AIDS Groups to Honor Norton at Hill Reception for Removal of Needle Exchange Ban (2/13/08)

Washington, DC - This evening Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will be honored at a reception sponsored by AIDS organizations and healthcare policymakers in Banquet Room, 340B, Rayburn House Office Building from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Norton will be recognized for her successful fight that got Congress to lift the congressional ban on exchanging infected needles for clean syringes to drive down the District's high HIV/AIDS rate.

Last year, Norton engaged District residents in a "Series of Frank Conversations by Us with Us: A Self Examination on the D.C. HIV/AIDS Epidemic" during four town hall meetings with clergy, men, women and teens. Norton offered constituents free HIV/AIDS testing at the town meetings, and does so at all her other events.

The Syringe Exchange program began in 1998 to reduce needle transmissions among infected drug abusers, but Congress attached a rider to the DC Appropriations prohibiting D.C. from spending its own funds for needle exchange until last year. According to a D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration report issued in November 2007, injected drug users accounted for the largest proportion of AIDS-related deaths and was the second most reported mode of HIV transmission.