A portion of the following letter, written by RA President David Crowe, was published in the July 21, 2008 edition of The Globe and Mail, "Canada's National Newspaper".

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:08:13 -0600 To: letters@GlobeAndMail.com From: "David Crowe (RA President)" David.Crowe@RethinkingAIDS.com Subject: Letter to the editor I applaud Margaret Wente's courage in tackling  the politically correct harm reduction industry  in the pages of the Globe and Mail. It is often implied that "harm reduction", the  provision of clean needles to addicts, will  reduce the risk of becoming HIV-positive.  Actually, the opposite is true. While many  studies have shown that needle exchanges reduce  what are called risky behaviours, they actually  increase the risk of becoming HIV-positive. A  large study from Montreal, published in 1997,  showed that consistent needle exchange users  faced a 10-22 times higher risk of becoming  HIV-positive than those who never used clean  needle exchanges. A Seattle study showed about  double the risk of becoming Hepatitis B and C  positive among regular and sporadic needle  exchange users. This data not only questions what harms are  being reduced, when some of the biggest  so-called harms are increased, but raises an  even bigger issue -- are antibody and genetic  tests for HIV and other viruses accurate when  they are used on people who regularly expose  themselves to foreign toxic and  immunosuppressive substances? The fact that non-injection drug use  (particularly cocaine) is also a risk factor for  a positive HIV test indicates that many results  among drug users may be false positives, signals  of distress generated directly by the drugs (or  impurities), not indicative of the presence of a  virus. It is likely that the drugs are the biggest  problem for the health of addicts, not  infectious diseases, something that "harm  reduction" does not address, and likely makes  worse. - David Crowe References: Bruneau J et al. High rates of HIV infection. Am J Epidemiol. 1997 Dec 15; 146(12): 994-1002. http://davidcrowe.ca/SciHealthEnv/papers/605-HighRatesHIVInfectionsIVDUMontreal.pdf Hagan H et al. Syringe exchange and risk of infection with hepatitis B and C viruses. Am J Epidemiol. 1999 Feb; 149(3): 203-13. http://davidcrowe.ca/SciHealthEnv/papers/1449-NEP-HepBC.pdf Chiasson MA et al. Heterosexual transmission of HIV-1 associated with the use of smokable free-base cocaine (crack). AIDS. 1991 Sep; 5(9): 1121-6. http://davidcrowe.ca/SciHealthEnv/papers/487-HeteroTransmissionHIV-Crack.pdf Chirgwin K et al. HIV infection, genital ulcer disease, and crack cocaine use among patients attending a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases. Am J Public Health. 1991; 81(12): 1576-9. http://davidcrowe.ca/SciHealthEnv/papers/488-HIV-GUD-Crack.pdf