by Jon Fuller

About the author: Jon Fuller is assistant director of the Adult Clinical AIDS Program at Boston Medical Center, associate professor of medicine at Boston University's School of Medicine, and a Jesuit priest.

In a remarkable rejection of scientific data and its own experts' opinions, the Clinton Administration announced in April 1998 its long-awaited decision regarding the expiring ban on Federal support of needle-exchange programs (N.E.P.'s).

The Administration's logic was not immediately obvious. While it recognized that N.E.P.'s reduce H.I.V. transmission and do not increase drug use, it refused to lift the ban but encouraged local governments to use their own resources to fund exchange programs. Since the Administration's stated reason was its concern that lifting the ban might send the wrong message to...