misc,alt.society.resistance
From: [e-mail] (David Borden)
Subject: PRESS RELEASE -- AIDS, Needles & Minorities
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 24 May 1995 12:28:57 GMT

  The following announcement comes to you courtesy of the Foundation for
  Drug Policy Awareness / Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet).  For
  more information, e-mail "[e-mail]", or contact: DRCNet, P.O.
  Box 381813, Cambridge, MA 02238-1813; phone: [phone]; fax: [phone].

******************************************************************************

Please copy and distribute.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                               May 19, 1995

CONTACT:    DAWN DAY, Ph.D., [phone]
        ERIC E. STERLING, [phone]


44% OF AIDS CASES DRUG-RELATED

INFECTION RATE FOR BLACKS FIVE TIMES RATE FOR WHITES

DIRTY NEEDLES THE PRINCIPAL MEANS OF TRANSMISSION


Princeton, N.J. -- The majority of America's new drug-related
AIDS cases are among African-American and Hispanic males age 13
and older, according to an analysis of CDC's latest data by Dr.
Dawn Day, the Director of the Dogwood Center.  Drug-related AIDS
cases now constitute 44% of all new AIDS cases in 1994 where the
means of transmission of the virus is known. The percentage is
rapidly growing.  The sharing of hypodermic syringes for the
injection of illegal drugs is the number one cause of this rapid
increase.

"The wave of AIDS cases among Black and Hispanic Americans can be
slowed if clean needles are exchanged for ones used by drug
injectors," said Dr. Day in announcing her data.  "Without
following public health doctrine 101 -- interrupting the spread
of disease -- this epidemic is on a course that will simply
overwhelm American medicine, American cities, and people of
color," she said.

Between 1990 and 1994, the number of new drug-related AIDS cases
rose 90 percent among African American and Hispanic men age 13
and older.  Dr. Day's research points out the lopsided shape of
the wave of new AIDS cases.  "A key to understanding this
epidemic is to look at the rates, not the total numbers which
tend to hide where new AIDS cases are striking.  The rate of
African-American new AIDS cases at 109 per thousand who inject
drugs is five times greater than the rate of 22 new cases per
thousand for white drug injectors.  The rate for Hispanic drug
injectors is 94 per thousand.  The deaths we're going to see will
be simply staggering," Dr. Day said.

"Current drug abuse prevention and treatment programs are not
protecting Blacks and Hispanics from AIDS.  These are truly
crisis numbers.  We must follow the advice of organizations such
as the National Commission on HIV and AIDS, appointed by
President Bush and make clean needle exchanges available to
injecting drug users," said Dr. Day.

"In 1994, CDC reports, there were 28,522 new drug-related AIDS
cases:  15,207 of those cases were among African- American and
Hispanic males age 13 and older.  This is over half of all such
cases.  CDC-commissioned studies of anti-AIDS strategies show
strongly that providing clean needles to drug users in exchange
for used needles can cut the spread of AIDS.  Each new AIDS case,
on average, is going to cost society $120,000.  Providing health
care for these people -- whose fatal illness we could have
prevented -- will cost us $3.4 billion," said Dr. Day.

The most comprehensive study of needle exchange programs,
initiated during the Bush Administration, was conducted by the
University of California, San Francisco.  Its findings were that
needle-exchange programs are likely to reduce the spread of AIDS
and do not appear to increase the use of illegal drugs.  The
study and its findings were further evaluated by the Centers for
Disease Control (with input from the National Institutes of
Health and other Federal substance abuse agencies) in December
1993.  That review endorsed the study's conclusions and
recommended ending the Federal ban on funding needle exchange
programs.  For more information on the needle exchange study,
contact Peter Lurie, M.D., M.P.H., at the University of
California, San Francisco at [phone].

Dawn Day is the Director of the Dogwood Center, an independent
research center in Princeton, N.J.  She was a member of the
Carnegie Corporation-funded team that analyzed changes in the
lives of African Americans.  Her work on household energy
consumption has been funded by the Ford Foundation.  She has
taught at Brooklyn College and the University of Maryland.

Dr. Day is a member of the National Drug Strategy Network.  She
is the author and co-author of several books on racial
discrimination: Adoption Agencies and the Adoption of Black
Children (Lexington Books, 1979); Protest, Politics, and
Prosperity: Black Americans in White Institutions, 1940-1975
(Pantheon, 1978 (co-author); The Negro and Discrimination in
Employment (University of Michigan Institute of Labor and
Industrial Relations, 1965); The American Energy Consumer
(Ballinger, 1975, co-author).  Currently she is writing a book on
illicit drugs and racial injustice. She holds both a Ph.D. in
Sociology and an M.S.W. in social work from the University of
Michigan.  The Dogwood Center, P.O. Box 187, Princeton, N.J.
08542, [phone], e-mail: [e-mail]

                               # # #

The National Drug Strategy Network is an information sharing
organization made up of people and organizations that are working
for effective approaches to the nation's drug problems.  It does
not endorse policies.  It is supported by The Criminal Justice
Policy Foundation, 1899 L Street, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC
20036-3804, Phone: [phone], Fax: [phone], e-mail:
[e-mail].

==============================================================================

The Drug Reform Coordination network (DRCNet) is a non-profit entity
dedicated to getting the word out to activists on what they can do to work
for reform of the nation's drug laws and other related laws and policies.
The Foundation for Drug Policy Awareness is an educational organization
that aims to raise public awareness of issues surrounding drug policy.
DRCNet solicits information from national and state level activist groups
on how people can help them work for reform, and makes frequent announcements
by e-mail, fax, mail and phone to its "rapid-response team".  DRCNet also
publishes "The Activist Guide" newsletter on a monthly basis.  Full
membership in the Drug Reform Coordination Network is $25, and includes
The Activist Guide and membership in the rapid-response team.   Newsletter
alone is $18 for 12 issues, and rapid-response team alone is $10.
(All material is available by e-mail for free.)  For more information on our
publications and educational outreach projects, contact:

DRCNet, P.O. Box 381813, Cambridge, MA 02238-1813
[phone] / fax: [phone] / e-mail: [e-mail]

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     Peace       Justice       Freedom       Compassion       Truth
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