Court testimony by a Yale School of Public Health professor played an important role in the recent outcome of a civil suit filed in Massachusetts Superior Court to ensure the availability of clean needles for injection drug users.
At issue in the suit, brought by AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod, Inc., (ASGCC) against the town or Barnstable, was whether the support group could continue to dispense free hypodermic needles and syringes to drug users to protect them from contracting HIV and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) from contaminated needles by staying an order from the Health Department in Barnstable to cease their activities. Barnstable officials, arguing that dirty needles left around town pose a “public health crisis,” issued a cease and desist order in September against ASGCC. In response, ASGCC sought injunctive relief through the courts, claiming they provide a life-saving service.
Robert Heimer, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and of pharmacology and director of the Emerging Infections Program at Yale, testified that the availability of clean needles directly safeguards many people from infection while posing little threat to the public.
Bennett Klein, senior attorney and AIDS law project director at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in Boston, said Heimer’s testimony was critical to the outcome of the case because it provided an essential counter to the “unscientific arguments” made by the town.
The “most important point “ in Dr. Heimer’s testimony,” Klein said, “was his expertise on the risk of transmission of HIV or HCV from an improperly discarded needle. Dr. Heimer’s explanation that the risk was miniscule was extremely important. It gave the judge the critical scientific information he needed.”
Dr. Heimer’s expertise has a profound real-world impact in ensuring that judges and other policy makers do not buy into fear, but rather follow scientific information.
Bennett Klein, senior attorney
Testifying for ASGCC, Heimer said, “the more needles you distribute, the safer people are.” He debunked the town’s argument that people can get infected if they get stuck with a contaminated needle that had been improperly discarded, and he estimated that the risk of an HCV infection from such a needle stick is about 1 in 10,000; the risk climbs to 1 in a million for contracting HIV given the prevalence of these viral infections in the local drug using population.
Judge Raymond P. Veary, Jr. in December granted ASGCC the relief it sought, stating that failing to do so “would quite clearly place lives in jeopardy.” In his 13-page decision, Veary referred to intravenous drug users as “our brothers and our sisters” and said “they are driven by a disease that has taken away their choices and left them with a need. To fill this need they require needles and syringes.” He said he was sufficiently persuaded [that needle dissemination programs]”are an effective approach. They save lives.”
In 2006, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law permitting the delivery of hypodermic needles and syringes. As a result, ASGCC began providing that service. In the past fiscal year it has dispensed roughly 10,000 needles and syringes a month, with the demand increasing as younger users have transitioned from oral oxycodone abuse to intravenous drug abuse.
Klein said the current opioid epidemic has only increased the need for clean needle programs. “Dr. Heimer’s expertise has a profound real-world impact in ensuring that judges and other policy makers do not buy into fear, but rather follow scientific information,”