Mike Pence was in Scott County, Indiana today. Why? Because of an HIV outbreak that is believed to be primarily the result of sharing of dirty needles between illicit users of a prescription painkiller called Opana. I guess his advisers felt his presidential ambitions required him to at least pretend to care about public health even if he's not willing to actually take steps to improve it.
The latest numbers I've heard are 72 confirmed cases and 7 preliminary positives. Scott County neighbors the county where I grew up. It has a total population of 23,972. To put that into perspective, the entire state of Indiana, population 6.5 million, normally has fewer than 500 diagnoses of HIV in an entire year. Less than 3 percent of those are linked to IV drug use.
You might think my question for Mike Pence is why he has thus far refused to approve a clean needle exchange program, which public health experts say is the key to bringing this epidemic to an end. That is an excellent question but it's not my question. The CDC is on the ground and I am confident they will find a way to stop the epidemic even if Pence is unwilling to help them do so.
My question is, what happens if all the pharmacists in Scott County refuse to dispense HIV-related medication because of their religious beliefs? What are the 70+ and counting people already diagnosed with HIV supposed to do? As I said above, Scott County is a small, rural county. There aren't that many pharmacists. It is entirely conceivable that Indiana's so-called "religious freedom" bill that Pence plans to sign tomorrow (in a private ceremony) could make that scenario a reality.