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Tag: HHS Secretary Alex Azar

  • US Health Chief Announces Support For Needle Exchange Programs

    US Health Chief Announces Support For Needle Exchange Programs

    The Health Secretary’s reversal on needle exchange programs may be related to a new 2030 deadline related to HIV.

    Speaking at the National HIV Prevention Conference on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar expressed support for needle exchange programs as a way to stop the spread of HIV.

    Republicans like Azar have largely resisted these programs, believing that they will encourage drug use—but evidence to the contrary appears to have convinced the HHS Secretary otherwise.

    “Syringe services programs aren’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when you think about a Republican health secretary, but we’re in a battle between sickness and health, between life and death,” Azar said during his speech according to The Hill. “The public health evidence for targeted interventions here is strong, and supporting communities when they need to use these tools means fewer infections and healthier lives for our fellow Americans.”

    Needle exchange programs have existed for years, but are as important as ever with the national opioid crisis. These programs have reduced the spread of dangerous viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C through intravenous drug use. The first such program in the U.S. was established in 1988 in Tacoma, Washington, and was rewarded with a 60% reduction in new hepatitis B and C cases.

    Studies over the decades have also consistently found that these services do not increase the number of intravenous drug users. At the same time, needle exchange programs cost significantly less than treating new cases of HIV and hepatitis.

    However, the larger Trump administration still opposes these programs as well as safe injection sites where individuals can use drugs without fear of arrest, and in the presence of medical professionals who both provide clean equipment and are ready to save lives in case of an overdose.

    In February, the Department of Justice sued Safehouse, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia, to prevent them from opening the country’s first safe injection site.

    Azar’s reversal on needle exchange programs may be related to a new 2030 deadline related to HIV. Earlier this month, the Trump administration revealed its 2020 budget proposal, which included a request for $291 million for an ambitious plan to end the “HIV epidemic” in a decade.

    “For the first time in modern history, America has the ability to end the epidemic, with the availability of biomedical interventions such as antiretroviral therapy and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP),” the budget plan reads.

    With Azar’s statements at the National HIV Prevention Conference, it appears that needle exchange programs could become a part of these efforts. Most of the $291 million requested will be given to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which supports and helps to fund these services.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • HHS Secretary Discusses "Plateau" Of The Opioid Epidemic

    HHS Secretary Discusses "Plateau" Of The Opioid Epidemic

    Health Secretary Alex Azar discussed the state of the opioid epidemic at a recent health summit.

    Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. may be plateauing, but it’s still too soon to know for sure.

    “We are so far from the end of the epidemic, but we are perhaps, at the end of the beginning,” said U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar at a recent Future of Health Summit in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday (Oct. 23).

    Azar said that the rate of drug overdose deaths had “begun to plateau” toward the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018. More than 70,000 Americans died of drug overdose in 2017, a 10% increase from 2016, according to preliminary figures by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    Azar’s remarks also reflect recent CDC figures from this month which show that from December 2017 to March 2018, the rate of increasing drug overdose deaths over the last 12 months has gone down from 10% to 3%, suggesting a slow-down. However, these figures won’t be final until all death investigations are completed.

    “It appears at this point that we may have reached a peak and we may start to see a decline,” says Bob Anderson, senior statistician with the National Center for Health Statistics, according to AP. “This reminds me of what we saw with HIV in the ‘90s.”

    Azar, who heads the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, cited the success of multi-pronged efforts to mitigate the opioid crisis.

    Promoting medication-assisted treatment (with drugs like buprenorphine, naltrexone and methadone), the use of naloxone, and increasing scrutiny on doctors’ prescribing practices have all played a part.

    However, AP reports that while opioid deaths may be leveling off, “deaths involving fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamines are on the rise.”

    The New York Times reported in February that “meth has returned with a vengeance.”

    “At the United States border, agents are seizing 10 to 20 times the amounts they did a decade ago,” the Times reported. “Methamphetamine, experts say, has never been purer, cheaper or more lethal.”

    Fentanyl is now notorious for being the synthetic opioid that is 50-100 times more potent than morphine. Though traditionally it is a pharmaceutical drug, illicitly-made fentanyl is said to have fueled rising rates of drug overdose deaths in the U.S.

    This month, the maker of Narcan (naloxone) announced plans to release a new opioid overdose antidote that will match the strength of increasingly potent fentanyl analogs.

    “Compounds like fentanyl, carfentanil and other synthetic opioids act for longer periods of time. The concern is that naloxone’s half-life doesn’t provide sufficient cover to prevailing amounts of fentanyl in the blood,” said Roger Crystal, the creator of Narcan and CEO of Opiant Pharmaceuticals, in a past interview.

    View the original article at thefix.com