Cingles Info

May 22, 2006
DR. LEE JONG-WOOK, WHO'S DIRECTOR-GENERAL, DIES SUDDENLY
On May 22, WHO announced the death of its director-general, Dr.
Lee Jong-wook. A notice from the WHO website's homepage is
reprinted below in its entirety.
****************************
Dr. Lee Jong-wook, Director-General of the World Health
Organization, has died. He had been in hospital since Saturday
afternoon [May 20], where he underwent surgery to remove a blood
clot on his brain (a subdural hematoma). He remained in
intensive care. At 0743 this morning, he was declared dead.
All of the staff of the World Health Organization extend their
most sincere condolences to Dr. Lee's family. The sudden loss of
our leader, colleague, and friend, is devastating.
Dr Lee led WHO to continue its mission to help people attain the
highest possible level of health.
He was 61 years old. He is survived by his wife and son, two
brothers and a sister, and their families.
****************************
To access a tribute to Dr. Lee from the WHO website, go to:
http://www.who.int/dg/lee/tribute/en

well, as you can see, we are all in the same boat. was looking to
make friends-male or female-live in ga, and recently diagnosed.39yr
old divorced mom of three-anyone interested, please write. thanks

DDW: Hepatitis Patients at Risk for Accidental Acetaminophen Toxicity
By Peggy Peck, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of
California, San Francisco
May 22, 2006
LOS ANGELES, May 22 - Over-the-counter flu remedies such as Nyquil or Theraflu
are often used for relief of the flu-like symptoms of acute hepatitis, a choice
that may trigger acute liver failure because those agents contain acetaminophen.
Serum samples from 72 patients with fulminant hepatitis detected evidence of
acetaminophen toxicity in 12.5% of patients, said William M. Lee M.D., of the
University of Texas Southwester Medical Center in Dallas, who reported the
findings at Digestive Disease Week sessions here today.
Dr. Lee and colleagues used a high-pressure liquid chromatography with
electrochemical detection to assess acetaminophen levels. They studied 10
patients with liver failure due to confirmed acetaminophen overdose as a
positive control group.
The average serum concentration of acetaminophen adducts was 0.45 nmol/mL versus
5.58 nmol/mL in the control group. Nonetheless, Dr. Lee said the evidence of
acetaminophen adducts was "a second insult to the liver cells on top of
hepatitis."
Importantly, the toxicity occurred when the patients used the over-the-counter
flu medicines at therapeutic doses. "None reported doses that would exceed 4
g/day," he said. That is lower than previously reported toxic doses, he said.
Acetaminophen toxicity occurs in a dose-related fashion. Seven or eight grams
consumed over the course of three to four days can be fatal, Dr. Lee said.
An online check of ingredients in cold and flu products found acetaminophen
listed as an ingredient in 26 OTC remedies, including Coricidin D, Triaminic,
NyQuil, DayQuil, and Dristan as well as Midol and Pamprin.
In this series, 67% of patients who had detectable acetaminophen-protein adducts
in their blood died within three weeks of hospital admission versus 27% of
patients who had no evidence of acetaminophen use (P=0.017).
Liver toxicity is a well known side-effect of acetaminophen, he said, noting
that acetaminophen overdose is a leading cause of liver failure and liver
transplants "I am surprised it is still on the market," Dr. Lee said.
He later qualified that statement saying that but the drug is so popular, and is
sold under so many different brands-the most popular being Tylenol-that he
doubts it would ever be removed from the market.
That said, he noted that people with liver disease are frequently unaware that
they are using acetaminophen-containing compounds, which could put them at risk
for liver failure.
"Vicodin and Percocet are the two most popular prescription compounds containing
acetaminophen and these are often prescribed for pain relief in people with
liver disease," he said. "Unbundling of both of these drugs, which might be done
at some point, would be significant in terms of reducing accidental
acetaminophen overdose."
He said that in 2002 a FDA advisory committee recommended that labels of
over-the-counter cold and flu medicines be changed so that the front label would
list acetaminophen as an ingredient. "But that was in 2002 and the FDA has yet
to act on that recommendation."
John M. Vierling, M.D., president of the American Society for the Study of Liver
Diseases, a professor of medicine at Baylor in Houston, said the hallmarks of
acetaminophen toxicity are "a change in mental state and alteration in clotting
ability."
Dr. Vierling called acetaminophen an "excellent drug" but added that Dr. Lee's
study suggests the need to advise patients with chronic liver disease to avoid
not only Tylenol and other acetaminophen products but also to be cautious when
selecting cold and flu medicines.
The patients were included in the National Institutes of Health Acute Liver
Failure Study (1999-2004), a national registry of acute liver failure cases. Dr.
Lee said there are roughly 2,000 cases of acute liver failure annually and about
500 of those are fatal.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/2005MeetingCoverage/2005DDWMeeting/dh/3349

Pam!!!
GREAT Article! Pretty much tells it all in a clear and concise way.
THANKS!!!!!
What it doesnt add is that a lot of Geno 1's are now beginning to
clear the Virus as early as 12 weeks or sooner with Peg & Riba. This
was totally unheard of before, when only 2's & 3's might be expected
to be undetectable that early. For now weve got the best there is!
Next, we need a cure for everyone!!! Hugs!! Marcus

More Are Finding Permanent Cures for Hepatitis C
By JULIE BAIN
Five years ago, R. Scott Bromley, then 57, was returning from a trip to
Sicily with friends when he felt a nagging pain in his right side. He was
scheduled for an annual checkup the next day, and he learned from a blood
test that his liver enzymes were elevated.
Not a big drinker, Mr. Bromley, a New York architect, told the doctor that
while in Italy, "You have a little wine before dinner on the piazza, a
little wine during dinner, a little wine after dinner," and suggested maybe
that was the cause of the unusual numbers.
Two weeks later he was tested again, with the same result. He was referred
to a specialist in liver disease and, after further tests, hepatitis C was
diagnosed. The doctor told him he could have been harboring the virus for 30
years or more with no symptoms. What's more, the disease could be life
threatening. Mr. Bromley was devastated.
More than four million people have hepatitis C in the United States, five
times as many as are infected with H.I.V.
"It's the bulk of my practice," said Dr. Hillel Tobias, the medical director
of the Liver Transplant Service at New York University Medical Center.
The reason is not that new cases are being contracted. New cases have
declined 80 percent in the last decade, mainly because blood transfusions
have not been risk factors in that period, thanks to testing for the virus.
But because the disease takes so long to progress, more patients are
learning that they have hepatitis C while in their 40's and 50's and that
they contracted the virus many years ago.
The annual death toll, about 10,000 a year in the United States, is expected
to increase for another decade to as many as 30,000 before declining,
according to the American Liver Foundation.
Unlike hepatitis A and B, there is no vaccine for hepatitis C, and the virus
can lead to serious liver disease, like cirrhosis or liver cancer. Hepatitis
C patients make up the largest percentage of people requiring liver
transplants. But with new treatments, more are now finding permanent cures.
Some misconceptions exist about the way the hepatitis C virus is spread,
said Dr. Eugene R. Schiff, a professor of medicine and the director of the
Center for Liver Disease at the University of Miami School of Medicine. "The
unequivocally major mode of transmission is blood to blood," he said. An
estimated 300,000 Americans now infected got the disease from a transfusion
before 1990.
"Sexual transmission has been way overplayed," he said. "So has transmission
from mother to baby. It's uncommon, probably less than 3 percent for either
of those, quite the opposite from hepatitis B."
Drugs injected by needle also pose blood-to-blood risks. "The classic
hepatitis C patient today is a very upstanding 50-year-old lawyer who once
tried a needle when he was in college," Dr. Tobias said. "In the 70's, a lot
of kids in college tried needles once."
Tattoo needles can also spread the disease.
Because of the lack of symptoms, many cases go undetected until the disease
is advanced, although a test can detect antibodies to the virus before it
affects the liver.
Starting in 1992, the treatment of choice was alpha interferon, injected
three times a week for a year. This antiviral protein can kill the virus, as
well as boost the immune system. The rate of permanent viral clearance was 8
to 10 percent, Dr. Tobias said. About five years ago, this treatment was
combined with ribavirin, another antiviral agent. With both drugs taken
together, a permanent cure rate of about 25 percent was achieved. One reason
the rate was not higher was that the interferon was cleared out of the blood
so quickly.
Current treatment is pegylated interferon, a long-acting form of the
treatment that maintains a sustained blood level for a week. Approved by the
Food and Drug Administration in 2001, it brought the cure rate up to about
50 percent. "And if you add ribavirin to it," Dr. Tobias said, "you get to
over 60 percent."
Five years ago Mr. Bromley began treatment with alpha interferon, and within
two and a half months he was down to a level of zero virus. But the side
effects were devastating. "I didn't sleep well, my sex life was all screwed
up, I lost 40 pounds and the interferon changed my whole personality," he
said.
Then, just a year after he was off the drug, the virus rebounded, even
higher than it was before.
There is no clear correlation between the viral count and what's going on in
the liver, the real danger zone.
"I have patients with advanced liver disease whose viral counts are fairly
low," Dr. Tobias said, "and I have patients with very little liver disease
whose viral counts are very high. Similarly, there are people who have
normal enzymes and still have significant hepatitis C."
That's why a liver biopsy is usually required to help determine treatment.
For Mr. Bromley, whose tests showed little damage to his liver, it was a
tough decision whether to undergo a second treatment. But a year and a half
later, he began 48 weeks of interferon and ribavirin, and this time the side
effects were even worse. "I couldn't sleep," he said. "I began forgetting
things. I would fall down in the middle of the street. I became very
depressed."
But the treatment worked, and Mr. Bromley has been free of the virus for
more than three years.
Other patients refuse a second treatment, saying the side effects, including
flulike symptoms and depression, aren't worth it.
"But," said Dr. Tobias, "they should be retreated with the pegylated
interferon because a significant number of them will respond to it."
Those who previously did not respond with interferon have about a 20 percent
chance of being cured if they are retreated with the pegylated interferon.
Those who have relapsed after successful treatment have a chance of
receiving a permanent cure of greater than 50 percent. Evidence also
suggests that even if a patient doesn't lose the virus, the
anti-inflammatory activity of the pegylated interferon slows the progression
of the disease. Some patients who have advanced liver disease go on lifetime
reduced-dose interferon, which can delay the need for a liver transplant.
New treatments in development may replace interferon and ribavirin, or be
added to them in a drug cocktail, similar to AIDS and H.I.V. treatments.
Vertex and Eli Lilly recently announced that they were developing a protease
inhibitor that could prevent the virus from making infectious copies of
itself. Even more promising, say doctors, is a polymerase inhibitor, which
may also stop the virus from replicating. Another possibility is a ribozyme,
which may cut the hepatitis C virus "like a scissors," said Dr. Schiff.
None of these treatments, however, will be available for several years.
A vaccine remains a challenge because hepatitis C has eight different
molecular configurations that are constantly changing and mutating. A
vaccine would require developing an immune response to a part of the virus
that is relatively stable across all the variations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/health/14HEPC.html

Hi yall. Sorry to flood you with fwds...but there are so many good ones, and
this is a great one... if I don't do it now I'll forget...
Deliman
Note: forwarded message attached.
Bad BOY
IMG_0131
IMG_0136
IMG_0134

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...I heard that Pam.... :) there's more than
one of 'em on here......... :)))))))))))))))))

New York Times May 11, 2002
Doctors Are Cautioned Not to Give a Type of Plasma to Liver Patients
By Denise Grady
Doctors have been warned to avoid giving a type of blood plasma called
PlasSD or SD plasma to people who have severe liver disease or who are
receiving liver transplants, the Food and Drug Administration has said.
The agency has also cautioned doctors that any patient given large amounts
of SD plasma, regardless of the reason, must be carefully monitored for
blood clots or excessive bleeding.
Ten people with serious liver problems died from blood clots or bleeding
after receiving the plasma, including six transplant patients who died at
Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles in 1999. The other four died later, at
different hospitals from August 2000 to March 2001.
SD plasma is made from pooled plasma from thousands of donors that is
specially treated to destroy certain viruses, including H.I.V. and hepatitis
C, which may occasionally get into the blood supply despite current
screening methods. SD stands for solvent detergent.
Plasma carries substances that control blood clotting and bleeding, and
people are given transfusions of it when they need those substances.
An F.D.A. official, Dr. Mark Weinstein, said the agency acted because,
though an investigation did not prove conclusively that SD plasma caused the
deaths, its use had a "strong association" with them. Dr. Weinstein said the
SD plasma had lower levels than ordinary blood plasma of the substances
needed to regulate blood clotting. Those lower levels, he said, might have
caused problems in people who already had clotting abnormalities caused by
liver failure. The liver makes the substances that control clotting and
bleeding.
A warning letter was sent to doctors in October 2000, after the first six
deaths were reported, and a stronger warning was mailed this past March. The
second letter also stated that a "black box" warning had been added to the
product's labeling. Black boxes are used to draw attention to potential
problems that are especially dangerous.
Though the second letter went out to doctors, the F.D.A. did not follow its
customary practice of posting the letter on its public Web site and sending
e-mail notices to reporters at the same time. The letter was not posted
until Thursday, a day after Newsday published the second of two
articles in the same week about the plasma.
A spokeswoman for the drug agency said the delay was inadvertent and of
little consequence since the plasma is used only in hospitals.
The families of the transplant patients who died at Cedars-Sinai were not
told until this week, after the Newsday article was published, that the
plasma may have had a role in the deaths. Grace Cheng, a spokeswoman for the
hospital, said that it stopped using the plasma in December 1999, but the
families were not told of the possible connection because "we didn't want to
notify patients' families until we had a clear determination of the
situation."
Since it was marketed in 1998, about a million units of SD plasma have been
used, according to the American Red Cross, which was its sole distributor.
Chris Lamb, chief operating officer for the Red Cross, said the product
accounted for less than 20 percent of the plasma the Red Cross supplied.
Many hospitals did not switch to SD plasma because they did not think it had
advantages over fresh frozen plasma, said Dr. Andrew D. Leavitt, an
associate professor of medicine at the University of California at San
Francisco and assistant director of the blood bank at Moffitt-Long Hospital,
which did not use SD plasma. Dr. Leavitt said some doctors feared that
because the plasma was pooled from so many donors, it might pose a higher
risk than ordinary plasma from a single donor.
SD plasma can still be given to people who do not have severe liver disease,
but its distribution has been curtailed because of legal disputes that have
nothing to do with medical issues, Mr. Lamb said. He said the Red Cross
announced last month that it would no longer be able to provide SD plasma.
Mr. Lamb said Vitex, or V.I. Technologies, the Massachusetts company that
had been manufacturing the plasma at a plant in Melville, N.Y., had a
disagreement about intellectual property issues with the New York Blood
Center, which had developed the process for cleaning the plasma.

This is the ship my son is on.
LISA

Hi Grace
Yes we are going to have a Hepfest and picnic July 27 here in
Michigan. There are four of us, working on things and everything
seems ready to go, Gloria rented the Pavillion and Roche is supposed
to cater for the event. We just have to figure out how many are
coming! we want to be successful, but not to successful.LOL~~~~~~TC

i dont see nutting :(
Del Compton <go_deliman@...
Hi yall. Sorry to flood you with fwds...but there are so many good ones, and
this is a great one... if I don't do it now I'll forget...
Deliman
Note: forwarded message attached.
Bad BOY
IMG_0131
IMG_0136
IMG_0134

SPONSORED LINKS
Hepatitis c

Hi Pam,
I AM still dealing with Schering! So I get a
different story every day. And believe me, I do call
them every day now. Here's a copy of a post I made to
a different board:
Just wanted to give you a re-cap of my phone calls to
Schering this week regarding my waiting list status:
May 6 - Spoke to Brian. 10,000 - 20,000 names were
released over the weekend. I should have notification
by Friday May 10 - will be sent to me via mail.
May 7 - Spoke to Chad - I should hear something next
week.
May 8 - Spoke to Dolores - there has been some
activity on my file. Notification has gone out and I
should receive something in the mail in the next 3-5
days. Once that is received I am to call Access
Assurance to get my 'number' so I can get my
prescription. At that time I will be removed from the
waiting list.
May 10 - Spoke to Jennifer. I have been taken off the
waiting list. I should receive notification via U.S.
mail around the 20th of May.
So.... different story - every day. Not sure what is
'real' anymore...
The fun never stops!
Love,
Grace

Hi TC,
Yeah - that was my feeling, better safe than sorry. I
was tested for Hep A & B. I had the Hep A shots
several years back before I spent some time in the
jungles of Mexico. But I've never been exposed to Hep
B - so they tell me.
How are you anyway? And how's your Hep fest shaping
up for July?
Take care,
Grace

do you have a date set in stone now grace?? When are you going to be
starting??
Peace and Love,
Pam
"In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats." - English proverb

Hey Grace, I had the three shot hepB vac at the county medical
department a year or so ago. My new blood work, with lots of new
tests says i was exsposed to hepb, but cleared it. I guess better
safe than sorry.lol~~~TC

Welcome Lenny,
Glad you are here.
Kimmie

~Bayla~
SVRnWaiting
'C' It! Treat It! Beat It!
http://hepcaware.org
"Hepatitis C is five times
more prevalent
than AIDS"

her website is hepcaware.org
this is the girl playing in Austin next Saturday..the one that gives the
postcards away FREE for the asking...this woman never had hepatitis..her friend
died from it..this is Kellys thing..get with it..save someone for Del's
sake..ONE person save ONE..Del is better today..someone called his house and I
took his/her head off..for that I apologize. Please don't e-mail me.
Mike Bilger is now in CHARGE of Del updates. Ask HIM anything..he knows it all
nite
ps I don't do boards
HepatitisCAware@... wrote:
From: HepatitisCAware@...
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 12:23:59 EST
Subject: Re: Friday was a great day for Del~this pertains to you too
Kelly..thank you
To: bgumins@...
Bayla,
Thanks for helping Del. You are my hero.
And thanks for being such a GREAT STREET TEAM MEMBER.
I love hearing all the reactions to the postcards.
love,
kelly z
~Bayla Moo and Kirby~
The Three Musketeers
Alive and feeling great in Houston!!

I don't EVEN want to eat these carrots, Thank you very much! (I have become
very distrustful in my old age..particularly with the vaccines and the
government...thank you very much! :-)
Love,
Nancy

Surgeons Back Study Of Payment for Organs
Plan Aimed at Boosting Donor Rates
By Susan Okie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 30, 2002; Page A03
Facing a severe and worsening shortage of organs for transplantation, the
ethics committee of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons has endorsed
a pilot program under which the family of someone who dies could be offered
a small sum of money to thank them for agreeing to donate their relative's
organs.
The committee "was unanimously opposed to the exchange of money for cadaver
donor organs," said Francis Delmonico, a Massachusetts transplant surgeon
and
committee member who addressed the American Transplant Congress yesterday at
its annual meeting here. However, Delmonico said, a majority of the panel
members supported reimbursement "for funeral expenses or a charitable
contribution as an ethical approach."
The sale of organs is prohibited by federal law, which would have to be
changed before a pilot program could proceed. But growing demand has
lengthened the average wait for transplants, prompting efforts to increase
the supply of both cadaver organs and organs from living donors. In the
United States, more than 79,000 people are waiting for organs.
Now, transplant surgeons and ethicists are reconsidering the question of
whether offering a contribution -- perhaps several hundred dollars -- to
family members is an ethical way to encourage organ donation after death.
Last year, a council of the American Medical Association issued a report
suggesting pilot studies of similar payments for donors' families, but it
was not adopted by the AMA's House of Delegates.
"We're talking about [this] because of . . . the people on the waiting
list," said Jeremiah Turcotte, president of the United Network for Organ
Sharing and a retired Michigan transplant surgeon. In his state, he said,
the average wait for a cadaver kidney is five years, and growing numbers of
patients are seeking transplants overseas.
In the United States, depending on the region of the country, 40 to 60
percent of families refuse to donate the organs of a relative who has died,
Delmonico said. In Spain, which has the world's highest rate of organ
donation after death, only 18 percent of families refuse.
One strategy used in several countries to try to boost organ donation rates
is a "presumed consent" law, meaning that people are presumed to be willing
to donate their organs after death unless they have signed a document
indicating the contrary. Similar laws should be considered in the United
States and other countries, Robert Sells, a British transplant surgeon,
suggested.
But some surveys indicate that Americans may not be receptive to such a law.
"I don't think that we in this country are willing to accept the government
making decisions on our behalf," said Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Center
for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.
Ethical objections to paying for organs include concerns about exploiting
potential donors -- especially if they are poor -- as well as compromising
the informed consent process and fostering "commodification" of the body.
Throughout history, many religions and cultures have held that the body is
sacred.
Current U.S. policy on the sale of organs is inconsistent. For example, the
federal prohibition does not apply to sperm, eggs or blood, Kahn noted.
Women who donate their eggs for in vitro fertilization are paid as much as
$75,000 in some areas of the country, he said.
"That's what the world [of solid organ donation] would look like if we took
the lid off restrictions on the market," he said.
Living organ donation has increased greatly in recent years, and last year
in the United States kidneys transplanted from live donors outnumbered
transplants of cadaver kidneys for the first time. Some transplant programs
offer arrangements whereby the relative of someone who needs a kidney can
boost that person to the top of the local waiting list by donating to
another patient in the program. Critics of such arrangements contend that
they border on paying for organs.
Delmonico said the ethics panel of his organization opposes any payment of
living donors. Speakers at the meeting cited evidence that an international
trade in organs from living donors is flourishing even though most countries
ban the sale of organs. The black market price for a healthy kidney ranges
from $1,000 in Bombay to $3,000 in the Republic of Moldova to more than
$10,000 in some Latin American cities, Delmonico said.
In China, traffic in organs from executed prisoners "has enabled expansion
of organ sales into a significant source of dollars," Sells said.
Surgeons and ethicists at the meeting said the goal of offering some
compensation to families of deceased donors would be to increase the supply
of organs without driving away people who are willing to give organs for
free. They said a pilot program would allow them to study the effect on
total donations.
"We have to worry very much about the potential for public distrust," Kahn
said. "We don't want to undermine what we have built so far."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Posted on Sun, May. 05, 2002
Debate rages on heavy-duty painkillers
Bills must strike balance to stop abusers, protect patients
By Janie Nelson
DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER
Imagine how it would feel if someone swung a heavy hammer and smashed your
hand.
That's how John said his pain feels - only worse.
"This pain does not go away," he said. "It just stays there. The more you
move, the more it's going to hurt. So you try not to move."
John (who asked that his real name not be used) has cancer, and the only
drug that makes his pain bearable is OxyContin.
When it's used properly, the drug is a blessing.
When it's not, it's a crime.
How to keep it around for those who need it and away from those who abuse it
is a problem lawmakers are wrestling with. Health workers - surrounded every
day by people in pain - want to make sure that, in the effort to stop the
bad guys, those who need high-octane pain relievers aren't forgotten.
"I'll tell you, there are people who live by OxyContin," said Kathy Barnett,
director of the Center for Advancing Nursing Practice at Tallahassee
Memorial Hospital.
"Some people would not be at work every day were they not taking OxyContin
every morning and every evening in adequate amounts to get through the day.
"And so the drug is not the problem. (It's) how people are abusing the
drug - they're taking it in a way that it was not intended to be used."
OxyContin is a controlled-release form of oxycodone, a potent drug that can
cause euphoric effects similar to heroin. That's why it has become so
popular on the streets.
Doctors like OxyContin because of its time-release quality. Unlike other
forms of oxycodone, such as Percocet and Percodan, its effects can last over
a 12-hour period.
"They take it on a two- or three-times-a-day schedule," said Dr. Aaron
Stein, a pain specialist with Anesthesiology Associates.
This gets rid of what the doctor calls the cycle of "I hurt. I take a
medicine. I get drowsy. I get euphoric. Then my pain goes away. Then I hurt
again."
By keeping the medicine at a more constant level, he said, many people can
go back to work and resume normal lives.
Abusers get around the time-release element by crushing the capsules before
they take the drug. This can get you high, or it can get you dead.
In March, a jury in Milton sentenced a former Navy doctor to 63 years in
prison for manslaughter in the death of four patients who overdosed on
OxyContin and other drugs he'd prescribed.
The downside
Last year, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued a safety alert
about the fatal consequences of oxycodone abuse. The alert linked the drug
and another potent painkiller, hydrocodone, to 191 deaths but said oxycodone
posed the primary danger.
Just last month, a Spring Hill woman was charged with defrauding Medicaid by
getting prescriptions for oxycodone and other painkillers from numerous
doctors.
"During a 12-month period, (Marie) Keaton received pain medication
prescriptions from at least 19 Pasco and Hernando county area physicians,"
Attorney General Bob Butterworth said.
Pharmacy burglaries and arrests of physicians for writing illegal
prescriptions have caught the attention of lawmakers.
During this month's special session, the Florida Senate passed a bill that
would create an electronic monitoring system that records all prescriptions
for Schedule 2 drugs, which include oxycodone, and requires physicians and
other health practitioners to take a course in controlled substances. A
companion bill is scheduled for a House vote next week.
While discussing the legislation last week, some members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee worried the bill might unwittingly keep patients from
getting the relief they need.
"You might have a chilling effect in such a degree that physicians,
especially gerontologists and hospice care physicians, will stop prescribing
OxyContin to their patients because they will be afraid of a Big Brother
syndrome," said Sen. Skip Campbell, D-Tamarac.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Locke Burt, said the "chilling effect" already has
happened.
"There are a number of pharmacies in the state who will not stock OxyContin
because of the threat," said Burt, R-Ormond Beach. "Many physicians probably
shy away from prescribing OxyContin because of its high potential for
abuse."
Burt assured the committee that it would not make it any harder for anyone
to get a prescription for a legal drug.
"Because the system can be accessed by treating physicians and dispensing
pharmacists," he said, "a physician and a pharmacist will be in a better
position to treat patients because they will have a complete history."
Practice with care
Most doctors in Tallahassee already are cautious about prescribing
heavy-duty pain medicines, said Stein, who sees the majority of the city's
patients who need help managing extreme pain - including John, the cancer
patient.
"The vast majority of primary care physicians are careful and excellent in
how they do it," he said. "But there are points when they're not getting the
desired result, or they feel they're getting past doses they're comfortable
with."
That's when they send their patients to Stein, who said he has a rigorous
monitoring system to make sure that only people who really need the drugs
get them.
"We just don't give out narcotics because somebody says, 'My neck hurts,'"
he said.
"You basically get one warning from us, and that's spelled out. We reserve
the right to give our own blood test to make sure you are taking the
medicine we've given you.
"We are concerned that this is a highly abusable drug, and we want to make
sure that only the people who should be getting it are getting it."
That's important to TMH's Barnett, too.
"For years, people felt (that) if you were prescribing opiates, you were
going to make drug abusers out of people," she said.
If people in pain don't get help from their physicians, she said, they'll
start looking elsewhere.
"They go seeking pain relief on the street, and they're getting pills from
their mother or their brother or whoever because they're looking for
relief," she said. "We may be causing addiction and abuse problems by not
treating pain as opposed to doing a good job of managing it."
John knows firsthand what a good job it does.
"Without taking the medicine," he said, "I don't know where I'd be by now."
But he understands its potential for abuse. He didn't want his name used for
fear someone would break into his home to get his painkillers.
Contact reporter Janie Nelson at (850) 599-2370 or jnelson@....

A man who had just undergone a very complicated operation kept complaining
about a bump on his head and a terrible headache. Since his operation had
been an intestinal one, there was no earthly reason why he should be
complaining of a headache. Finally his nurse, fearing that the man might be
suffering from some post-operative shock, spoke to the doctor about it. The
doctor assured the nurse, "Don't worry about a thing. He really does have a
bump on his head. About halfway through the operation we ran out of
anesthetic."

Bettering the odds for living donors
Transplants: Doctors aim to make sure people know the risks but face as few
as possible.
By Jonathan Bor
Sun Staff
April 29, 2002
When David Kieffer offered to give up 60 percent of his liver to save his
ailing friend's life, doctors launched into what would seem an endless
series of warnings.
He was a healthy young man electing to undergo major surgery for no reason
but to help someone else. He could suffer serious complications, even die.
With that in mind, they said, he could back out at any time, right up to the
hour of surgery.
But Kieffer, saying he was motivated by friendship and God, went through
with the 12-hour operation two weeks ago at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He
emerged healthy, if queasy and fatigued, and free of regret.
"It was a risk, but we didn't feel any pressure to do it," said the
28-year-old Kieffer, explaining that he made the decision with his wife,
Marty. "We felt compelled to do it by love."
Over the past decade, the rapid growth of "living donor" transplants has
provided hope to people who might otherwise wait years to receive livers and
kidneys from accident victims and brain-dead patients. But the case in
January of Mike Hurewitz, a 57-year-old journalist who died three days after
donating part of his liver to his brother at Mount Sinai Hospital in New
York, has raised concerns about their safety.
Although doctors acknowledge the risks that liver and kidney donors face,
they say that nobody knows the true complication and death rates because
surgeons are not required to report problems.
"There are complications that occur that are not generally known about
because there is no forum for making them known," said Dr. Andrew Klein,
chief of the transplant program at Hopkins. "There should be a way to
honestly collect data - some sort of national registry or oversight."
What distinguishes living-donor transplants from other surgical procedures
is that they are performed on patients who are perfectly healthy, placing an
even greater burden on doctors to "do no harm."
"These patients are being subjected to risk for no immediate benefit to
themselves," said Dr. David C. Cronin II, a transplant surgeon at the
University of Chicago. "We have to protect those people we call heroes."
In the 13-year history of living-donor liver transplants, there have been
three reported deaths among donors in the United States, a mortality rate of
about one-half of 1 percent. Arguing that some deaths probably go
unreported,
Cronin estimates the actual rate is probably closer to 1 percent.
Living-donor kidney transplants have been performed for about 45 years and
are much more common. Of the 14,000 kidney transplants performed last year
in the United States, about 5,500 were from live donors. The risk of death
is
thought to be far lower than it is among liver donors, though the exact rate
is similarly hard to discern.
Nobody has died donating an organ at Johns Hopkins or the
http://www.umm.edu/ University of Maryland Medical Center, according to
doctors at the two transplant centers.
But they acknowledge that the procedures pose significant risks of
complications, and each center has seen its share.
Surgeons say they have reduced the risks to kidney donors by employing
laparoscopic techniques that enable them to remove the organ through a tiny
incision.
Nonetheless, doctors could nick a blood vessel, a problem that would require
a surgical repair and blood transfusions. Other possible complications
include infections, wound hernias and bowel injuries.
"Statistically, their risk of dying or having something really bad happen to
them is about the same as it would be driving a car for a year," said Dr.
Robert Montgomery, who performs kidney transplants at Johns Hopkins. "That
helps them get their arms around what they're doing in terms of risk."
Montgomery said doctors must remain vigilant about potential complications
as the number of people who can donate kidneys expands. At Hopkins, doctors
are enabling people to become "altruistic donors" to people they don't know.
Also, they have devised methods that allow patients to accept kidneys from
people whose blood types don't match their own.
Liver donors face a higher risk of complications, in part because doctors
must cut through a large organ that is filled with blood vessels. Klein said
he worries about infections, bile duct leaks, wound hernias, nausea and
pain.
At Maryland, doctors recall a patient who was left with numbness in his arm,
possibly because his nerves were unnaturally stretched on the operating
table.
Doctors at Hopkins and Maryland say they also recall a patient at each
institution who developed a blood clot that passed to the lungs. The clots
were successfully treated, but represent serious complications that
sometimes
cannot be prevented.
Dr. Luis Arrazola, a surgeon who runs Hopkins' living donor liver transplant
program, said he began testing prospective donors last July for rare genetic
factors that could place them at higher risk for clotting. Since then, he
has rejected two people who otherwise would have become donors. Nobody
accepted into the program has developed the problem, he said.
"We don't want to take a lot of chances and end up overdoing a lot of things
for extra protection," said Arrazola.
But some problems cannot be foreseen, doctors say.
Eric Hansberger, a Howard County man who donated part of his liver to his
father three years ago, woke up short of breath a few nights after he was
discharged from Hopkins. He was rushed back to the hospital where doctors
had
to drain an abnormal amount of fluid that had collected in his chest and
abdomen.
"The hospital does prepare you as much as they can mentally or physically
for what can happen, but you never think anything is going to happen to
you," said Hansberger, 40, adding that his hospital care was exceptional.
Dr. Stephen Bartlett, chief of the transplant program at the University of
Maryland, said people thinking about donating a liver might be comforted by
estimates that they have about a 99 percent chance of surviving surgery.
That's understandable: Most people would run into a burning building to save
a friend or relative if they faced much poorer odds.
But the analogy goes only so far, he said. Doctors must make decisions in an
atmosphere of calm deliberation. The New York case, occurring at one of the
nation's premier transplant programs, should cause hospitals to exercise
even greater care and to make sure they warn patients of the risks, he said.
"I think society was really shocked by this man's death," said Bartlett.
Hurewitz suffered a bacterial infection not often associated with the
operation, and appears to have died after inhaling large amounts of vomited
blood.
The New York health commissioner, Dr. Antonia Novella, said she didn't know
if his death could have been prevented, but held the hospital responsible
for
inadequate care after surgery. This includes allowing a single medical
resident to care for 34 post-surgical patients, one of whom was Hurewitz.
She fined the hospital $48,000 and banned it from doing live-donor liver
transplants for six months.
At Hopkins and Maryland, doctors say, patients are intensely watched in the
days after surgery - not just by nurses and residents, but by the surgeons
who did the operation.
"We're very vigilant and anxious and concerned, really until the patient
goes home," said Dr. John Colonna, a transplant surgeon at Maryland. "I
can't say the New York case has heightened our anxiety. There wasn't any
room to
heighten it."
"If you walk past the surgical intensive care unit any time of day, you can
see three or four people looking," said Dr. David Edwin, a psychologist who
counsels organ donors at Hopkins. "This is the worst nightmare, starting
with one sick person and ending up with two."
Before Hurewitz's death, one of the most passionate voices calling for
mandatory reporting of transplant problems was Rhonda Boone - the widow of a
North Carolina man who died three years ago after donating part of his liver
to his half-brother at the University of North Carolina Medical Center in
Chapel Hill.
He died of multiple complications, including internal bleeding and a bile
leak, problems that caused him to become "grotesquely swollen from head to
toe," she said.
Boone, who has sued the hospital, contends that doctors did not warn her
husband of the risks and failed to diagnose an underlying liver disorder
that should have ruled him out as a donor. Recently, she reached out to
Vicki Hurewitz, the Albany journalist's widow, and the two joined forces in
calling for a national registry.
"Some people are blinded by the fact that they just want to help somebody,"
said Boone. "But maybe they wouldn't be doing this if they knew it wasn't
100 percent successful."
For now, the best information is likely to come from a national database to
be established next year by the National Institutes of Health. The database
will track outcomes, complications and quality of life measures, and should
help to establish which surgical techniques achieved the best results.
But it will collect data from only eight to 10 of the largest medical
centers, and is not meant to serve as a definitive registry, said Dr. Jay
Hoofnagel, director of the NIH digestive disease and nutrition division.
Kieffer, the Gettysburg College chaplain who donated part of his liver at
Hopkins, said that after five weeks of testing and counseling, he went into
surgery fully aware that he could die.
But after a previous donor had been disqualified for health reasons, he was
determined to help his sick friend, Brent Pohl.
Pohl, a 28-year-old engineer from Timonium who attends the same church as
Kieffer, suffered from a progressive liver disease that could lead to
cancer. He was discharged a week after surgery, looking robust and brimming
with
optimism.
"They don't let you donate until you demonstrate you understand the risk,"
said Kieffer, who lives in Littlestown, Pa. "But you need to be ruled by
faith, not by fear. And Brent needed me."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.transplant29apr29.story?coll=
bal%25
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.transplant29apr29.story?coll=
bal%25
Copyright © 2002
http://www.sunspot.net/
The Baltimore Sun

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Carrots Modified to Contain Hepatitis B Vaccine
Last Updated: May 10, 2002 05:35 PM ET
By Hannah Cleaver
BERLIN (Reuters Health) - German scientists have grown genetically modified
carrots that contain the vaccine against hepatitis B, which they say could
dramatically cut the costs of preventing the disease.
Development has reached the stage where the carrots are ready to begin
pre-clinical trials and researchers say that carrot-sourced vaccines could
be a reality within about 3 years.
The current vaccine against hepatitis B is expensive to produce and is
administered via three injections, which further increases costs and strains
health services.
But now plant specialists and virologists from Giessen University in Germany
have successfully inserted the gene for the hepatitis B surface antigen
normally used in the vaccine into carrots, and have been growing the
vegetables in the thousands.
"We can make 100,000 or so plants in 2 weeks and within 3 months they are
ready to eat," said Dr. Jafargholi Imani from the research group at Giessen
University.
He explained to Reuters Health that carrots are particularly good for this
purpose as they are easy to grow in many different climates and soil types.
"But it's not as if we will be able to hand out packets of seeds for people
to grow their own," he said. "These are transgenic plants and need to be
isolated. But it does mean that the plants can be grown where the vaccine is
needed."
Carrots are also easy to store, transport and consume raw, he said. Other
attempts to grow transgenic drug-containing tomatoes or potatoes have
suffered from the delicate physical nature of tomatoes and the fact that
potatoes are difficult to eat raw, while cooking would destroy the vaccine.
Imani's team has been working on the carrots for around 2 years now and are
about to publish their initial report in the Dutch journal Plant Cell,
Tissue and Organ Culture. The paper has already been accepted and should
appear this summer.
"This now needs to be tested clinically, on animals and then people, to see
what kind of dosage will be needed and how it all works in practice," he
said, adding that such testing would likely take at least 2 years.
"Here we could be ready to start producing within months if all goes
according to plan. I am very optimistic; it has been working very well. At
the moment the vaccine costs up to 200 euros and you have to have three
injections. We can afford this in the developed world but in other places it
is not an option."
Giessen University estimates there are around 350 million people around the
world infected with hepatitis B virus, which can severely damage the liver
and can be fatal. One million people are believed to die from the disease
annually.

Happy Mother's Day to all you "mom's".

Third International Patient-Oriented Conference
Hosted by: Hepatitis Magazine
American Liver Foundation
Texas Liver Coalition
Where: Marriott North at Greenspoint near airport
255 N Sam Houston Parkway East free parking
Houston, TX 77060
Rooms:
Special conference rate: $69.00/night 800 228-9290
When: Friday, November 8, 2002
Saturday, November 9, 2002
Who for: Program for patients, families, friends and caregivers. Special
training for support group leaders.
Registration: Pre-registration: only $95.00
On site: $125.00
Program: Two days of informative sessions, a full set of conference
materials, conference bags, Friday lunch, Saturday breakfast,Saturday lunch
banquet, refreshment breaks and free one yearâs subscription to Hepatitis
magazine.
Information: Heather Daigle - 281 272-2744 x 133
Email: info@...
Sponsorship Opportunities: Heidi Lummus - 281 272-2744 x 149
Email: hlummus@...
CE credits for nurses: Contact hours applied for through the UT Health
Sciences Center at the Houston School of Nursing
CE credits for drug counselors: Pending
More info at <A
HREF="http://www.hepatitismag.com/home/default.asp"
ONLINE</A
http://www.hepatitismag.com/home/default.asp

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Enzyme-blocking Drug Offers Hope for Hepatitis C Sufferers
By Alan Fein
(AXcess News) New York - ViroPharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: VPHM) said Sunday that data
from a phase 1b trial of an enzyme-blocking drug showed a 97 percent success
rate in preventing the Hepatitis C virus from replicating itself. The viral
polymerase inhibitor, HCV-796, is being co-developed with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals,
a division of Wyeth (NYSE: WYE).
The findings were presented at the 2006 Digestive Disease Week (DDW) conference
in Los Angeles, California.
Steve Villano, ViroPharma's vice president of clinical research and development
called the findings of the phae 1b trial "exciting", saying that doses taken
orally by patients for 14 days reduced the ALT count signifcantly in patients
suffering from chronic hepatitis C who had never received any prior treatment.
"The decline in levels of ALT, an important marker of liver injury associated
with hepatitis C infection, that appear to correlate with antiviral activity
further support the potential benefit of longer treatment with HCV-796," said
Villano.
Of the 16 patients involved in tthe phase 1b study, Seventy two percent were
infected with genotype 1 HCV, which is the most common strain of Hepatitis C in
the United States. Success rates of existing drug treatment of genotype 1HCV
patients is one-in-five, making ViroPharma's results good news for chronic HC
sufferers.
Peak antiviral response was achieved at doses of 500 mg twice daily and higher.
The 500 mg, 1000 mg, and 1500 mg dose groups achieved peak mean HCV viral load
reductions of 96 to 97 percent by the fourth day of a 14-day dosing period. The
greatest reductions in serum ALT levels were seen in the 500 and 1000 mg dose
groups.
Mild to moderate headache was the most frequently reported adverse event, unlike
existing drugs which have severe side effects and can even make patients
suicidal.
HCV-796 was given in combination with PEG-Interferon.
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus recognized as a major cause of chronic
hepatitis worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that 170 million
persons worldwide are chronically infected with HCV, and three to four million
persons are newly infected globally each year. According to the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about four million people in the U.S., or
1.8 percent of the population, are infected with HCV.
Several Interferon products are available and often given in combination with
Ribavirin, but at best, its success rate is 50 percent and then in patients who
are diagnosed early with the less debilitating genotypes of the virus.
If untreated, the results of Hepatitis C infection is death as the liver slowly
fails. Finding a cure has become a race as more and more people throughout the
world become infected with HCV. But the drug companies who developed Interferon
and Ribavirin hold a monopoly and critics say they have held back the research
of other companies, which they adamantly deny.
Interferon treatment in combination with Ribavirin cost over $1,000 per month
just for the drugs, which are taken by hypodermic injection weekly and must be
carried through for a full year.
In addition to the relatively poor treatment response in patients infected with
genotype 1 HCV, the considerable side effects frequently associated with the use
of Interferon can lead to discontinuation of therapy in approximately 20% of
patients.
For Viropharma, a win with HCV-796 would be a big boost to the pharmaceutical
company, that reported $8.2 million in earnings for the first quarter earlier
this month. Analysts had expected Viropharma to report 20 cents a share in
earnings instead of the 12 cents per share it earned. Viropharma said
wholesalers had reduced their stocks of the antibiotic Vancocin.
Net sales of Vancocin had rose 38.8 percent to $29.2 million, though analysts
were expecting Viropharma to report $40.2 million.
The company said that underlying prescription demand for Vancocin remains
strong, and it therefore reiterated its forecast for net sales of the drug in
2006 of between $160 million and $170 million.
Friday, Viropharma's shares closed up 29 cents at $9.29 for a gain of 3.22
percent. Its shares had tanked when it announced its first quarter results,
dropping 30 percent to $7.69 May 4th.
http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=9652

thought you might like a cheery e-mail

Full schedule on my website anytime. http://www.myspace.com/parksrc2000
Cant beleive you mentioned the 88 in front of the group and everybody Bayla.
lol
ronnie
Bayla <bgumins@...
When is the big race?
Bud-Shootout is the 'little race' and its the ELEVENTH...
GOOOOOOOOOOO ABBG
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ABBG
abbg=anybody but gordon!

Hi All
Gloria has asked me to write to the lists for her, because she
doesn't know when she will be able to write herself.. As most of you
know Gloria's Brother had a Triple-bypass Heart surgery Tuesday
morning which went Well and her Brother is doing fine.
The bad news is Two Friends of her Family died yesterday. One a 27
year old young man shot himself in the head in front of others over a
Girlfriend. The best Friend of that young man was killed just hours
later in a Motorcycle collision. The two best Friends will have a
combined Funeral. The two Friends were active in two different
Motorcycle Clubs with their Fathers. One Father and son with the
Renegades and the other Father and son with the Liberty-Riders, all
Friends of Gloria.
So I don't know what else to say in this troubled time for
Gloria~~~~~~~~~TC

Hi Grace
10 to 20 Thousand, wow, I didn't realize there was that many! Acess
Assurance, is that the same has Shering's "Commitment To Care
Program"? Let's Hope your name is on there, Grace! Let's also hope
you can keep on working while on treatment.

Long Wait For Disabled To Get Social Security Pay
By Leigh Strope
Associated Press
Monday, May 6, 2002; Page A19
Disabled Americans who apply for Social Security benefits often must wait
two to three years to start receiving benefits because of a backlog of
pending applications.
The Social Security Administration's findings were delivered last week to
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
About 10 million disabled Americans receive Social Security benefits. The
Social Security Administration receives more than 2 million applications for
disability benefits each year.
"The result is that disabled Americans are left to spend hundreds of days in
limbo without critical help," Baucus said.
Social Security Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart, who was confirmed last fall,
was asked by the Senate committee to study the lengthy delays in processing
applications and appeals, and to report her findings in May.
Reducing the backlog would require additional staff and a minimum of $400
million more for the agency's budget.
Also, at least a third of delays could be reduced by new technology and
process improvements, according to the findings.
It can take as long as 1,150 days to process an application, the agency
said. For about half the time, the applications remain idle because a
backlog of cases are unresolved because of legal appeals and other
procedures.
There were about 200,000 backlogged cases in 2001 at the administrative
judge level.
Out of 100 people who apply for disability benefits, on average 40 will be
approved in about 125 days, the agency said, based on 2001 figures.
About 35 of the 60 applications that were denied will go away, and about 25
will appeal.
If a person continues through the entire appeals process, a final decision
could come in as long as 1,150 days.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37205-2002May5.html?referer=e
mail

Hello,
This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the HepCingles2
group.
File : / Click Here!
Uploaded by : barrywhite21ar <barrywhite21ar@...
Description : No matter what your credit is like ,there is a card here for
you!
You can access this file at the URL

Hi All,
I just got off the phone with Schering's Access Assurance and was
told that 10,000 - 20,000 names were released over the weekend and
that we should have our notifications by Friday.
Hmmmmm... is my name in that batch? They couldn't tell me that, but
I have been on the list since late February.
Just thought you might want to know...
Take care,
Grace

Monday April 29 04:37 PM EDT
Hepatitis C in the NYPD
By Sharon Lerner Village Voice Writer
Meet Michael, a police officer so tired he sometimes naps at work. A slight
man in his late forties, Michael is sick with hepatitis C. Ten years ago,
before the viral illness set in, he used to jog five miles a day. "Now, if I
can walk around the block, I'm doing good," he says. And in addition to
feeling nauseated, sleepy, and "all-around lousy," Michael is afraid. The
fear of having his disease discovered and facing retribution from the
department for speaking out is so great he insisted on using a pseudonym for
this article. And he is also angry, because the police department is
refusing to provide him with benefits he says he deserves.
Michael thinks he became infected with hepatitis C in the early 1980s-before
the blood-borne virus was even discovered, much less recognized as the
source of an epidemic. He was on duty in Brooklyn, driving a couple around
to look for the guy who had robbed them just minutes before. They spotted
the mugger "in a numbers joint," Michael remembers. "So, brazen me-I was a
young cowboy at the time-I just went in after him. As I approached, he swung
at me. I remember it was raining, and we rolled right into the middle of
Nostrand Avenue-and this guy was a lot bigger than me." By the time backup
arrived and pulled Michael and his "perp" off each other, both were bloody.
"In those days, they didn't hand out gloves," he recalls. "And I had a big
bite mark on my hand."
It shouldn't be Michael's job to document how he got hepatitis C. In 1999,
under pressure from angry cops, the state passed a law requiring the police
department to assume, unless it can prove otherwise, that members of the
force with HIV (news - web sites), tuberculosis, and hepatitis have
contracted the infections on the job. "Line of duty" disability pensions
provide retired cops with three-quarters of their highest salary, as opposed
to standard disability benefits, which are only half. Even though it may be
impossible to know for sure that someone got infected through a bloody
fistfight rather than through dirty needles or unprotected sex-by far the
more common paths of transmission-the so-called "presumption law" shifts the
burden of proof from sick cops to the department.
But infected cops and and their advocates say the police department isn't
following the new law. "It sounds great on paper, but the medical board is
not finding the membership disabled, even when they are," says Jeff
Goldberg, a lawyer representing four New York City police officers who have
been unable to retire with disability benefits despite being infected with
hepatitis C. "They're avoiding giving out these pensions," Goldberg says of
the department. "Their fear is that if every cop is tested, they'll open up
the floodgates."
The police department insists it does grant disability benefits to cops with
hepatitis C when appropriate, but Goldberg knows of only one officer who was
granted a line-of-duty pension since the law passed. (The department
wouldn't say if more have been approved.) And others applying for disability
benefits still face a rigorous investigation.
"Each individual case is assessed by a review board from a medical
division," says NYPD spokesperson Jennara Everleth, who declined to comment
about specific cases. "When the investigation is concluded and the officer's
condition is determined to be contracted in the performance of duty, the
officer will receive a line-of-duty pension."
In Michael's case, the board has determined that he has hepatitis-but won't
release benefits. He has gone before the medical board four times and has
even produced the records of his fight with the robber. If it is plausible
that this was the route of transmission, the NYPD is supposed to accept his
claims. Instead, it has questioned him extensively about his sex life and
exposure to drugs.
Such interrogations contradict the spirit of the law, which was designed by
the officers' union after several infected members were denied disability
pensions. While investigations of standard disability claims are limited to
three months, line-of-duty investigations can drag on. The timetable is
"whenever they're good and ready," complains Goldberg.
Indeed, according to some veteran cops, Michael may have a long wait. "I
went before the board 39 times, and they denied me 39 times," says John
Croston, a detective who says he was infected with hepatitis C in 1982
during a fight in a shooting gallery on 118th Street in which he, too, was
bitten. Croston fought the department over his disability designation for
nine years before the "presumption law" was in place, and was only granted
it after he had a liver transplant as a result of his infection. Since then,
he's also had both kidneys replaced and, in the course of one of those
transplants, contracted another form of hepatitis.
"It's been a long haul," says Croston, who says the experience has taught
him that he is "just a number" to the police department. "I learned that
they don't really care."
Some 4 million Americans are infected with hepatitis C, which causes
cirrhosis and liver cancer. Every year, about 10,000 of them die as a result
of the disease-versus about 15,000 a year for AIDS (news - web sites). And
the number of hepatitis C deaths is expected to triple in the next decade.
Yet misinformation, fear, and ignorance are still adding to the considerable
physical burden of the disease, making it unnecessarily difficult to get
diagnosed and treated.
"There are a lot of ignorant people on the job," says an infected police
officer we'll call Nick. "They'll treat you like a leper if they find out."
To avoid this fate, Nick has told hardly any co-workers about having the
virus. Nevertheless, his illness has been hard to hide. Diagnosed as being
in the second of four stages of hepatitis C, which means his liver is
already scarred, he says he's been constantly fatigued to the point of being
unable to work. After more than a year of feeling under the weather, during
which he found himself trapped in a building alongside the twin towers on
September 11 ("Try running from the collapsing World Trade Center when
you're feeling weak," he jokes darkly) and working as much as 60 hours a
week right after the attacks, Nick went out on sick leave in December. But
when he went before the medical board in January, it acknowledged his
hepatitis infection but denied him a line-of-duty disability designation.
What's more, like so many others with hepatitis C, Nick has been struggling
with the exorbitant cost of medication. The newest drug regimen-a
combination of interferon and ribavirin that fully removes the virus in
slightly more than half of the patients-is more effective and more tolerable
than previous treatments. But the drug combo costs some $26,000 a year,
making it a financial burden for some and fully out of reach for others,
even among the insured. Police officers, who receive prescription benefits
through their union, have a $5000 annual cap on drug costs for each family,
a limit Nick says he hit in just two months.
The cost of the new drugs exceeds the limit of many other insurance plans,
as well. "The cap is a huge issue," says Douglas Dietrich, chief of
gastrointestinal disorders and liver treatment at Cabrini Hospital.
Insurance companies "are always trying to find some excuse not to pay for
it," Dietrich says. And Medicaid doesn't pay for the test necessary to
determine the level of virus in the blood, which costs about $150.
Without much information about the disease or an inexpensive way to be
tested, most people with hepatitis C still don't know they're sick. Among
police officers, firefighters, and emergency workers, who represent just a
tip of the iceberg of New Yorkers afflicted with the virus, there are
undoubtedly thousands of infections still undetected. When firefighters in
Philadelphia underwent department-wide testing for hepatitis C recently, 130
of 2100 tested positive; at that rate, New York City, which has a police
force of nearly 40,000, could have some 2500 infected officers. Both Michael
and Nick say they know others on the force who are infected but afraid to
come forward.
Indeed, while a dozen police officers with HIV on the job have formed a
support group, those with hepatitis have remained largely closeted. The
relative obscurity of the disease ends up making it particularly damaging.
About 20 percent of people who come in contact with the virus rid themselves
of it on their own, but without treatment, the rest develop hepatitis, often
without recognizable symptoms. As many as 50 percent of those go on to
develop serious liver problems, including cirrhosis and cancer.
Because such deadly outcomes could likely be avoided-or at least delayed-by
the new drugs, the disease is also ripe for activism. "We're like 10 years
behind HIV with hepatitis C," says Dietrich, who blames the lack of
attention on the fact that, like HIV, this virus strikes drug users and
other disadvantaged groups. "People with hepatitis don't have a lobby like
the people with HIV do, even though there are four times as many people with
this virus. The huge number of people may be the reason the medical
establishment is trying to not pay for this."
Officers with hepatitis have their own theories about why the disease is
proving a sticking point within the police department. Some say the
reluctance to treat hepatitis C as a real occupational disability is a sign
of discomfort with a virus that is often associated with drug use and sex.
Others say it is to a simple matter of finances. A more charitable view is
that the police department is merely slow to adjust its medical system,
which is usually faced with more traditional line-of-duty injuries. "If I
had blown out my knee, the city of New York would pay for that, no problem,"
say Nick. "But when you get an illness, it's usually not job related, so
there's no mechanism in place for care."
Whatever the explanation, the fact that some of New York's finest are unable
to find sympathy for their condition suggests the even greater suffering
endured by the majority of people with hepatitis C. As many as a third of
homeless are estimated to be infected, though they are rarely diagnosed, let
alone treated. And despite a 2000 ruling that prisoners have a right to the
new treatment, Maddy DeLone, a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society's Prisoners'
Rights Project, says many still don't get it because of a loophole in New
York's policy that requires prisoners to have a sentence of at least a year
in order to receive treatment.
On both sides of the law, people with hepatitis C have a common and wily
enemy in the disease. His days as a patrol cowboy long behind him, Michael
now has his buddies cover for him while he snoozes away part of his time in
the offices. Out on sick leave, Nick is now free to sleep as much as he
wants-and regularly dozes about three hours during the day. Much of the rest
of the time, he spends pondering his illness and his ongoing battle over it
with the police department.
"I just don't get it," he says. "Here's an agency that's sworn to uphold the
law. And then there's a law on the books-and they're just circumventing it.
It's ironic."

I am a young 50 year old African American Female. I live in upstate
New York. I am a single lesbian looking for chat buddies and maybe
more. My conversations are not limited to lesbians, however, I love
women in general. I was only recently diagnosed with the virus.
According to my specialist my liver is normal and I have not had my
biopsy yet. That will probably take place before the end of this
month.
It would be nice to have a companion but, if there is no one
available in my area hit me up and let's become chat mates.

Salix Pharmaceuticals Reports Digestive Disease Week 2006 Update; Monday, May 22
- Two XIFAXAN(R) Posters
5/22/2006 11:00:00 AM EST
BIOWIRE
Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SLXP) today announced results of two
investigator-initiated trials of XIFAXAN(R) (rifaximin) tablets 200 mg that were
presented today at Digestive Disease Week(R) 2006.
Travelers' Diarrhea
Herbert L. DuPont, M.D., School of Public Health, University of Texas-Houston
and School of Medicine, University of Texas-Houston, Houston, TX, et al.
compared the efficacy of the combination of the antibiotic rifaximin and the
antimotility agent loperamide with that of each agent administered alone. A
total of 319 U.S. subjects, studying in Mexico, with acute diarrhea were
randomized in a double-blind study to receive one of three drug regimens: (R)
rifaximin 200 mg TID; (L) loperamide four mg initially followed by two mg after
each unformed stool; or (R/L) both drugs in the same dosage schedule for three
days. Subjects completed a diary each day for five days. Over the five-day
period, the median time from first dose of drug until passage of last unformed
stool (TLUS) was shorter for both rifaximin-containing regimens: R=23 hours,
R/L=19.5 hours and L=41.5 hours (p=0.01). The incidence of treatment failure was
lower with the rifaximin-containing regimens: R=7.5%, R/L=6.5% and L=16.3%
(p=0.032). The median/mean numbers of unformed stools passed for the duration of
illness were lower with R/L 2.5/3.99 than with either treatment alone R 4/6.23
and L 4/6.72 (p=0.002/0.004). In the first 10 hours after dosing, results for
TLUS favored loperamide; however, after the first 10 hours, results favored
rifaximin-containing regimens. An initial loperamide response was also observed
for median number of stools during the first 24 hours: R=2, L=1, R/L=1
(p=0.002). A total of 48 subjects had a TLUS of zero hours: R=10, L=15 and
R/L=23 (p=0.049). The study author summarized that while the loperamide effect
was transient with a high rate of continuing diarrhea, rifaximin treatment
resulted in clinical cure.
Hepatic Encephalopathy
Melissa Palmer, M.D., Plainview, NY, investigated the efficacy and tolerability
of rifaximin for the treatment of stage 1 hepatic encephalopathy (HE) in
patients with cirrhosis due to hepatitis C virus. A total of 37 outpatients were
treated with rifaximin 400 mg TID for 14 days. Patients were assessed 24 hours
prior to the start of therapy and 14 days after completion of therapy for
multiple parameters, including ability to perform mental tasks, asterixis and a
quality of life composite score. Twenty-three patients were receiving pegylated
interferon plus ribavirin for chronic HCV and 17 of these patients also were
receiving a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor for mild IFN-induced
depression. Type 2 diabetes mellitus was reported in 12 patients. Rifaximin
treatment lowered serum ammonia to normal levels in all patients, and overall,
HE symptoms improved. Rifaximin was well tolerated, with a low incidence of
adverse events, and all patients completed treatment.
Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd., headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, develops
and markets prescription pharmaceutical products for the treatment of
gastrointestinal diseases. Salix's strategy is to in-license late-stage or
marketed proprietary therapeutic drugs, complete any required development and
regulatory submission of these products, and market them through the Company's
150-member gastroenterology specialty sales and marketing team.
XIFAXAN(R) (rifaximin) tablets 200 mg is indicated for the treatment of patients
(greater than or equal to 12 years of age) with travelers' diarrhea caused by
noninvasive strains of Escherichia coli. XIFAXAN should not be used in patients
with diarrhea complicated by fever or blood in the stool or diarrhea due to
pathogens other than Escherichia coli. XIFAXAN should be discontinued if
diarrhea symptoms get worse or persist more than 24-48 hours and alternative
antibiotic therapy should be considered. In clinical trials, XIFAXAN was
generally well tolerated. The most common side effects (vs. placebo) were
flatulence 11.3% (vs. 19.7%), headache 9.7% (vs. 9.2%), abdominal pain 7.2% (vs.
10.1 %) and rectal tenesmus 7.2% (vs. 8.8%).
Salix also markets COLAZAL(R) Capsules 750 mg, VISICOL(R) Tablets, OSMOPREP(TM)
Tablets, AZASAN(R), Anusol-HC(R) Cream 2.5%, Anusol-HC(R) 25 mg Suppository,
Proctocort(R) Cream 1% and Proctocort(R) Suppositories. MOVIPREP(R) and
granulated mesalamine are under development.
Salix trades on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker symbol "SLXP".
For more information on Salix please call 919-862-1000 or visit www.salix.com.
Information on the web site is not incorporated in Salix's SEC filings.
DDW is the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and
academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and
gastrointestinal surgery. Jointly sponsored by the American Association for the
Study of Liver Diseases, the American Gastroenterological Association, the
American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the Society for Surgery of
the Alimentary Tract, DDW takes place May 20-25, 2006, at the Los Angeles
Convention Center. The meeting showcases approximately 5,000 abstracts and
hundreds of lectures on the latest advances in GI research, medicine and
technology. For more information, visit www.ddw.org.
Please Note: This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding
future events. These statements are just predictions and are subject to risks
and uncertainties that could cause the actual events or results to differ
materially. These risks and uncertainties include risks of regulatory review and
clinical trials, intellectual property risks, rapid growth and the need to
acquire additional products. The reader is referred to the documents that the
Company files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=1818403

VALEANT SELLS WARSAW, POLAND PLANT
COSTA MESA - 05/23/06 - Valeant Pharmaceuticals International has sold its
manufacturing facility in Warsaw, Poland to Strides Polska Sp. z o.o.
"The Warsaw plant sale is another step forward in the execution of our
manufacturing improvement plan," said Timothy Tyson, president and chief
executive officer, in a statement to the media.
We continue to make excellent progress in the rationalization of our network,
which we believe will assure the achievement of our goal to reduce cost of goods
sold to 20-25 percent by 2008," he said.
Southern California-based Valeant develops, manufactures and markets
pharmaceutical products primarily in the areas of neurology, infectious disease,
and dermatology.
Details of the transaction were not disclosed.
The company was founded in 1960 and has more than 4,500 employees. It chalked-up
$683 million in revenues in 2004 - $606 million from product sales and $77
million in royalties from sales of its Ribavirin brand.
Valeant has sales offices in 23 countries including Australia, Belarus, Canada,
China, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, Russia, Singapore,
Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates.
The closure of the company's plant in Poland leaves the company with
manufacturing facilities in five countries - Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico,
Switzerland, and Puerto Rico.

Hep C group looks to provide support
By Pam Fortner
May 23, 2006
Kathy Thomas has been disseminating information about Hepatitis C for the past
five or six years at monthly meetings. Since assuming the leadership role after
founder Terri Hicklin, Thomas has tried different venues, from churches to
community rooms. Right now, the Hep C Support Group meets in the Springhill Room
at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital.
Thomas says, "No matter where we meet, it's hard to get people to come. There's
a stigma attached to having Hep C. Most people don't want anyone else knowing
that they have it."
That's because Hepatitis C can only be contracted through infected blood. It is
usually spread by sharing syringes or infected water when injecting. So the
general public's idea of someone with Hep C is a drug user.
But that's not the only way to become infected with this virus. Nonsterile
tattooing and body piercing equipment can transmit the virus, too, as well as
blood transfusions. The virus can also be passed from ordinary household
contacts like razors and toothbrushes shared with someone who has the virus.
Remember Naomi Judd's story? She was infected through a needle prick many years
ago when she was a nurse. That's the sneaky thing about Hep C and why it's
called the "silent killer." Many people have it and won't know it for decades.
Four million people in the U.S. are infected with the virus. In the next decade,
four times more people are going to die from Hep C than from AIDS.
Thomas is raising awareness in our area by bringing in pertinent speakers for
the support group's monthly meetings. She is also in touch with support groups
and stays abreast of workshops and events, including those presented by the
Hepatitis C Support Project.
A factor in the difficulty of Thomas' job to inform our corner of the world
about Hep C is the simple fact that not many people know about the disease.
Thomas says, "So far, we haven't found a famous spokesperson to bring Hep C to
the attention of the American public."
The most popular "names" who have come forward to speak for those infected with
Hep C are former drug users, especially some of the "older but now wiser" rock
group members from the 1970s, like Leon Russell and Elvin Bishop - not a very
positive way to separate the stigma from the disease.
Because Hep C is a disease that isn't in the forefront of the American health
psyche, the funding just isn't there. Even the United States Health Department's
own National Institutes of Health will spend $3,084 per patient this year on
HIV/AIDS research, but only $25 per patient to research Hepatitis C.
Even with a lack of financial help, Thomas still tries to pull together limited
supplies of brochures, magazines and other handouts for Hep C patients. One
magazine, simply called Hepatitis, is crammed full of timely information,
including three pages of resources. She would like to have more to give out, but
finances are limited.
One of Thomas' frustrations is that once a patient attends one of her meetings
and acquires information, "I never see them again. They have the information
they came for." She wants them to return again and again to keep learning more -
and to make sure they're eating healthy. That's one of the most important things
in beating the virus.
Hepatitis means "inflammation of the liver." The liver keeps the body
functioning smoothly. It helps digest food and get rid of toxins and other
things foreign to the body, like drugs. So it's important to eat healthy foods,
especially after being diagnosed with Hep C. Thomas says, "I always try to bring
healthy food to each meeting."
Thomas also stresses the importance of not drinking alcohol. That's hard for
many who are infected by the Hep C virus.
Hep C should not be confused with Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B. Hep A is spread
by eating food or drinking water with infected feces. The body usually cures
itself. Hepatitis B is spread by having unprotected sex with an infected person
or by contact with infected blood. It can be cured.
The only way to tell if you have been infected is to have your blood tested. If
symptoms do occur, the individual may experience any or all of the following:
jaundice, fever, loss of appetite, fatigue, dark urine, joint pain, abdominal
pain, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.
Kathy Thomas can tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Hep C. Come by
one of her meetings. If you want to make her really happy, keep coming.
ooo
The Nonprofit Spotlight appears once a month. Items to be included in Pam
Fortner's weekly nonprofits column need to be received by 5 p.m. each Wednesday
for the column that will appear in the following Monday edition. Send
information to Pamela Fortner at The Union, 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley 95945;
e-mail nonprofits@...; or fax to 477-4292.
Nevada County Hep C Group
Kathy Thomas
265-2317
www.nchepc.org
nchepc@...
Meetings are held the fourth Friday, January through October
Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, Springhill Room
The public is welcome
Related Web Sites
California Hepatitis C Task Force
www.californiahcvtaskforce.org
HCV Advocate
www.hcvadvocate.org
American Liver Foundation
www.liverfoundation.org
Hepatitis C Choices
www.hepcchallenge.org/manual
Hepatitis Magazine
www.hepatitismag.com
Events and workshops
June 1, 1 to 3 p.m., workshop for nurses presented by Ken Morgan, chairman,
Hepatitis C Support Project
Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, Classroom A
577-3111
Health Fair, June 2, 3 and 4
Riverfront Pavilion, Marysville
Music legends Leon Russell, Elvin Bishop and the group "A Beautiful Day" will
perform
http://www.theunion.com/article/20060523/NEWS/105230120

Hey Stuffenough
That sounds cool. If I run into any teens with Hep, I will send them
your way.

I am Trishdish13's daughter. I am 18 years old I started a group for
teens and kids. its a place for teens and kids to share their
feelings regarding Hep C. If they, a loved one or friend has Hep C
this is a safe place to talk about it. It's also a place to find
friends who understand and know how you're feeling
I hope you check it out, and if you have teens or kids let them know
they are welcome
the address is

By Peggy Peck
Special to DG News
WASHINGTON, DC -- April 29, 2002 -- Hepatitis C recurs significantly
sooner after living donor liver transplantation than after cadaver
liver transplantation and appears more likely to occur with smaller
grafts, researcher said at the American Transplant Congress,
Transplant 2002.
Masahiko Taniguchi, MD, and colleagues from the University of
Colorado Health Science Center, Denver, United States, reported that
average number of days "to HCV recurrence was about half as long
after living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) compared to cadaver
liver transplantation (CLT) recipients." This is a significant
consideration, said Dr. Taniguchi, since "55 percent of the LDLT
patients at our center are HCV patients. We think, therefore, that
LDLT may be unwise in a HCV patients."
Between April 1999 and November 2001, 55 patients underwent LDLT at
his center. Twenty-nine of these patients were HCV positive. During
the same period 59 HVC patients underwent CLT.
Diagnosis of recurrent HCV was based on increased transaminase levels
(AST), positive serum HCV-RNA, and histological findings on liver
biopsy. Graft size was standardized by the ratio of graft volume to
standard liver volume (GV/SV ratio). Peak level of total bilirubin
(peak T-bil) was used as an index of graft function, and the length
of stay was used as a measure of clinical course.
The average number of days until HCV recurrence was 90 among the LDLT
and 168 among the CLT patients.
"Longer length of stay and higher peak T-bil post-transplant were
both markers for early HCV recurrence," said Taniguchi. He said that
AST levels in patients with early HCV recurrence also "remained
consistently higher during the first 30 days post-transplant."
Taniguchi said that "in LDLT there is a possibility that the graft
fibrosis induced by HCV recurrence is accelerated by graft
regeneration and inflammation caused by poorer graft function in the
early stage after transplantation."
Asked if the results could be explained by more aggressive
immunosuppression sometimes used in LDLT, Taniguchi said the findings
did "not appear to be related to immunosuppression."

Hey Hermit
That's good advice K.I.S.S......keep it simple stupid. I always seem
to make things more complicated or into a big Project, when i just
need to keep it Simple.

Drugs Preserve Organs for Transplant
By LAURA MECKLER
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 2,300 additional organs could be available for
transplant each year without recruiting new donors, researchers said
Tuesday. The key: a trio of drugs administered to brain-dead patients that
help preserve the organs.
The drugs allow transplant programs to retrieve more usable organs from each
existing donor, according to a review of 18 months of data comparing donors
who were given the drugs and those who were not.
``There's a lot of effort being placed at getting more donors. Another way
to get more organs is to see if you could get better utilization out of the
existing donors,'' said Dr. Myron Kauffman, a medical consultant to the
United Network for Organ Sharing.
Last year, 6,083 patients died waiting for transplants, network officials
said Tuesday. Theoretically, one-third of them could have received
transplants had the drugs been universally used, according to the research
presented at the American Transplant Congress.
``That's a phenomenal number of organs nationally,'' said Ed Kraus, director
of organ recovery for the Upstate New York Transplant Services in Buffalo.
His organ bank uses the drugs, but typically only for trauma victims.
``I suspect this paper will have very far-reaching effects,'' he said.
``Will it change and become the national standard? I wouldn't be surprised
if it did.''
At issue is the use of hormonal resuscitation drugs, which were first
recommended in the late 1990s by a British heart surgeon who found they
helped preserve hearts.
The drugs are administered after patients have been declared brain dead and
their families have agreed to donation. When someone is brain dead, there is
no brain activity, no chance of recovery and the person is legally dead. But
machines can keep the heart beating and blood circulating to preserve the
organs until they can be removed.
Researchers examined all brain-dead donors between January 2000 and June
2001 and found 584 had received the drug trio and 8,185 had not.
Transplant programs will use any organs that are medically suitable. Those
who had received the drugs donated an average of 3.8 organs; for those who
didn't, the average was 3.1.
Researchers extrapolated the difference in donation rates for each organ to
all 5,921 brain-dead donors in 2001, adjusting for differences including
age, gender, race and cause of death. They found that applying the higher
donation rates to the entire group yielded an additional 2,362 organs.
Specifically, it produced 924 more kidneys, 278 hearts, 290 livers, 414
lungs and 456 pancreata.
``There's no reason why it couldn't be used theoretically on every donor,''
Kauffman said. ``We hope by getting the message out with this presentation
that it will be used more widely.''
The only downside is money: The drugs cost $2,000 to $3,000 per donor. The
costs are added to the other expenses involved with procuring organs and
charged to the transplant recipients and their insurers.
``When you consider the costs saved by transplantation, that's just a drop
in the bucket,'' said John D. Rosendale, a lead researcher and
biostatistician at the transplant network.
He said the study makes it clear that the drugs have not been widely used,
with just 6 percent of donors getting them in 2000 and the first half of
2001.
The drug combination, known as the Papworth Cocktail, includes a
hydrocortisone bolus and infusions of vasopressin and tri-iodothyronine.
Together, they prevent cell linings from inflaming, improve cardiac function
and stabilize blood pressure.
The decision to use the drugs is typically made by the organ transplant
coordinators who arrange for donations. All organ banks use the drugs at
least on occasion, but it may be difficult to persuade them that they need
to use them more often.
UNOS spokeswoman Anne Paschke said the network plans to publicize the
results in publications and mailings aimed at transplant coordinators and
others.
Lynn Driver, executive director of the Indiana Organ Procurement
Organization, isn't convinced that his organ bank should use the drugs more
often.
``I think we're doing a fairly good job in knowing when to use it and when
not to,'' he said. ``Sometimes it works, and sometimes it just doesn't
work.''
On the Net:
United Network for Organ Sharing: http://www.unos.org
04/30/02 18:25 EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.

del slept most of the day. I had the nurses check on him twice because his
internal clock is screwed up from last nights sleepers I guess.
miracles do happen ya know..
TO TERRY
your welcome honey..if anyone did NOT get the Terry webshots e-card please
e-mail me with TERRY CARD in the subject..it was pretty witty on my
part..:::sigh:: true..but still really damn funny
nite all
~Bayla Moo and Kirby~
The Three Musketeers
We believe in miracles.......................<3

Pam I asume you ment other e-m.Nothing in there!Anyway.Wanted to talk on
tele.about Delphi.personal-stuff that possible?My dime! important to me!!!Can we
do it un posted?Not that big a deal i guess.Just would prefer this time.Hermit.
PeachStatePam <figment@...
firmly believe in K.I.S.S. and in kissing
LOL if i didn't keep my life as simple as possible i wouldn't be able to
accomplish anything :-) BTW....... check your other mailbox :-) Hope
to hear from you soon!!
Peace and Love,
Pam
"As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat." - Ellen Perry Berkeley

hey there hermit.......... i firmly believe in K.I.S.S. and in kissing
LOL if i didn't keep my life as simple as possible i wouldn't be able to
accomplish anything :-) BTW....... check your other mailbox :-) Hope
to hear from you soon!!
Peace and Love,
Pam
"As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat." - Ellen Perry Berkeley

Pam,
Your dedication to this disease and the never ending quest for a cure makes me
proud to know you! Thank you for all your hard work and dedication from someone
who really appreciates all you do for us!
Sincerely,
Randy
PeachStatePam <figment@...
Hep C group looks to provide support
By Pam Fortner
May 23, 2006
Kathy Thomas has been disseminating information about Hepatitis C for the past
five or six years at monthly meetings. Since assuming the leadership role after
founder Terri Hicklin, Thomas has tried different venues, from churches to
community rooms. Right now, the Hep C Support Group meets in the Springhill Room
at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital.
Thomas says, "No matter where we meet, it's hard to get people to come. There's
a stigma attached to having Hep C. Most people don't want anyone else knowing
that they have it."
That's because Hepatitis C can only be contracted through infected blood. It is
usually spread by sharing syringes or infected water when injecting. So the
general public's idea of someone with Hep C is a drug user.
But that's not the only way to become infected with this virus. Nonsterile
tattooing and body piercing equipment can transmit the virus, too, as well as
blood transfusions. The virus can also be passed from ordinary household
contacts like razors and toothbrushes shared with someone who has the virus.
Remember Naomi Judd's story? She was infected through a needle prick many years
ago when she was a nurse. That's the sneaky thing about Hep C and why it's
called the "silent killer." Many people have it and won't know it for decades.
Four million people in the U.S. are infected with the virus. In the next decade,
four times more people are going to die from Hep C than from AIDS.
Thomas is raising awareness in our area by bringing in pertinent speakers for
the support group's monthly meetings. She is also in touch with support groups
and stays abreast of workshops and events, including those presented by the
Hepatitis C Support Project.
A factor in the difficulty of Thomas' job to inform our corner of the world
about Hep C is the simple fact that not many people know about the disease.
Thomas says, "So far, we haven't found a famous spokesperson to bring Hep C to
the attention of the American public."
The most popular "names" who have come forward to speak for those infected with
Hep C are former drug users, especially some of the "older but now wiser" rock
group members from the 1970s, like Leon Russell and Elvin Bishop - not a very
positive way to separate the stigma from the disease.
Because Hep C is a disease that isn't in the forefront of the American health
psyche, the funding just isn't there. Even the United States Health Department's
own National Institutes of Health will spend $3,084 per patient this year on
HIV/AIDS research, but only $25 per patient to research Hepatitis C.
Even with a lack of financial help, Thomas still tries to pull together limited
supplies of brochures, magazines and other handouts for Hep C patients. One
magazine, simply called Hepatitis, is crammed full of timely information,
including three pages of resources. She would like to have more to give out, but
finances are limited.
One of Thomas' frustrations is that once a patient attends one of her meetings
and acquires information, "I never see them again. They have the information
they came for." She wants them to return again and again to keep learning more -
and to make sure they're eating healthy. That's one of the most important things
in beating the virus.
Hepatitis means "inflammation of the liver." The liver keeps the body
functioning smoothly. It helps digest food and get rid of toxins and other
things foreign to the body, like drugs. So it's important to eat healthy foods,
especially after being diagnosed with Hep C. Thomas says, "I always try to bring
healthy food to each meeting."
Thomas also stresses the importance of not drinking alcohol. That's hard for
many who are infected by the Hep C virus.
Hep C should not be confused with Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B. Hep A is spread
by eating food or drinking water with infected feces. The body usually cures
itself. Hepatitis B is spread by having unprotected sex with an infected person
or by contact with infected blood. It can be cured.
The only way to tell if you have been infected is to have your blood tested. If
symptoms do occur, the individual may experience any or all of the following:
jaundice, fever, loss of appetite, fatigue, dark urine, joint pain, abdominal
pain, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.
Kathy Thomas can tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Hep C. Come by
one of her meetings. If you want to make her really happy, keep coming.
ooo
The Nonprofit Spotlight appears once a month. Items to be included in Pam
Fortner's weekly nonprofits column need to be received by 5 p.m. each Wednesday
for the column that will appear in the following Monday edition. Send
information to Pamela Fortner at The Union, 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley 95945;
e-mail nonprofits@...; or fax to 477-4292.
Nevada County Hep C Group
Kathy Thomas
265-2317
www.nchepc.org
nchepc@...
Meetings are held the fourth Friday, January through October
Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, Springhill Room
The public is welcome
Related Web Sites
California Hepatitis C Task Force
www.californiahcvtaskforce.org
HCV Advocate
www.hcvadvocate.org
American Liver Foundation
www.liverfoundation.org
Hepatitis C Choices
www.hepcchallenge.org/manual
Hepatitis Magazine
www.hepatitismag.com
Events and workshops
June 1, 1 to 3 p.m., workshop for nurses presented by Ken Morgan, chairman,
Hepatitis C Support Project
Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, Classroom A
577-3111
Health Fair, June 2, 3 and 4
Riverfront Pavilion, Marysville
Music legends Leon Russell, Elvin Bishop and the group "A Beautiful Day" will
perform
http://www.theunion.com/article/20060523/NEWS/105230120

SPONSORED LINKS
Hepatitis c