Judith Feinberg, M.D.

In 2005, Judith Feinberg, MD, was the first physician in metropolitan Cincinnati to recognize that opioid injection drug use had emerged as a health threat, based on increased admissions for infective endocarditis.  She became involved in harm reduction efforts and, in 2014, after a nine-year effort she established Ohio's 3^rd syringe exchange and its 1^st true syringe services program, the Cincinnati Exchange Project (CEP).

West Virginia has the highest rates of acute hepatitis B, Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, and overdose deaths in the U.S. and the 2^nd highest rate of acute hepatitis C. After a long career in HIV/AIDS, Dr. Feinberg came to WVU in late 2015 to focus on ending these opioid-related epidemics at their epicenter. As professor of behavioral medicine and psychiatry and professor of medicine/infectious diseases, she is working hard to turn the tide on opioid misuse and opioid-related epidemics. She has federal funding from National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Initiative, and state funding from the WV Bureau for Public Health for these efforts. Dr. Feinberg was recently named the first vice chair for research in the Department of Medicine.