evidence: Greg Millett, director of public policy at amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, said Indiana's HIV outbreak would have been "entirely preventable" if Pence had acted earlier in response to data that was available to Indiana public health officials and clearly showed an outbreak was imminent. [...] Pence's state health commissioner at the time of the HIV outbreak, Jerome Adams, is now U.S. surgeon general and is widely credited with helping persuade Pence to accept the needle exchange program that now operates in nine of Indiana's 92 counties. [...] Joey Fox, who was legislative director for the Indiana State Department of Health during the HIV outbreak, said Thursday that the criticism of Pence is unfair because Indiana’s response to the HIV outbreak went far beyond just authorizing a needle exchange program.