Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and prevention indicated that overdose-prevention funding recipients may no longer be permitted to promote the message to “never use alone,” according to details of a meeting held this month obtained by the Guardian.
The meeting aimed to bring recipients of Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) CDC funding into compliance with former President Donald Trump’s executive orders,according to a grant note reviewed by the Guardian. The most relevant is the July order “ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.”
The order prohibits federally funded “harm reduction” and “safe consumption” efforts, asserting that they “only facilitate illegal drug use and its attendant harm.” Harm reduction encompasses a wide range of interventions to lessen the risks of perilous activities, traditionally including condoms to prevent STIs, clean syringes to prevent HIV and hepatitis, fentanyl test strips, and the overdose-reversal drug Narcan. “Safe consumption” specifically refers to drug-related interventions like providing clean syringes.
Leo Beletsky, a professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University, explained the ideology behind this language as “moral hazard.”
“It’s the idea that by making a risky activity less risky, you’re encouraging people to engage in it,” Beletsky said, adding that if the threat of imprisonment won’t deter someone from using drugs, a dirty syringe won’t either.
Officials leading the meeting informed participants that any action perhaps construed as encouraging drug use is now prohibited for funding recipients. Several officials from state and municipal health departments inquired whether they could continue disseminating the “never use alone” message. The officials responded that it was a gray area and declined to provide a definitive answer.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and human Services, which oversees the CDC, stated: “HHS is committed to implementing the President’s Executive Orders across the Department.”
Dr.Jennifer Hua, medical director for the department of public health in Chicago – which has seen…
