Here's an article about Hepatitis C, one of AXPH's partnerships (with Bristol Meyers),
Declaring war on a hidden disease
U.S. officials urge those at risk to get tested to prevent an outbreak of hepatitis C
Thursday May 6, 1999
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By Erin Hoover Barnett of The Oregonian staff
Federal health officials on Wednesday turned the floodlights on hepatitis C, calling it an emerging chronic and communicable disease of epidemic proportions.
Led by Surgeon General David Satcher, they detailed a massive national effort to encourage people who had blood transfusions before July 1992 or who otherwise are in high-risk groups to get tested. The virus attacks the liver, causing extreme fatigue, nausea and body aches. It can be fatal.
An estimated 4 million Americans are infected with hepatitis C, the most threatening of the hepatitis viruses. Treatment options for this blood-borne illness are improving but remain limited. No vaccine exists. But prevention is possible.
Many people do not show symptoms until 10 to 20 years after infection, when liver damage has progressed. Hepatitis C was not formally identified until 1988. But in the 1970s, health officials realized that 90 percent of the cases were something other than hepatitis A or B.
Hepatitis C
Hepatitis C is spread primarily by direct contact with human blood. You may be infected with hepatitis C if:
• You received blood, blood products or organs from a donor whose blood contained the hepatitis C virus. (Screening since the early '90s has largely eliminated contaminated blood.)
• You were on long-term kidney dialysis and unknowingly shared equipment or supplies that carried someone else's infected blood.
• You were ever a health care worker and had frequent contact with blood on the job, especially accidental needle punctures.
• Your mother had hepatitis C when she gave birth to you. During birth, her blood may have gotten into your body.
• You ever injected or snorted street drugs, as the needle and/or other materials used to consume the drugs may have had someone else's infected blood on them.
• You get a tattoo or body piercing from unsanitized needles that expose you to infected blood.
• You ever had sex with a person infected with hepatitis C virus.
• You lived with someone infected with hepatitis C virus and shared items such as razors or toothbrushes that might have had blood on them.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a 24-hour toll-free line, 888-443-7232, with recorded information on hepatitis C.
For additional information, call the American Liver Foundation, 888-443-7872, or the Hepatitis Foundation International, 800-891-0707.
For information on local support groups, call Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital, 503-413-8791, or visit the Web site for the new Portland-area Hepatitis C Outreach Program, www.hcvoutreach.org.
The National College of Naturopathic Medicine is seeking 33 hepatitis C patients to take part in a double-blind study of two supplements to see whether they help the body's immune system fight the virus. To participate, call 503-499-4343, Ext. 160.
"It's evident that we have now recognized an epidemic that occurred in the past. Now it's an epidemic of recognition in terms of people who are chronically infected," said Dr. Harold Margolis, chief of the hepatitis branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during a briefing broadcast from Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
Four times more Americans are infected with hepatitis C than with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Hepatitis C is less deadly. Some 8,000 to 10,000 Americans die annually from complications, such as liver failure or liver cancer, associated with chronic hepatitis C.
But the number of deaths could triple in coming years as more people with the long-simmering infection succumb to the illness, public health officials said.
The source of transmission for hepatitis C cases is not always clear. But at least half of the U.S. cases are contracted by intravenous drug users or others who use unsanitary needles. Another 15 percent of cases are sexually transmitted, usually among people with multiple sex partners.
Only 7 percent of cases are contracted through blood transfusions, mostly those tainted with the virus before sophisticated screening became available in 1992. The risk of infection through transfusion has dropped from one in 200 before 1992 to one in 100,000.
The CDC and other federal agencies launched "Project Lookback" last year to identify people with hepatitis C who donated blood before 1992 and those who received the blood through transfusions.
Notifications of people who may have gotten infected blood began in March. About 2,000 people in Oregon and Southwest Washington may be notified, estimated Allan Ross, chief executive officer for the American Red Cross Blood Services, Pacific Northwest region.
Patients notified by their doctor that they may have received a tainted transfusion are asked to get further testing to see if they became infected.
But the federal government is urging everyone in a high-risk group to get tested.
The goal is to prevent spread of the disease, get people into treatment if appropriate and encourage lifestyle changes. Infected persons, for example, should stop drinking alcohol because of its liver-damaging affects.
The most effective treatment is a combination of the antivirals interferon, delivered by injection, and a capsule called ribavirin. About 40 percent of people treated with the so-called "combo treatment" actually get rid of the virus. They can, however, be re-infected by further exposure to the virus. Treatment sometimes produces intense side effects that mirror the symptoms of the virus.
In the next couple of years, researchers hope to develop drugs to inhibit the enzymes that allow the virus to grow in the body. Long-acting interferon also is becoming available.
Those who pursue the current combo treatment usually need a lot of support from family or friends. Many are unable to continue working a steady job. Treatment is costly, $5,000 to $15,000, which public health officials acknowledge will strain the health care system.
For Diana Sutton, an Aloha homemaker and mother to three children, learning that she had hepatitis C allowed her to fight back. She is using the combo treatment and says the viral load in her blood has dropped significantly.
Sutton, 38, was diagnosed in 1992, a few months after she had a hysterectomy. She did not have a blood transfusion. She thinks somehow she may have been infected during surgery, although that has not been confirmed. She said she tested negative for the virus before surgery and has never used intravenous drugs.
Sutton, who used to work in marketing and communications for high-technology companies, said, "I was superwoman. I could do it all."
Now, "I'll admit it, I've gone downhill. I've weakened."
She can no longer work because of fatigue, body aches and a continuous low-grade fever. She plans her activities carefully, trying to keep life as normal as she can for her children. She has found special meaning in helping to build a new nonprofit organization called the Hepatitis C Outreach Program.
Sutton said she felt some anger and sadness after her diagnosis. But her hardest moments came last May when her husband also was diagnosed with hepatitis C. Though the couple was told that the chances of sexually transmitting the disease were very low for monogamous partners, Diana Sutton said they appear to have proved the exception. "My heart just stopped," she said.
Bill Sutton, 40, has not experienced symptoms and continues to work a sewage treatment job for Washington County. The couple often do their interferon injections together three times a week.
"The ones who do the best are the ones who put up a fight," said Diana Sutton, cuddled on the couch with her younger daughter and son. "I know I've got to keep going."
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You can reach Erin Hoover Barnett at 503-294-5011 or by e-mail at ehbarnett@news.oregonian.com
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