Indiana House committee adopts needle exchange measure

The Indiana House Committee on Public Health passed a measure Monday that would allow Indiana counties at the highest risk of an HIV outbreak from intravenous drug use to institute needle exchange programs.

Under the proposal, counties with high hepatitis C rates could establish such programs, which public health officials say effectively combat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Health officials consider a community’s high rate of hepatitis C, which is spread through contaminated needles, as a harbinger of a potential HIV outbreak.

Needle exchange programs came to the fore last week when Gov. Mike Pence declared a public health emergency in Scott County, which has seen more than 80 new HIV cases in recent weeks, all of which have been linked to intravenous drug use.

Pence’s 30-day order allowed local health officials to establish a temporary needle exchange program as one of many tools to halt the outbreak, considered an epidemic because the numbers are so far outside Scott County’s norm of about five HIV cases a year.

However, Pence also made it clear that he still does not support needle exchange programs as “anti-drug policy” and that he would veto any broad-based legislation allowing for them.

Committee Chairman Ed Clere, R-New Albany, said he tweaked an original amendment broadly legalizing needle exchange programs in response to Pence’s concerns.

“We have the opportunity to prevent the next Scott County by being proactive instead of reactive,” he said.

Scott County had the third-highest hepatitis C rate in the state for the past three years, according to statistics from the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at Indiana University. Parke and Hendricks counties, No. 1 and 2, have Department of Correction facilities, where hepatitis C rates typically run high.

But state health officials who spoke at Monday’s hearing stopped short of saying that the new measures would meet with Pence’s favor.

Reiterating the governor’s lack of support for needle exchange programs, Joey Fox, director of legislative affairs for the Indiana State Department of Health, said that although the latest changes suggest a move in the right direction, he could not promise that this would be sufficient.

“This is a conversation we would like to continue with you. We do still have policy concerns,” he said. “It may still open the door too wide.”

Fox said state officials would be watching the needle exchange program in Scott County, the state’s first, to see how it plays out.

The proposed measure aims to identify other Indiana counties at the highest risk of being an epicenter for future outbreaks, Clere said. It divides the state’s 92 counties into four quartiles, based on their hepatitis C rates.

The 23 counties that fall into the highest risk category have three-year median hepatitis C rates of at least 89.8 cases per 100,000 population. Under the measure, the next 20 or so counties, with a three-year median hepatitis C rate of 58.6 to 89.2, also would be eligible to establish needle exchange programs if their local officials want and hold a public hearing on the issue.

Clere said he did not think the proposal in any way conflicts with Pence’s beliefs.

“I have been explicit in saying this is not introduced as anti-drug policy,” he said. “This is a harm reduction measure.”

Call Star reporter Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354. Follow her on Twitter: @srudavsky.