Needle-exchange programs in Washington, DC, are expected to grow significantly this summer as almost half a million dollars in city funding will begin flowing to four AIDS service organizations, the Washington Post reports (washingtonpost.com, 4/25).
The funds will help the organizations PreventionWorks!, Bread for the City, Family Medical and Counseling Service, and Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS)—which all say they plan to use the funds to build on their work with intravenous-drug users.
Last summer, Congress lifted a ban that prohibited the city from using tax dollars for needle-exchange programs. The district has one of the country’s highest rates of HIV infection, with intravenous-drug users accounting for a large portion of new infections annually, the Post reports.
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Beth Benne, RN, is HIV negative, but
the virus has impacted her life. She currently supervises a biannual HIV/AIDS awareness week as
the director of the student health center at Pierce College, a
community commuter school in Woodland Hills, California.
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Overheard in the Women's Forum
"I think that it's OK to be angry. I am sometimes—it's natural—we are HIV positive. but I always try to not let myself stay there too long. Let yourself feel you are human. You should not beat yourself up about being angry."
