Trump backs needle exchange, not supervised injections, in his HIV strategy

The Trump administration is backing needle exchange programs to reach its goal of ending HIV transmission within a decade, and will continue to oppose supervised injection sites where people inject illegal drugs in a room with a healthcare provider nearby.

The policy position, stated by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, is in line with actions the administration has taken in the past. In February, the Department of Justice sued a nonprofit in Philadelphia that planned to build a supervised injection site, even though it wasn’t using government funding.