Gov. Mike Pence
Politico has a long read on the rapid rise of HIV and hepatitis C infections in some Republican states. Both are being spread
via needle sharing.
In this Indiana burg, the virus is not spreading among networks of gay men, but in rapid, cluster-like fashion within jobless white families who inject prescription painkillers with dirty needles.
“This is an HIV outbreak in a rural setting that is linked to an injection drug use,” says Jennifer Walthall, Indiana’s deputy state health commissioner. “That hasn’t been seen in the U.S. to date.” Since November, Walthall’s state health department has identified 163 cases of new HIV infections, including three preliminary positives. Eighty percent also tested positive for hepatitis C. “This was not on the radar,” Walthall says.
The results are, for anyone familiar with the current deep divide between Republican politics and giving a damn about public health, familiar. An HIV epidemic being fueled by drug abusers sharing the needles they use can be mitigated at least in part via needle exchange programs; needle exchange programs, however, have long been viewed by Republicans as "promoting homosexual activities" (Jesse Helms) or illegal drug use (Newt Gingrich, et al.).
So Republican governors and legislatures have to make a choice. Do they save lives, and millions of dollars in future medical expenses, by doing the obvious and effective thing that's worked to curb infections in bluer states?
Scott County’s outbreak was so severe that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, long an opponent of funding needle exchanges as a member of Congress, issued an executive order in March that gave local health officials authority to establish a “limited and focused” 30-day needle exchange. Last Thursday, Jerome Adams, Indiana State Health Commissioner, declared a public health emergency in Scott County through May 2016, extending the needle exchange in Austin for another year. In Kentucky, where new HIV and hepatitis C infections are also skyrocketing, state lawmakers approved in March a law that would allow health departments and local governments to launch their own needle exchanges.
Most other powerful Republicans aren't willing to talk about it, though.
A spokesman for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott did not return calls [...] Rep. Tom Cole [...] declined an interview [...] [Gov. John Kasich]'s press secretary declined to elaborate [...] a spokesperson declined an interview with Gov. Bill Haslam.
Anyway,
a good read. These are many of the same states that are eager to close Planned Parenthood clinics, women's health be damned, and that are stubbornly refusing Medicare expansion because no matter how many lives it might save, they're not going to give Obama the satisfaction of being the one to do it.