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Opioid Epidemic

Treat the opioid crisis like the HIV/AIDS epidemic: Elizabeth Warren & Elijah Cummings

It's time for Congress to show the same political courage on the opioid crisis that our colleagues showed 30 years ago for the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Elijah Cummings and Elizabeth Warren
Opinion Contributors
Opioids

In 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that life expectancy in the United States dropped for the second year in a row — and drug overdoses are the single biggest reason why. 

As states and communities on the front lines struggle to respond to the opioid crisis, Washington has only nibbled around the edges. Politicians and policymakers make vague promises, treating the crisis as if it is a novel, intractable problem. It is neither.

America has addressed this kind of public health emergency before, and we call on Congress to do so now.

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Three decades ago, another epidemic that was highly stigmatized, greatly misunderstood and severely underestimated was spreading through our country and killing tens of thousands of otherwise healthy people each year. That epidemic was HIV/AIDS

In the 1980s, stigma prevented many Americans from acknowledging their infections or seeking treatment. Evolving treatment protocols were new and complex, and few doctors were trained in how to use them to provide care for patients. Our existing medical infrastructure was not equipped to efficiently distribute information and resources to communities trying to understand, treat and prevent the spread of the epidemic. 

The federal government alone possessed the resources capable of addressing the epidemic, but for years Washington refused to devote meaningful resources to combating HIV/AIDS, even as it continued to kill more Americans day after day. This inaction ended because people with HIV/AIDS and their loved ones fought back, side by side with doctors, scientists and lawmakers representing communities devastated by the disease.

In 1990, our colleagues in Congress — Rep. Henry Waxman, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and Sen. Orrin Hatch — worked together to pass the bipartisan Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, named after an Indiana teenager who was diagnosed with AIDS at the age of 13. Ryan White bravely fought AIDS-related discrimination and became a leading national voice on AIDS education before his untimely death — 28 years ago next month.

The Ryan White CARE Act recognized the gravity — and the urgency — of the HIV/AIDS crisis by setting forth a comprehensive approach to treatment and providing significant new funding for individualized support services. 

It recognized that the epidemic looked different in different parts of the country, so it sent funding directly to the areas of the country that needed help the most and gave states and affected communities the ability to identify their most urgent needs and decide how dollars should be spent to address those needs. 

Our colleagues’ work took great political courage, as well as significant time and effort.  Ultimately it resulted in what Sen. Hatch later called “one of the finest pieces of legislation to come out of the Senate.”

The program they created provides vital services to more than half a million people every year. Although the HIV/AIDS epidemic is by no means over, life-saving medications are available, new infections have plummeted and science — rather than stigma — guides medical care.

It is time for Congress to show the same political courage that our colleagues showed nearly 30 years ago. That’s why we intend to introduce legislation to establish a comprehensive system for funding and local decision-making to address opioid addiction and substance use that is modeled directly on the highly successful Ryan White CARE Act.  

Our legislation will acknowledge that the epidemic we are confronting is a disease, which must be addressed by providing treatment to those who need it and investing in the science that will help us make progress in fighting back.

But this crisis didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen on its own. The drug industry made billions in profits while pushing addictive medications, lying about their products and turning a blind eye to the consequences — damaged lives and devastated communities. That’s why our legislation will also make it easier to hold the corporate executives at companies that fuel the epidemic accountable for their actions.

The opioid crisis is a public health emergency that demands we fight harder. Just this month, the CDC reported that emergency room visits for opioid overdoses skyrocketed in all parts of the United States by an astonishing 30% between July 2016 and September 2017. In some areas, such as the Midwest, emergency room visits for opioid overdoses increased by as much as 70% during that same period.

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President Trump’s declaration that the opioid crisis is a public health emergency has amounted to little more than empty words. His latest response to this epidemic — an announcement that he will seek the death penalty for drug dealers — is the crudest indication yet of how little he understands about what the problem is or how to fix it.

We propose a different approach. The Ryan White CARE Act is an enduring example of what Congress can achieve when it works to help states and communities address a national public health crisis by providing significant federal support. 

American families — not just in Maryland or in Massachusetts, but all across this country — desperately need us to take action against an epidemic terrorizing every single community. Urban, suburban and rural; poor, middle-class and wealthy; red, blue and purple. We urge our colleagues to join us in this effort, to show courage, to combat ignorance and ill-informed stigmas and to step up with significant new resources. This isn’t about politics. This is about saving lives.

Congressman Elijah E. Cummings is a representative for Maryland's 7th district. Elizabeth Warren is a Democratic senator for Massachusetts. Follow them on Twitter: @RepCummings and @SenWarren.

 

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