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Veterans with HCV I treat patients at the Louisville VAMC every other Friday. This is where I started treating HCV in May 1998, and I have a special bond to my many patients there. I am a strong advocate for all HCV infected veterans. If you have HCV and want antiviral therapy, the VA should try to cure you. Now, too many doctors tell veterans "you are not a candidate". Patients with a history of alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, heart disease are too often denied a chance for cure even if they have life threatening cirrhosis. You were a candidate to fight for our freedom, and you are candidate to try to be cured of HCV. Fight for your rights, like you fought for you country. I will help you if I can. hcvets.com is a website where others can help you too. The VA wants money for HCV veterans but does not want to spend the money to treat them. It is bait and switch. GAO report about VA HCV Seven percent of veterans are infected with HCV and 11% of Vietnam era veterans are infected. The VA plans on solving this problem in the year 2025 when most of the Vietnam era veterans are dead. More veterans will die from HCV induced liver failure or liver cancer than died fighting in Vietnam. There will be no WALL for these silent deaths. I have patients whose only risk factor for HCV is serving in our military. We owe these men and women every chance to cure their HCV. The refusal of the VA to provide treatment of veterans with HCV reminds me of the Tuskegee Syphilis scandal. It was the US Public Health Service and not the VA who purposefully failed to treat men infected with syphilis. Instead of curing these men with penicillin, they observed their progression to organ failure and death. Some spread their infection to their wives and to their children. President Clinton made a formal apology on behalf of the American government to the men who were deliberately refused treatment. Which president will apologize to our veterans for the deliberate refusal to treat so many veterans with HCV? I expect the apology to come between 2015 and 2025. Treatment for HCV is more expensive and more toxic than penicillin for syphilis, but the moral imperative is the same. Veterans should be screened for HCV and if infected offered treatment. They should not be given placebos or told that they are not candidates for treatment. Less than 12% of veterans identified with HCV were treated at all VA medical centers in one year. The VA must do a better job. 5,611 veterans started treatment between October 2003 and September 2004. Pharmacy records indicated that less than 5% persisted on treatment at week 48 (AASLD Abstract 1196 Hepatology, Vol. 42 No 4 Suppl. 1 2005). 2003 GAO report states VA must do more. The current VA actions are having very little impact on HCV in veterans. If only 12% of identified patients are even offered treatment, and less than 5% of those treated complete treatment, it means that less than 1% of veterans identified at all VA medical centers with HCV are cured. What if only 12% of women with breast cancer were treated and the rest told that they were not not candidates? Imagine the outrage. The Louisville VAMC closed my clinic to new patients in Oct 2001, because I broke their pharmacy budget. I treated 298 HCV infected veterans between May 1998 and October 2001. The VA continues to deny it, but air gun vaccinations do spread hepatitis. The CDC documented an outbreak of viral hepatitis B at a weight loss clinic caused by using an air gun to inject medication. HCV can be spread the same way. Some of the military enlistees in line getting vaccinations were already infected with HCV. This has been proven by Dr Seeff from the NIH and is published. 1.8% of African American and 0.1% of white military recruits were infected with HCV Using the same air gun on everyone is like using the same dirty needle. Whenever the same vial of medication is used for several patients, hepatitis can be spread. This has been documented in hemodialysis units. Unsafe vaccines have been documented with reuse of syringes. Millions of Egyptians were infected by unsafe vaccinations. How many persons were infected by using the same razor at the military barber shop? It is a shameful fact that the VA continues to deny service connection for American military veterans whose only risk factor for HCV is being in the military. The VA denied service connection to one veteran shot in the chest in Vietnam in 1968 and transfused. He died from HCV liver cancer in 2003. Another patient was hospitalized with hepatitis during military service and the VA claims his HCV is not service connected. Another recent case is a veteran who in Korea in 1952 was injured and given blood. He was infected with HCV, developed cirrhosis and died from liver cancer. The VA refused to give benefits to his widow. They claim that the liver cancer was not caused by HCV and that his HCV had no symptoms. I guess death is not a strong enough symptom for them. There are many other cases where veterans were denied service connection. You can get information and help from
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