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Baby boomers are 6 times more likely to be infected than other adults. We need to talk about testing and treatment
Recently I went on a first date — a stroll in a city park — that went rather well. We had so much in common, from a love of reading to a history of youthful troublemaking. If I wasn’t convinced already he was someone I could relate to, my new friend shared that he’d been cured of Hepatitis C.
I could hardly believe it. Instead of having to awkwardly explain my medical history, I’d met someone who shares it. It was a first. The only other time I’d met people who’d been cured of Hepatitis C, I was at an event at Johns Hopkins celebrating the first 1,000 successes of the new drugs. Some of my fellow drug program participants had gotten it from blood transfusions, some from vaccinations in the military. Some had no idea how.
In any case, our unicorn status can’t go on much longer. According to the director of the Centers for Disease Control, who spoke that day, one in 30 baby boomers has Hepatitis C. Forty percent of those people will die of the virus, at an average age of 59.
Close call. I am 58.
In 1994, I tested positive for Hepatitis C. As a person whose excesses in the 1980s included injectable drugs, it was no mystery to me how I contracted the virus. I was lucky I didn’t have HIV. I had no symptoms — many don’t — and my doctor said I might never have any. Since Hepatitis C was only identified in 1989, there was no long-term data.
Read more and watch the video here: http://www.salon.com/2016/10/30/dating-after-hepatitis-c-hope-on-the-horizon-for-the-1-in-30-boomers-estimated-to-be-infected/