Indiana County shuts down needle exchange for "moral" reasons, after HIV outbreak.

VP Mike Pence as governor of Indiana over saw a statewide ban on needle exchange programs, until there was an outbreak of HIV cases in one part of the state. It got so bad, even Pence back-peddled and allowed some areas seeing that out break to once again provide clean needles.

Matter of Saving Lives, Disease Prevention, Monetary Cost to Society: Fast forward to today:

An Indiana county shut down its needle exchange program on Tuesday because of moral objections, raising the risk of increasing its number of HIV and Hepatitis C infections.  Madison County’s was shut down in August—also over moral qualms. Lawrence County Commissioner Dustin Gabhart told Indiana Public Media:

“It came down to morally, they’re breaking the law. I can’t condone that. Yes, it’s a problem. Yes, it needs to be resolved. I could not give them the tools to do it.”

So it’s moral to let Americans get and die from HIV. This is public policy based on the whims of whoever’s in charge. Not pro-life in any way I can see. The facts tell the whole story:

As of last year, 35 of Indiana’s counties had gotten approval for or made plans to start a needle exchange program. They were drawn to the programs’ proven effectiveness: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed 15 studies analyzing needle exchange programs, and found that they were associated with a decrease in HIV infections while not raising the rate of drug use. One study of intravenous drug users in New York City found that, over the course of a decade, distributing clean needles reduced the prevalence of HIV from 54 to 13 percent, and Hepatitis C from 90 to 63 percent.

There’s also a financial benefit to the programs—HIV costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat over a lifetime—but cost is not health advocates’ greatest concern. As Christopher Abert of the Indiana Recovery Alliance, the group that ran Lawrence County’s syringe exchange program, told NBC: “People are going to die.”

But conservative ideological beliefs outweigh real world solutions every time. Republicans wallow in weird convoluted ideas that can sometimes shocks the senses, like the “surveillance of partners” and quarantines for anyone with HIV:

A former liberal radio talk host who likes to ask the “follow-up question” at Democurmudgeon.blogspot.com