TAKE ACTION: Give America the Antidote to Stop HIV

It costs little and will stop tens of thousands of HIV and hepatitis C infections per year.

Making sterile syringes available is a simple, cost-effective way to save lives and provide essential services to high-risk populations. Syringe exchange programs keep injection drug users and their partners healthy.

Study after study demonstrates the overwhelming efficacy of syringe exchange programs to reduce HIV and viral hepatitis. However the U.S. continues to prohibit federal funding for these lifesaving programs.

Now, Congress and President Obama have the chance to lift this harmful ban and keep Americans HIV and hepatitis free. Tell them to do the right thing and end this harmful ban in two easy steps.

1. Urge your U.S. Representative to join her/his Illinois colleagues Reps. Gutierrez (D-4), Hare (D-17), Jackson, Jr. (D-2), Schakowsky (D-9), and Rush (D-1) in supporting syringe exchange programs and co-sponsor the Community AIDS and Hepatitis Prevention Act of 2009.

2. Tell President Obama to act on his campaign commitment to end the syringe exchange funding ban. Call the White House at (202) 456-1111 with this message:

I urge President Obama to keep his promise to the American people and remove the funding ban against syringe exchange programs from the President's Fiscal Year 2010 Budget.

TAKE ACTION NOW!