ACA & HCV Care
Posted on August 30, 2013 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
Hep Talk by Larry Buhl Location, Location, Location How will the Affordable Care Act affect HCV care? In October, open enrollment for state-based health insurance marketplaces as part of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA—or Obamacare, as it’s called by its detractors—will begin. Already the ACA has eliminated the discriminatory insurance practice of denying coverage [...]
Hep C & the War on Drugs
Posted on July 12, 2013 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
Hep Talk by Larry Buhl The War on Common Sense A new report advocates decriminalizing drug use to reduce Hep C The so-called “war on drugs” is creating an epidemic of hepatitis C. That’s the finding of a new report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which finds that drug war policies have caused [...]
Interferon-Free C
Posted on June 19, 2013 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
Hep Talk by Larry Buhl Warp Speeds CROI researchers predict oral-only interferon-free treatment by 2014 Advances leading to new interferon-free treatments for hepatitis C were unveiled at the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in March in Atlanta as researchers described results of next-generation direct-acting antiviral agents for both HCV monoinfected and HIV/HCV [...]
Man to Man
Posted on May 29, 2013 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
Hep Talk by Larry Buhl For MSMs: treatment hope for HCV—and a warning There’s more evidence of the effectiveness of new antiretroviral drugs in treating the hepatitis C virus (HCV). This time it’s a study, presented at the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2013) in March in Atlanta, that showed adding telaprevir [...]
Invisible Disease
Posted on May 6, 2013 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
Hep Talk by Larry Buhl Organizations shine a light on HCV in jails and prisons The percentage of people chronically infected with hepatitis C (HCV) in jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities is between fifteen and thirty percent, according to latest estimates—now more than ten years old—by the CDC. Why the wide window? Because testing [...]
The Silent C
Posted on April 8, 2013 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
A new recommendation report provides a global look at hepatitis C Hep Talk by Larry Buhl There’s good news and bad news about the hepatitis C epidemic, according to a new report titled, “The Silent Pandemic: Tackling Hepatitis C with Policy Innovation.” The good news: There are many new, effective drugs available and in the [...]
Year in Review
Posted on February 25, 2013 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
What were the top five HCV-related stories of 2012? by Larry Buhl There were many important news stories about hepatitis in 2012. In this column we review the biggest Hep Talk stories of the past year and cover a few that slipped through the cracks. The developments with the biggest possible impacts were the Centers [...]
Starting the Conversation
Posted on December 28, 2012 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
HEPCredefined.com provides a portal for learning about HCV Hep Talk by Larry Buhl It’s been said that the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a silent killer, meaning that the disease can be doing great damage to the body decades before symptoms appear (if they ever appear). But it can also be a silent killer because [...]
UFO Plan Meets IDUs
Posted on December 11, 2012 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
Finger on the Pulse The UFO Plan meets young IV drug users where they are by Larry Buhl Hepatitis prevention and treatment efforts depend on outreach. For IV drug users (IDUs) under the age of thirty, there’s an issue of trust: They don’t mix well with other at-risk groups and they’re wary of well-meaning experts [...]
New Generation DDAs
Posted on November 8, 2012 by A&U in Hep Talk, LifeGuide
Six drugs promise to further revolutionize HCV treatments by Larry Buhl The hepatitis C (HCV) treatment revolution is a little more than a year old, but by 2014 a second wave will add important reinforcements in fighting the virus. The first protease inhibitors, Merck’s boceprevir (Victrelis) and Vertex’s telaprevir (Incivek/Incivo), marked the beginning of the [...]
