<p>The U.S. Surgeon General’s recent public health advisory — urging more Americans to carry naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses — was a rarity, something that hasn’t happened in more than a decade.</p>
<p>But for Hoosiers who remember Dr. Jerome Adams’ actions as Indiana’s state health commissioner, faced with an unprecedented outbreak of HIV in rural Scott County, the call wasn’t unexpected.</p>
<p>“When it came out, I wasn’t surprised,” says Robin Vida, director of health education at the St. Joseph County Health Department. “I said, ‘yep, you go, Dr. Adams’ …”</p>
<p>Vida says that Adams was “always such a champion” for county public health departments battling a growing opioid problem.</p>
<p>She recalls his approval of a standing order for naloxone, making it easier for individuals to obtain the medication.</p>
<p>It was Adams who persuaded then-Gov. Mike Pence to allow Indiana to create syringe exchanges to contain the spread of HIV after an outbreak of the virus made national headlines.</p>
<p>Needle exchange programs, which allow drug users to swap dirty needles for clean ones, “save lives, both by preventing the spread of diseases like HIV and hepatitis C and by connecting people to treatment that can put them on a path to recovery,” he wrote in a blog post last year.</p>
<p>In an advisory issued earlier this month in his role as the nation’s top doctor, Adams urged Americans to start carrying naloxone to help combat the nation’s opioid crisis.</p>
<p>Speaking at the National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta on April 5, he issued his office’s first national public health advisory in 13 years. He said he hopes those who are at risk — as well as their friends and family members — will keep the antidote on hand and learn how to use it.</p>
<p>Vida is encouraged by the advisory and says most overdose deaths occur in a home and the challenge is to “find a way to get that naloxone there.”</p>
<p>Vida says administering the drug is “super easy” and it’s 100 percent safe, that “it’s not going to hurt you if you’re not overdosing.”</p>
<p>Adams, who once acknowledged the “moral and ethical concerns” about needle ex change programs, saysnal oxone isn’t a quick fix and doesn’t enable addicts: “It’s important that we use naloxone as a bridge to definitive treatment and long-term recovery.”</p>
<p>And that means saving lives in order to get to that bridge.</p>
<p>This was distributed by the Hoosier State Press Association. Send comments to <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>.</p>
