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Victory for Needle Exchange at UNAIDS Meeting
Advocates for evidence-based HIV prevention won a victory in Geneva on June 29, 2005, at the 17th Programme Coordinating Board Meeting of UNAIDS, when the United States endorsed a global HIV-prevention strategy that included mention of access to sterile injection equipment and the human rights of drug users.
The group had had split after U.S. officials insisted that all references to needle exchange be removed. OSI joined a coalition of groups urging the United States not to turn its ban on federal funding for needle exchange into the global standard, and worked with delegates from other countries to emphasize the dangers of replacing science with ideology at UNAIDS.
In the face of unanimous support for needle exchange by other country delegates, a letter from U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) highlighting the evidence for the approach, and a New York Times editorial calling the U.S. stance "breathtakingly dangerous, American officials withdrew their opposition. Waxmans letter is available for download below.
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