A recent Centers for Disease Control report shows an increase in Hepatitis C in our region. The report shows an increase in Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky.
Health care providers have been discussing the increase for well over a year now to try to limit these numbers. One organization is even working on a pilot program to help educate the community and provide help for those who have tested positive.
"Northeast Tennessee and East Tennessee in general has among the highest rates of Hepatitis C in the country," Northeast Tennessee Regional Medical Director Dr. David Kirschke said.
Read more...
Friday, June 5, 2015
Patient Assistance, by Alan Franciscus, Editor-in-Chief
If you are having trouble with getting the medications? Try the patient assistance programs for the HCV medications:
- AbbVie 1-844-2proCeed
https://www.viekira.com/proceed-program - Gilead 1-855-769-7284
www.mysupportpath.com/ - Kadmon Pharmaceuticals (Keys Program) 1-888-668-3393 www.hcvadvocate.org/community/community_pdf
/Riba_CoPay_Cards.pdf - Moderiba Ribavirin 1.844.MODERIBA (1.844.663.3742) www.moderiba.com/patient-support/financial
- Needymeds.org 1-800-503-6897
www.needymeds.org - Partnership for Prescription Assistance 1-888-477-2669 www.pparx.org
- Patient Access Network Foundation 1-866-316-PANF (7263) www.panfoundation.org/
- Patient Advocate Foundation Co-Pay Relief 1-866-512-3861 www.copays.org/diseases/hepatitis-c
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Appalachia Gripped by Hepatitis C Epidemic, Bracing for HIV
Patton Couch shook his head and clenched his teeth, recounting the night four years ago when he plucked a dirty needle from a pile at a flophouse and jabbed it into his scarred arm.
He knew the odds; most of the addicts in the room probably had hepatitis C.
"All I cared about was how soon and how fast I could get it in," he says. "I hated myself, it was misery. But when you're in the grips of it, the only way I thought I could escape it was one more time."
Couch, 25 years old and one month sober, is one of thousands of young Appalachian drug users recently diagnosed with hepatitis C. Yet public health officials warn that it could get much worse.
Reinfection after hepatitis C cure: prevention may require long-term support for people who have injected drugs
Reinfection rates after hepatitis C cure among people who inject drug users, as well as past drug users, are relatively low, according to findings from studies from Norway and Canada presented at the International Liver Congress in Vienna in April.
The findings suggest that current and former injecting drug users who have been cured of hepatitis C require ongoing support to remain free of hepatitis C, but also indicate that fears of a high rate of reinfection should not be used as a reason to withhold hepatitis C treatment from people who inject drugs.
A meta-analysis of studies of hepatitis C treatment outcomes in people who inject drugs, published in 2013, found an incidence of between 2.4 and 6.4 per 100 person-years of follow-up, but a subsequent meta-analysis found that the reinfection rate could be as high as 8%. (Aspinall 2013, Hill 2014)
Read more....
The findings suggest that current and former injecting drug users who have been cured of hepatitis C require ongoing support to remain free of hepatitis C, but also indicate that fears of a high rate of reinfection should not be used as a reason to withhold hepatitis C treatment from people who inject drugs.
A meta-analysis of studies of hepatitis C treatment outcomes in people who inject drugs, published in 2013, found an incidence of between 2.4 and 6.4 per 100 person-years of follow-up, but a subsequent meta-analysis found that the reinfection rate could be as high as 8%. (Aspinall 2013, Hill 2014)
Read more....
Hedge Fund Billionaires Are New Target for Hepatitis C Cure Protests
The New York City home and offices of former hedge fund manager Julian H. Robertson were targeted by protest groups in a series of simultaneous direct actions in early May. Robertson is ranked No. 512 on Forbes' list of "the world's billionaires" with a reported net worth of $3.4 billion. "Robertson is making a killing off of people with Hep C," read one sign.
The protests targeted high profile hedge fund investors who have reaped substantial profits from the California-based pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences. Hedge Clippers, a coalition of labor, community and social justice groups including VOCAL-NY, seeks to draw links between hedge funds and income inequality, mass imprisonment, climate change, health disparities, and other challenges. Gilead has been targeted because of what has been called "exorbitant" pricing for its groundbreaking new class of drugs that can cure hepatitis C virus (HCV), such as Sovaldi, and the enormous profits they have generated.
HCV infection "is the most common chronic blood borne infection in the United States [and] approximately 3.2 million persons are chronically infected," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About 150 million people around the globe are living with HCV -- disproportionately the poor, uninsured and incarcerated -- which in its advanced stages can cause cirrhosis or liver cancer.
Read more...
The protests targeted high profile hedge fund investors who have reaped substantial profits from the California-based pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences. Hedge Clippers, a coalition of labor, community and social justice groups including VOCAL-NY, seeks to draw links between hedge funds and income inequality, mass imprisonment, climate change, health disparities, and other challenges. Gilead has been targeted because of what has been called "exorbitant" pricing for its groundbreaking new class of drugs that can cure hepatitis C virus (HCV), such as Sovaldi, and the enormous profits they have generated.
HCV infection "is the most common chronic blood borne infection in the United States [and] approximately 3.2 million persons are chronically infected," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About 150 million people around the globe are living with HCV -- disproportionately the poor, uninsured and incarcerated -- which in its advanced stages can cause cirrhosis or liver cancer.
Read more...
Illinois doctors group wants Rauner to veto hepatitis C bill
CHICAGO (AP) - With three out of four Americans who are infected unaware they have hepatitis C, Illinois lawmakers last month approved a measure to fight what’s been called a silent epidemic.
The state’s largest doctors group is now urging Gov. Bruce Rauner to veto the bill that would require doctors to offer blood tests for the contagious liver disease to baby boomers - those born between 1945 and 1965. That’s been the recommendation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 2012.
Doctors don’t need lawmakers telling them to follow guidelines, the Illinois State Medical Society insists.
The legislation “intrudes on the physician’s judgment and relationship with the patient, and doesn’t guarantee that patients who do test positive for this liver disease will have access to treatment, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars,” said Illinois State Medical Society President Dr. Scott Cooper.
The state’s largest doctors group is now urging Gov. Bruce Rauner to veto the bill that would require doctors to offer blood tests for the contagious liver disease to baby boomers - those born between 1945 and 1965. That’s been the recommendation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 2012.
Doctors don’t need lawmakers telling them to follow guidelines, the Illinois State Medical Society insists.
The legislation “intrudes on the physician’s judgment and relationship with the patient, and doesn’t guarantee that patients who do test positive for this liver disease will have access to treatment, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars,” said Illinois State Medical Society President Dr. Scott Cooper.
Experts: Fight Hepatitis C epidemic with more testing, caps for co-pays
WASHINGTON, D.C. ( June 4, 2015 ) — With mounting evidence that many public and private health plans are deliberately rationing care for Americans with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), those on the front lines in fighting viral hepatitis and HIV/AIDS today urged lawmakers to overturn state Medicaid and managed care policies that discourage testing, add prior authorization requirements on clinicians, and create significant hurdles for patients to receive new curative treatments — all contributing to only 5% to 6% of individuals with HCV being successfully treated.
Assembling in Washington for the 2015 National Summit on HCV and HIV Diagnosis, Prevention and Access to Care, HCV and HIV specialists called on policymakers to pass state laws mandating that insurance plans follow evidence-based medical guidelines when covering HCV testing and treatment. These guidelines — published jointly by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases ( AASLD ) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America ( IDSA ) and also by the Department of Veterans Affairs — support treatment in all HCV-infected people except those with a life expectancy of less than a year due to non-liver medical conditions. Moreover, the advocates urged states to enact laws requiring Medicaid programs to offer first-line HIV medications and new HCV drugs on their formularies and to cap the co-payments for these therapies, ending system-wide practices by both public and private insurers that restrict access to these drugs.
These actions are necessary now that a just-issued review of ten state Medicaid programs from the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School documents system-wide insurance restrictions that keep the majority of HCV-infected individuals from being treated with new and more expensive oral HCV drugs. While the practices vary from state to state, and even among different plans in the state, they are designed to be exclusionary by only allowing patients with advanced liver disease to receive the new drugs, authorizing only a small number of medical specialists to prescribe the drugs, excluding alcohol- and substance-using individuals, and restricting access based on HIV co-infection. These exclusionary practices also apply to a number of private health plans, resulting in a series of lawsuits in California.
Read more...
Assembling in Washington for the 2015 National Summit on HCV and HIV Diagnosis, Prevention and Access to Care, HCV and HIV specialists called on policymakers to pass state laws mandating that insurance plans follow evidence-based medical guidelines when covering HCV testing and treatment. These guidelines — published jointly by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases ( AASLD ) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America ( IDSA ) and also by the Department of Veterans Affairs — support treatment in all HCV-infected people except those with a life expectancy of less than a year due to non-liver medical conditions. Moreover, the advocates urged states to enact laws requiring Medicaid programs to offer first-line HIV medications and new HCV drugs on their formularies and to cap the co-payments for these therapies, ending system-wide practices by both public and private insurers that restrict access to these drugs.
These actions are necessary now that a just-issued review of ten state Medicaid programs from the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School documents system-wide insurance restrictions that keep the majority of HCV-infected individuals from being treated with new and more expensive oral HCV drugs. While the practices vary from state to state, and even among different plans in the state, they are designed to be exclusionary by only allowing patients with advanced liver disease to receive the new drugs, authorizing only a small number of medical specialists to prescribe the drugs, excluding alcohol- and substance-using individuals, and restricting access based on HIV co-infection. These exclusionary practices also apply to a number of private health plans, resulting in a series of lawsuits in California.
Read more...
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