Tim Purington got some bad news last week: the needle exchange program he runs for Tapestry Health in Northampton saw its state funding cut by $12,500 for the remainder of the fiscal year. And given the sorry state of the commonwealth's finances, he wouldn't be surprised to see more cuts come next year.
The program—which allows IV-drug users to trade used syringes for clean ones, with the goal of stemming the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases by users sharing needles—gets all of its $200,000 annual budget from state funds, said Purington, the program director. Given the dramatic fluctuations that can take place in the state budget from one year to the next, that means the needle exchange program—and countless other state-funded projects—live with a degree of uncertainty, never sure what their budgets will look like in the future.
That could change, though, if a bill now sitting in Congress becomes law. The bill—HR 179, the Community AIDS and Hepatitis Prevention Act—would lift a 1988 ban on using federal funds to support needle exchange programs like Northampton's. "One of the nice things about federal funding is it's much more stable," said Purington, noting that federal funds tend to come in multi-year grants. "You don't have all the peaks and valleys you do in state funding."
The bill, which was introduced by U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), is currently before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (whose members include Democrats Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Peter Welch of Vermont). The bill already has 62 co-sponsors, all Democrats, including Massachusetts Reps. John Olver, James McGovern, Barney Frank, William Delahunt and Michael Capuano.
Conspicuous by his absence from that list is Rep. Richard Neal, whose district includes Northampton. (While state law allows up to 10 programs in Massachusetts, only four communities—Boston, Cambridge, Provincetown, in addition to Northampton—have them. According to the Harm Reduction Coalition, a national advocacy group with offices in New York and California, there are now almost 200 exchange programs in 38 states, Puerto Rico and Washington. D.C.)
The Harm Reduction Coalition is urging constituents to contact Neal's district office, at 413-785-0325, to ask him to sign on as a co-sponsor. "His office could use some calls and educating—why has he not taken a stand to remove the barrier to [these] programs being allowed to receive funding from the largest source of HIV prevention money in the U.S.?" the group wrote in an email to supporters. According to the HRC, one-third of Americans with HIV got it through contaminated needles. Each year, HRC says, 8,000 more people contract HIV that way, and 15,000 people contact hepatitis C through shared needles.
Neal wasn't available for comment at deadline.
There's hope in the field that the bill will pass, Purington said. "I know people are pretty optimistic this year, based on the fact that the president has signaled he supports needle exchange programs," he said.
While federal funding would provide a significant boost to needle exchange programs, it wouldn't do anything to create new programs, Purington noted. Tapestry could apply for federal funds for its Northampton program, "but it wouldn't magically allow us to implement [exchanges] in Springfield and Holyoke," he said. "We would love to do that."
By state law, a needle exchange program can only be established with local approval. That local approval hasn't come in Springfield, Holyoke and other cities with high rates of both drug use and HIV. Purington, who serves as a city councilor in Holyoke, said "there's no political will" in his city to allow a program. In Springfield, meanwhile, the City Council has consistently opposed needle exchange—although, Purington noted, when the Council adds ward representatives this fall, that could change.
