Harm Reduction

News & Opinion This Week 1. Zyklon On The US Border 2. Newsweek's "Debate" On Teen Drinking Dodges The Data 3. Needlestick Injuries Often Unreported By Surgeons 4. US House Repeals Needle Ban: Decision On Funding Thrills D.C. Officials Fighting The HIV/AIDS Epidemic 5.Gay Poles Head For UK To Escape State Crackdown 6. Africa Comment: Doubletalk Will Not Pay The Bills That Come With AIDS 7. Meth Ado About Nothing? Flavored Meth And Cheese Heroin Stories Smack Of Fearmongering 8. 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference: New Orleans 9. NewsflashIndonesia: Nationwide Activism Brings National Attention To Drug Problems C Quote (This one goes straight into the hall of fame) D How To Help E About HRP F Subscription Information ___ I. Zyklon On The US Border The Nation ~ July 9, 2007 By Alexander Cockburn Zyklon B arrived in El Paso in the 1920s courtesy of the US government. In 1929, for example, a Public Health Service officer, J.R. Hurley, ordered $25 worth of the material--hydrocyanic acid in pellet form--as a fumigating agent for use at the El Paso delousing station, where Mexicans crossed the border from Juarez. Zyklon, developed by Degesch (short for the German vermin-combating corporation), was made in varying strengths, with Zyklon C, D and E representing gradations in potency and price. As Raul Hilberg describes it in The Destruction of the European Jews, "strength E was required for the eradication of specially resistant vermin, such as cockroaches, or for gassings in wooden barracks. The 'normal' preparation, D, was used to exterminate lice, mice, or rats in large, well-built structures containing furniture. Human organisms in gas chambers were killed with Zyklon B." In 1929 Degesch divided the Zyklon market with an American corporation, Cyanamid, so Hurley likely got his shipment from the latter. As David Dorado Romo describes it in his marvelous Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground History of El Paso and Juarez: 1893-1923 (Cinco Puntos Press, El Paso), Zyklon B became available in the United States when, in the early 1920s, fears of alien infection were being inflamed by the alarums of the eugenicists, most of them political "progressives." In 1917 Congress passed, and President Wilson--an ardent eugenicist and pro-sterilizer--signed, the Immigration Act. The Public Health Service simultaneously published its Manual for the Physical Inspection of Aliens. The manual had its list of excludables from the US of A, a ripe representation of the obsessions of the eugenicists: "imbeciles, idiots, feeble-minded persons, persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority [homosexuals], vagrants, physical defectives...anarchists, persons afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases...all aliens over 16 who cannot read." In that same year Public Health Service agents "bathed and deloused" 127,123 Mexicans at the bridge between Juarez and El Paso. The mayor of El Paso at the time, Tom Lea Sr., represented, in Romo's words, "the new type of Anglo politician in the 'Progressive Era.'" For Lea, "progressive" meant a Giuliani-style cleanup of the city. He had a visceral fear of contamination and, so his son later disclosed, wore silk underwear because his friend, one Doc Kluttz, had told him typhus lice don't stick to silk. His loins thus protected, Lea battered the US government with demands for a quarantine camp on the border where the Feds could protect El Paso from typhus by holding all immigrants for fourteen days. Health officer B.J. Lloyd thought this outlandish, telling the surgeon general that typhus fever "is not now and probably never will be, a serious menace to our civilian population." Lea sent his health cops into the city's Mexican quarter, forcing inhabitants suspected of harboring lice to take kerosene and vinegar baths and have their heads shaved and clothes incinerated. After barging into 5,000 rooms, inspectors found only two cases of typhus, one of rheumatism, one of TB and one of chicken pox. Though Lloyd opposed a quarantine, he did urge delousing for "all the dirty, lousy people coming into this country from Mexico." His facility was ready for business just as the Immigration Act became law. Soon Mexicans were being stripped and daubed with kerosene, their clothes fumigated with gasoline, kerosene, sodium cyanide, cyanogens, sulfuric acid and Zyklon B. The El Paso Herald wrote respectfully in 1920, "Hydrocyanic acid gas, the most poisonous known, more deadly even than that used on the battlefields of Europe, is employed in the fumigation process." The delousing operations provoked fury and resistance among Mexicans still boiling with indignation after a lethal gasoline blaze in the city jail some months earlier. As part of Mayor Lea's citywide disinfection campaign, prisoners' clothes were dumped in a bath filled with a mixture of gasoline, creosote and formaldehyde. Then the prisoners were forced, naked, into a second bath filled with "a bucket of gasoline, a bucket of coal oil and a bucket of vinegar." On the afternoon of March 5, 1916, someone struck a match. The jail went up like a torch. The Herald reported that about fifty "naked prisoners from whose bodies the fumes of gasoline were arising" caught fire. Twenty-seven died. In late January 1917, 200 Mexican women rebelled at the border, prompting a riot and putting to flight police and troops on both sides. Now, Zyklon B is fatal when absorbed through the skin in concentrations of more than fifty parts per million. How many Mexicans, many crossing daily, suffered agonies or died after putting on those poisoned garments? Through oral histories, Romo has documented cancers, birth defects and deaths that he estimates could go into the tens of thousands and yet, as he told a reporter, "This is a huge black hole in history." The use of Zyklon B on the US-Mexico border was a matter of interest to the firm of Degesch. In 1938 Dr. Gerhard Peters wrote an article in a German pest science journal, Anzeiger fr Schdlingskunde, which called for its use in German Desinfektionskammern and featured photos of El Paso's delousing chambers. Peters went on to become the managing director of Degesch, which supplied Zyklon B to the Nazi death camps. He was tried and convicted at Nuremberg. (In 1955, he was retried and found not guilty.) In the United States, the eugenicists rolled on to their great triumph, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, much admired by Hitler, which would doom millions in Europe to their final rendezvous with Zyklon B twenty years later. By the late 1940s, the eugenicists were mostly discredited, but the Restriction Act, that monument to racism, bad science and do-gooders, stayed on the books unchanged for forty years. In 1918 disease did leap across the El Paso border. Romo quotes a letter from Dr. John Tappan, who had disinfected thousands of Mexicans. "10,000 cases in El Paso and the Mexicans died like sheep. Whole families were exterminated." This was "Spanish" flu, which originated in Haskell County, Kansas.

News & Opinion This Week 1. Physical Dependence Or Addiction? 2. 23% Of American Adults Say U.S. Lives Worth More Than Others' 3. The Sanguine Sex: Abortion And The Bloodiness Of Being Female (Essay and review) 4. HIV Rates On The Rise In Iran 5. [More on the US'] Surgeon General Nominee's Gay Fascination 6. New Sex-related Infection Passes Gonorrhea 7. NIDA Study Suggests Crystal Methamphetamine Use In Young Adults Higher Than Previously Reported (NIDA News Release) 8. Ukraine: Methadone Scale Up Authorized 9. Of Groceries, Abortions, and Nice, Classic Handbags 10. Russia: More Funding, But HIV/AIDS On The Rise B Upcoming Conferences and Events C Quotes D How To Help E About HRP F Subscription Information -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Physical Dependence Or Addiction? Maia Szalavitz, May 14, 2007 ~ STATS at George Mason University Distinctions are important when it comes to dealing with drug abuse, so why did the Archives of General Psychiatry confuse the press last week by misrepresenting a study in its journal? Last week, the Archives of General Psychiatry published a study finding that at some point during their lifetimes, 10.3% of Americans will suffer from disorders related to drug misuse. Unfortunately, the coverage that resulted was marred by a press release that incorrectly defined addiction, and then spun to suggest that the study shows a great need for expanded addiction treatment, which was not reflected in the actual data. Both errors show that when the media covers drugs, reporters are simply not paying attention. The erroneous addiction definition was picked up without question by Reuters, resulting in flawed reports on MSNBC, CNN and even the website of Scientific American. Defining addiction is not just an academic matter: it has profound implications for when it is legal to use certain medications to treat pain and, as a result, whether the 20-30 million Americans with severe chronic pain have access to appropriate treatment. The press release defined "substance dependence," which is what addiction is called in psychiatry, as "physical dependence on a drug." In fact, physical dependence on a drug is neither necessary nor sufficient to define addiction; people can become addicted to substances like cocaine, which does not produce physical dependence; they can also become physically dependent on blood pressure medications, which do not cause addiction. Unlike the press release, the actual study used the correct DSM definition of addiction, which boils down to compulsive use of substances despite ongoing negative consequences. The study also looked at the more common substance-related disorder, known as "substance abuse" which involves using drugs in potentially dangerous ways, but without being addicted to them. Virtually all pain patients who take opioid medications like morphine or Vicodin for long periods of time will become physically dependent, but only a tiny proportion of those without a history of drug problems will become addicts. Because it is illegal for doctors to "maintain" addicts on opioids (except under special circumstances using methadone or buprenorphine), defining addiction as physical dependence can suggest that treating chronic pain with opioids is illegal. Doctors who equate the two may deny adequate pain care to their patients, and patients can come to believe they are addicts when, in fact, they simply suffer physical dependence. Worse, doctors who try to treat pain aggressively may wind up incarcerated, when prosecutors who believe physical dependence and addiction are synonymous target them. Political reporters have been taking a great deal of flack lately for simply being stenographers; unfortunately, this story shows that the problem is not limited to politics. A spokesperson for the Archives of General Psychiatry (which is published by the American Medical Association) said in an email that the press release was "reviewed and approved by both the JAMA editors and the paper's corresponding author." While conceding that "our definition of dependence could have been more precise," she said that a correction will not be forthcoming because "we don't feel it is strictly inaccurate, in part because we refer to illicit substances - pain patients on prescribed or over-the-counter medications would not fall into this category." Perhaps it is wrong to blame the press when medical authorities like the editors of one of the nation's leading psychiatry journals are themselves unclear. But even the coverage that did not contain the misleading definition spun the story the way the National Institute on Drug Abuse presented it - as showing that most people with drug problems who "need" treatment do not get it. The study did find that only 38% of addicts ever received treatment for their disorder. However, it also showed that only 23% of those who had ever been addicted to drugs were currently addicted. This means that 77% recovered: just over double the amount who reported receiving treatment. More and better drug treatment is undoubtedly a good idea, but the data in the study really can't be used to draw the conclusion that it is needed. The media needs to think carefully when it covers addiction, and not simply parrot the interpretations of research given in press releases.

News & Opinion This Week 1. The Abstinence Gluttons 2. Poland Probes Gay Teletubies 3. United States Among Least Peaceful Nations In The World 4. AIDS In Eastern Europe And Central Asia At Crisis Levels 5. United Nations' AIDS Program Under Fire (Two new books are forcing the United Nations' AIDS program to defend itself) 6. Robert Zoellick to Replace Wolfowitz As Head of World Bank 7. Gay Men Who Use Methamphetamine Have Greater Risk Of HIV Seroconversion 8. HIV-Negative Serosorters May Increase Their Risk for HIV, Study Says 9. Czech Republic: Time Bomb For Roma B Upcoming Conferences and Events C Quotes D How To Help E About HRP F Subscription Information ----- I. The Abstinence Gluttons by MICHAEL REYNOLDS June 18, 2007 ~ The Nation Over the past six years George W. Bush's faith-based Administration and a conservative Republican Congress transformed the small-time abstinence-only business into a billion-dollar industry. These dangerously ineffective sexual health enterprises flourish not because they spread "family values" but because of generous helpings of the same pork-heavy gumbo Bush & Co. brought to war-blighted Iraq and Katrina-hammered New Orleans--a mix of back-scratching cronyism, hefty partisan campaign donations, high-dollar lobbyists, a revolving door for political appointees and a lack of concern for results. One of the chief cooks is a media-shy 63-year-old Catholic multimillionaire, welfare privatizer and Republican donor named Raymond Ruddy. With close ties to the White House, federal health officials and Republican power brokers that date back to W.'s days as Texas governor, Ruddy has leveraged his generous wallet and insider muscle to push an ultraconservative social agenda, enrich a preferred network of abstinence-only and antiabortion groups, boost profits for his company and line the pockets of his cronies--all with taxpayer dollars. Following the money swirling around Ruddy offers an eye-opening glimpse into the squalor at the heart of the abstinence-only project. One top Bush adviser left to take a job at Ruddy's charity, Gerard Health Foundation, and a senior officer at Ruddy's for-profit company, Maximus, left to take a top-level position at the Department of Health and Human Services. Leaders of Christian-right organizations that are Gerard grantees have gained advisory HHS positions--and their organizations have in turn received AIDS and abstinence grants to the tune of at least $25 million. Maximus itself has raked in more than $100 million in federal contracts during the Bush era. As for Ruddy's abstinence-only policy, recent reports, including one contracted by Bush's HHS, show that after more than $1 billion has been poured into the enterprise, it simply doesn't work. Already nine states have opted out from federal funds for this faith-based boondoggle in favor of more comprehensive and effective programs of sex education for their youth. "I can't think of another federal program where so much money was spent without any oversight and to such little effect," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a national organization that promotes comprehensive sexual health policies. "It wasn't that policy-makers didn't know that abstinence-only didn't work. In 2000 the Institute of Medicine issued a scathing report on these programs. But they went full steam ahead despite the warning. It's beyond naïve. It's immoral."

Project SAFE is an all-volunteer grassroots organization providing advocacy and support for women working in street prostitution. SAFE's mission is to promote human rights-based public health among women working in prostitution on the street in Philadelphia. SAFE is an organization dedicated to ensuring the health, safety and survival of women on the street by providing advocacy, education and support using a harm reduction model. SAFE seeks to reduce the spread of HIV, hepatitis C and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among working women, promote health and safety by arming women with relevant information and resources, and connect women to programs and services which are appropriate to their needs and interests. Sought after is a brave and energetic person who is dedicated to harm reduction philosophy and social justice to take on the position of Executive Director in this new and exciting grassroots organization. The ED will be responsible for the management, direction, and coordination of all activities and will maintain primary responsibility for fundraising, program development and evaluation, program oversight and management, staff supervision and implementation of SAFE's strategic plan. The ED will report to the Board of Directors, and will supervise a staff of three volunteers. The ED's salary is guaranteed for the first three months. The successful candidate will be expected to begin fundraising immediately in order to raise her/his own salary as well as to maintain the program's basic operating expenses. Primary responsibilities in the area of financial management include working with the staff and the board in preparing a budget, and seeing that the organization operates within budget guidelines; ensuring that adequate funds are available to permit the organization to carry out its work; serving as the primary contact for financial management for the government, foundation, corporate and individual donors; and providing regular financial reports to the Board of Directors. Primary responsibilities in the area of fundraising and development include working with the Board of Directors to develop/revise the annual fundraising and development plan, identifying new funding opportunities, and developing and maintaining relationships with existing financial supporters. Primary responsibilities in the area of community and public relations include working with the community to identify local client issues in order to improve programming and build community connections to improve service delivery; working with staff and board to promote the programs and efforts of the organization; and building and managing collaborations and relationships with other community based organizations and government agencies. Primary responsibilities in the area of governance and organizational development include assisting with the development and implementation of an organizational strategic planning process; maintaining a dialogue with the board of directors to ensure board members have adequate information to address and deliver organizational needs; and ensuring SAFE's policies are kept up to date. Primary responsibilities in the area of program development and oversight include working with staff to ensure programs are culturally and linguistically competent and relevant to the target population, and working with staff and board of directors to evaluate programs. Primary responsibilities in the area of relations with staff include recruiting, hiring, and releasing staff and volunteers; encouraging staff and volunteer development and education, and assisting program staff in relating their specialized work to the total program of the organization; and maintaining a climate which attracts, keeps, and motivates a diverse staff and volunteers. The position requires knowledge of nonprofit management, harm reduction and sex work issues. Experience working with sex workers, harm-reduction philosophy, social justice, anti-discrimination strategies, and community organizing is preferred. Individuals with industry experience are encouraged to apply. To apply, please forward your resume and cover letter by June 15, 2007 to: [email protected] Project SAFE is an equal opportunity employer.

News & Opinion This Week 1. New Report on HIV/AIDS in Africa First to Link Discriminatory Beliefs Against Women With Vulnerability To AIDS 2. As Meth Trade Goes Global, South Africa Becomes A Hub 3. Excerpt from Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken 4. [US] Drug Agency Reaffirms Ban on Gay Men Giving Blood [Red Cross and two other blood groups criticized the ban as “medically and scientifically unwarranted.”] 5. Gay Activists Beaten Up At Moscow Demo 6. Public Injection Site Likely Reduces Drug Use: Study 7. What Is Bush's Dumbest Utterance? B Upcoming Conferences and Events C Quotes D How To Help E About HRP F Subscription Information ----- I. New Report on HIV/AIDS in Africa First to Link Discriminatory Beliefs Against Women With Vulnerability To AIDS May 25, 2007 A landmark study released today by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) connects widespread discriminatory views against women in Botswana and Swaziland to sexual risk-taking and, in turn, to extremely high HIV prevalence. Seventy-five percent of HIV-positive 15-25 year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa are female. Download in PDF format PHR's study, Epidemic of Inequality: Women's Rights and HIV/AIDS in Botswana & Swaziland: An Evidence-based Report on Gender Inequity, Stigma and Discrimination reports the results of a population-based study conducted in 2004 and 2005 with 1,268 respondents in Botswana and 788 participants in Swaziland, designed to assess factors contributing to HIV infection. In addition, 24 people living with HIV/AIDS in Botswana and 58 people living with HIV/AIDS in Swaziland were interviewed, along with key informants in both countries. The full report can be accessed here. Four key factors were found to contribute to women's vulnerability to HIV: women's lack of control over sexual decision-making, including the decision to use a condom, and multiple sexual partners by both women and men; the prevalence of HIV-related stigma and discrimination (which hinders testing and disclosure of status); gender-discriminatory beliefs, which were associated with sexual risk-taking; and a failure of traditional and government leadership to promote the equality, autonomy, and economic independence of women. "If we are to reduce the continuing, extraordinary HIV prevalence in Botswana and Swaziland, particularly among women, the countries' leaders need to enforce women's legal rights, and offer them sufficient food and economic opportunities to gain agency in their own lives. Men and women must be educated and supported to acknowledge women's equal status with men and abandon these prejudices and risky sexual practices. The impact of women's lack of power cannot be underestimated," said PHR's Senior Research Associate Karen Leiter, JD, MPH, lead investigator of the study. While anecdotal evidence has strongly suggested a link between gender inequity and HIV infection, PHR has conducted the first rigorous, large-scale field survey of gender discriminatory beliefs and analyzed their association with sexual behavior. The report suggests that women's rights must be made the top priority by the countries' leaders if HIV prevalence is to be reduced. In Botswana, for example, 95% of women and 90% of men surveyed held at least one gender discriminatory belief. Botswana community survey participants who held three or more such beliefs had 2.7 the odds of those who held fewer beliefs to report having had unprotected sex in the prior year with a non-primary partner. Discriminatory beliefs accept and reflect upon women's inferior legal cultural and socioeconomic status. For example, 19% of all community survey respondents in Botswana agreed with the statement that it is more important that a woman respect her spouse or partner than it is for a man to respect his spouse or partner. Interviews indicated that many HIV-positive women are forced to engage in risky sex with men in exchange for food for themselves and their children. As one interviewee put it, "Woman are having sex because they are hungry. If you give them food, they would not need to have sex to eat." According to PHR research, the very fear of being subject to HIV-related stigma (as opposed to the actual experience of it)—being abandoned by friends or shunned at work, for instance—was pervasive. For instance, in Botswana, 30% of women and men believed that testing positive and disclosure would lead to the break up of their marriage or relationship. Interviews conducted by PHR and its partners indicate that women in Botswana and Swaziland frequently do not have the option to make decisions about having sex due to their lesser legal status. "Here in Swaziland, the husband is the one that bosses you around so there is nothing you can do without him. My rights lie with my husband. He decides whether we use condoms. I don't have a choice about prevention."—an HIV-positive interviewee In interviews, people living with AIDS highlighted women's dependency on male partners as the most significant contribution to women's greater vulnerability to HIV when compared to men. Testimony also revealed that women's lesser status in Botswana fosters ongoing harm to women even after they become infected, and increases the precariousness of their ability to meet basic needs for food, shelter and transport. Participants in Swaziland repeatedly pointed to a lack of political leadership—from government officials and traditional leaders—in protecting and empowering vulnerable women and girls. "HIV/AIDS interventions focused solely on individual behavior will not address the factors creating vulnerability to HIV for women and men in Botswana and Swaziland, nor protect the rights and assure the wellbeing of those living with AIDS. National leaders, with the assistance of foreign donors and others, are obligated under international law to change the inequitable social, legal, and economic conditions of women's lives which facilitate HIV transmission and impede testing, care and treatment," said Leiter.

News & Opinion This Week 1. About 13M Injection Drug Users Worldwide Need Access To HIV Prevention, Treatment Services, UNAIDS Says 2. Wretched of the Earth 3. HPV Vaccine Also Guards Against Vulval and Vaginal Cancer (Attention, this study, like many others done on the vaccine, was industry funded) 4. [U.S. Largest HMO] Kaiser Agrees To Reforms In Settlement Of Homeless Dumping Case 5. [Hillary] Clinton Is Quiet On Her Past Role With Wal-Mart [As Board Member] B Upcoming Conferences and Events C Quote D How To Help E About HRP F Subscription Information ----- I. About 13M Injection Drug Users Worldwide Need Access To HIV Prevention, Treatment Services, UNAIDS Says 18 May 2007 - AP/International Herald Tribune About 13 million injection drug users worldwide are in need of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services in order to control the spread of the disease, UNAIDS said on Monday in a statement released at the 18th Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm in Warsaw, Poland, the AP/International Herald Tribune reports. Prasada Rao, UNAIDS Asia Pacific regional director, on Sunday said that injection drug use is estimated to account for about one-third of new HIV cases outside sub-Saharan Africa, but only 8% of IDUs worldwide have access to HIV prevention services (AP/International Herald Tribune, 5/14). According to UNAIDS, injection drug use is a major mode of HIV transmission in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. In addition, drug use is emerging as a new source of HIV transmission in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania, UNAIDS said. According to Rao, about "10% of all new HIV infections worldwide are attributable to injection drug use. If you exclude Africa, that figure rises to 30%." In addition, access to antiretroviral therapy is "unacceptably low" among IDUs because of a "lack of information, exclusion and widespread stigma and discrimination," according to UNAIDS. To be effective, HIV prevention program need to reach about 80% of IDUs, UNAIDS said. In addition, programs targeted at IDUs should provide users with access to clean needles and drug-substitution programs, according to AFP/Yahoo! News. "The allocation of financial resources must be used in more strategic and innovative ways to deliver more effective prevention programs to people most at risk of HIV infection," Rao said (AFP/Yahoo! News, 5/14). He added that in countries where injection drug use is fueling the spread of HIV, "focused harm reduction programs which reach people who inject drugs must be built into the national AIDS plans" (AP/International Herald Tribune, 5/14). You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy.

The Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC), a progressive advocacy and training organization at the forefront of national health and drug policy, is seeking a highly motivated Project Manager to coordinate and supervise all aspects of the DOPE Project in its Oakland, CA office. This includes grant writing; budgeting; hiring, training and supervision of Overdose Educators; coordinating and conducting trainings; establishing and maintaining relationships with community based collaborators; engaging in policy advocacy, strategic planning and evaluation activities; and other duties as needed.

News & Opinion This Week 1. A Letter on Rape in Prisons 2. Why Can't Gay Dwarves Get Married In Middle-Earth? 3. A Woman's Brain Hit Harder by Alcohol Abuse 4. Sacrificial Wolfie B Upcoming Conferences and Events C Quote D How To Help E About HRP F Subscription Information ----- I. A Letter on Rape in Prisons By David Kaiser, Reply by Jason DeParle In response to The American Prison Nightmare (April 12, 2007) New York Review Of Books The following letter was received in response to Jason DeParle's "The American Prison Nightmare" in the April 12 issue of The New York Review. To the Editors: Jason DeParle's thoughtful and wide-ranging overview of American incarceration policy and its consequences hardly mentions rape in detention. Yet this is not a rare or trivial part of life behind bars. Neither is it, as some believe, an inevitable one. Prisoner rape has been largely ignored: by journalists, advocates, policymakers, and researchers. The available data therefore, especially on its frequency, are not very good. Still, it is possible to have some notion of the problem's magnitude. Recent studies of prisons in four midwestern states suggest that approximately 20 percent of male inmates are pressured or coerced into unwanted sexual contact; approximately 10 percent are raped.[1] Rates of sexual abuse in women's facilities, where the perpetrators are most likely to be male staff, seem to vary more by institution but are as high as 27 percent of inmates.[2] Since the US now incarcerates more people than any other country, both relative to population and in absolute terms, these percentages translate into horrifying real numbers. The congressional authors of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA), which DeParle does mention (and which is the only piece of federal legislation ever to address the issue), estimate in the bill's "Findings" section that in the twenty years preceding its passage over one million inmates were victims of sexual abuse in American facilities. That number should be recognized as something of a guess; but in the absence of more authoritative studies, it does not seem unreasonable. Prisoner rape is arguably this country's most serious human rights problem.

News & Opinion This Week 1. Sex Abstinence Programs A Waste Of Time And Money 2. Import of Methamphetamine From Mexico Offsets Local Progress 3. Baking Soda Could Go Behind The Counter 4. L.A. Data Show MSM Five Times More Likely To Test HIV-Positive if They Used Crystal Meth

News & Opinion This Week 1. Gonorrhea Increases 42 percent In 8 Western States In Five Years 2. Who's Afraid Of Gardasil? 3. Free-Speech Case Divides Bush And Religious Right 4. For U.S. Troops at War, Liquor Is Spur to Crime