Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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HCV

Study Finds Injection Drug Users Who Live Nearer to Syringe Exchange Programs Are Less Likely to Engage in HIV Risk Behaviors

Hannah Cooper

Hannah Cooper, ScD

Injecting drugs is one of the main ways people become infected with HIV in the United States. It is also the main way of becoming infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Injection drug users (IDUs) become infected and transmit the viruses to others through sharing contaminated syringes and through high-risk sexual behaviors. Now a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health offers evidence that proximity to legal syringe exchange programs and pharmacies selling over the counter syringe plays a role in reducing the risk of HIV and Hepatitis C transmission in the U.S.

In a longitudinal study, Hannah Cooper, ScD assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and colleagues studied the behaviors of more than 4000 drug injectors from across 42 New York City health districts beginning in 1995 to 2006. The scientists set out to determine if the relationship of spatial access to syringe exchange programs and pharmacies selling over-the-counter syringes affected the likelihood that local injectors engaged in less HIV risk behaviors.

“It is a well-established fact that syringe exchange programs reduce HIV and related risk behaviors among injection drug users. Here, what we find is that proximity to a syringe exchange program is a powerful determinant of whether injectors inject with sterile syringes,” says Cooper.

The CDC estimates an individual injection drug user injects as many as 1,000 times a year. This adds up to millions of injections across the country each year, creating an enormous need for reliable sources of sterile syringes. Syringe exchange programs provide a way for those IDUs who continue to inject, to safely dispose of used syringes and to obtain sterile syringes at no cost. Many U.S. cities have just one or two syringe exchange programs, but Cooper and her team found IDUs with access to these services in their local neighborhoods were more likely to inject with sterile syringes.

“Our findings suggest that having a syringe exchange program in your neighborhood matters. We need to dramatically scale up the number of syringe exchange programs operating in U.S. cities to increase the number of injectors who live near such a program,” says Cooper.

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Wendy Darling in Uncategorized 1 Comment