"I voted for S.28 (
editor - May 1988) when there was no immunisation or cure. But you and yours (!) wished to teach schools the very behaviour
that was the only known cause of AIDS."
IV drug use, as well as transmission from male to female partners, was identified as a pattern in 1981 and as a definite between 1983/1984.
And let's add more evidence
In 1986, the Scottish Committee on HIV and Injecting Drug Misuse published a report, known as the McLelland Report, which stated that the Lothian police’s policy of confiscating needles and syringes from users was encouraging sharing and helping to spread HIV. Furthermore, they controversially recommended establishing needle exchange schemes.
This was underscored in 1988, when the government’s drug advisors published their landmark 'AIDS and Drug Misuse' report, which declared unequivocally that stopping the spread of the virus was more important than getting people off drugs.
And in December 1988 the government gave us harm reduction based on them listening (for once) to the ACMD. The only good thing Thatcher ever did.
HIV and AIDS began spreading among humans in the 1920s and became a public health crisis by the 1980s, before the first effective treatments emerged.
www.history.com
From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.
wellcomecollection.org
