However, Hassan Hashemi, Iran's Minister of Health, said: “Today, people in Iran are afraid of AIDS due to misinformation and unscientific claims. This is why it remains a taboo." This has led to an increase in the number of people living with HIV/AIDS over the past 11 years, increasing by 80% each year. With such a great taboo, many infected with the virus have kept to themselves and have limited contact with the outside world. However, the 2008 report on the global AIDS epidemic stated that the Iranian Needle Exchange Program, offered to low-income people to exchange needles to help stop the spread of such melodious diseases and viruses, is a courageous and visionary example in the battle against AIDS. Despite this, for many Iranians drug addiction represents the first response to depression when faced with problems they don't know how to deal with. With 1-2 million of its 70 million population addicted to narcotics, the Iranian government has apparently put drug abuse at the top of the list of things to take care of, and with a healthy dose of drugs.