>>Excuse me -- he did not CREATE the AIDS outbreak, he just made it substantially worse (along with Hepatitis C).

It's interesting to compare this Politico smear to the original paper written by the same authors that needed to pass peer review: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6192548/

- November 18, 2014, first HIV case in Scott County attributed to this outbreak was diagnosed.
- January 3, 2015, investigation by Indiana State Deparment of Health begins.
- March 23, 2015: team of CDC investigators arrives in Scott County.
- March 26, 2015: Indiana declares public health emergency allowing temporary needle exchange program
- April 4, 2015: Pence signs Executive Order (EO) formally declaring a public health emergency, and authorizing 30 days emergency SEP (needle exchange program) for Scott County pending action by the legislature
- May 5, 2015: Pence signs bill from IN legislature allowing any IN county to establish SEP if they can demonstrate public emergency.

The main epidemiological criticism was that most new cases occurred before the declaration of public health emergency... as the paper puts it: had a needle exchange program been implemented in 2013, 2 years before the outbreak, 127 HIV cases in IV abusers might (sic) have been averted. Had it been implemented in 2011, 4 years before the outbreak and before Pence even became governor- 173 cases of HIV in IV drug abusers might (sic) have been averted.

The predictable conclusion is "Future HIV outbreaks could be minimized if HIV testing and treatment are available in places vulnerable to the transmission of blood borne infections among [IV drug abusers]. SEP and use of opioid agonist therapy are critical HIV prevention tools that could offer the chance to prevent new outbreaks among [IV Drug Abusers] in the first place."

This, somehow, morphs into Pence first "causing" the HIV outbreak and then when this smear is challenged, making it substantially worse - by sigining his EO within days of the CDC team's advice, which was long after most of the cases had already occurred per the main thrust of the article.

It's increasingly common for these leftist smears to require use of a time machine or something equally unhinged to find fault. Sheesh, under state law SEP programs were illegal in 2013 and somehow Pence is at fault?!

In my opinion, the fury against Pence arose because after receiving CDC advice he said he would pray with his wife overnight regarding a decision that clashed with his personal principles. The following day, he signed. In some so-called liberal circles, praying to a Christian God appears to be seen as a capital offense.

Pence was also criticized for signing a bill making possession of a syringe for drug purposes a felony. Interestingly, most of those smearing Pence for siginig this bill also preach loudly about democratic principles- apparently apart from those exhibited by the elected IN legislators who presented the bill to Pence to sign.