Sometimes science is really pesky, especially when your policies are rooted in moral judgments that have no foundation in fact. So when Indiana's opioid epidemic fueled an HIV outbreak in the state, Gov. Mike Pence initially prayed on it (i.e. ignored it), then came up with a completely inadequate fix for it. Paul Demko reports:
Indiana became a national flash point for the opioid epidemic last year when nearly 200 people in rural Scott County became infected with HIV primarily as a result of injecting Opana, a powerful prescription opioid, using dirty needles. Those needles spawned one of the biggest outbreaks of HIV in decades, with more than 20 new cases being diagnosed every week at the height of the outbreak last year.
Pence spent months dragging his heels as the crisis blossomed. In the final seven weeks of 2014, Scott County saw five people test positive for HIV, when even a single diagnosis a year was a rarity there. Eight more people contracted HIV during just one week in January 2015. Yet it wasn't until March 25, 2015 that Pence issued an executive order allowing clean needles to be handed out in the county. But he hamstrung the effort from the start.
After meeting with federal health officials who warned him of the rapidly growing epidemic, Pence initially authorized a 30-day amnesty from the state’s needle exchange prohibition in March 2015, but that was limited to Scott County. [...]
“They had to twist his arm to get the one in Scott County,” said Carrie Ann Lawrence, of Indiana University’s Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention. “The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] pretty much said you need to do this.”
With new cases mounting, Pence eventually agreed to extend the amnesty in Scott County beyond 30 days and to sign statewide legislation lifting the state ban on exchange programs. That compromise did not give counties a green light to distribute sterile needles to intravenous drug users, however. Instead, it requires officials from counties experiencing increasing HIV or hepatitis C infections to declare a public health emergency and then submit a plan for state approval to set up needle exchange programs for up to one year.
Pence’s “fix” has resulted in only five counties implementing a needle exchange program, even though it’s proven particularly effective in Scott County. This is the type of leadership you can expect from the “sane” portion of the GOP ticket.
Clark County, which adjoins Scott County in southeastern Indiana, has had an application to run a needle exchange program pending before the state for a year but has yet to gain approval.
"I don't care what the problems are," said Barb Anderson, a Clark County activist. "The people in my community are dying."