Lawford says Illegal Drug Using Baby Boomers Should get tested for HCV

[Guest guest]

Lawford says Illegal Drug Using Baby Boomers Should get tested

for HCV

By ALEX CUKAN

UPI Health Correspondent

ALBANY, N.Y., Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Actor and author Kennedy

Lawford wants people to know -- especially his fellow baby boomers --

that they may be at risk for hepatitis C virus, or HCV, even if

they've only had a few snorts of cocaine.

" If you fall in any of the major risk factors -- illegal drug use,

blood transfusion(s) before 1992, 10 or more sexual partners,

dialysis or have had a tattoo -- you should get tested for hepatitis

C because you are not going to know by the way you feel, " Lawford

told UPI's Caregiving.

" There are a lot of people who didn't think they did anything

particularly risky who are at risk for hepatitis C -- you share a

dollar bill to snort a line of cocaine or get a tattoo -- but there

are some 4 million people estimated with hepatitis C and 70 percent

don't know it. "

Lawford, perhaps best-known as having played the character Charlie

Brent on the ABC-TV soap opera " All My Children " in the early 1990s

and as the nephew of President F. Kennedy, was diagnosed with

hepatitis C in 2001. He details the long list of illegal drugs he

took from age 13 to 30 in his book " Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir

of Snapshots and Redemption, " now out in paperback. He was treated

and is healthy today. He calls himself one of the lucky ones.

It is estimated that most chronic HCV infections are contracted

through transfusion of unscreened blood or via injected drug use,

according to the CDC.

" You hear about hepatitis C and you think Pamela and it's

one of those rock 'n' roll diseases and that it can't happen to you, "

Lawford said.

But HCV is the most common chronic infectious disease in Europe and

North America, affecting an estimated 170 million people worldwide.

It is transmitted by blood-to-blood contact, according to the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

However, studies have shown that the use of needles and syringes is

not the only drug-related risk factor for HCV.

A study in New York City, published in 2001 in the journal Substance

Use & Misuse, found a higher-than-expected prevalence of hepatitis C

infection among non-injecting drug users.

In one study, 17 percent of the subjects who denied a history of

injection drug use were found to be infected with HCV compared to a 2-

percent infection rate in the general population. Among women from

one of the study sites in East Harlem who reported use of non-

injection heroin, the rate of infection was as high as 26 percent.

" If hepatitis C can be transmitted through the sharing of non-

injecting drug paraphernalia such as straws or pipes, we need to

include this information in public health messages targeted to this

population, " said Dr. Alan I. Leshner, director of the National

Institute on Drug Abuse.

In another study in 2001, published in the American Journal of Public

Health, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco

found low-income women between the ages of 18 and 29 in San Francisco

were infected with HCV at a level almost 2.5 times higher than the

HCV infection rate for the general population in the United States.

" San Francisco had the highest HCV infection level, 4.3 percent --

nationally the level is 1.8 percent. Injection drug use is the

strongest risk factor, but we were surprised to find that co-

infection with herpes simplex virus type-2, or HSV-2, was also

significantly associated with hepatitis C infection, " said lead

author A. Page-Shafer. " This suggests that infection with

HSV-2 may be a co-factor for sexual transmission of hepatitis C. "

One of the problems of treating hepatitis C is that the infection can

be dormant for decades and people may not realize that something they

did in their 20s can make them sick when they are in their 50s.

" Hepatitis C can stay dormant in your blood and liver before you

develop any symptoms. I was tested for hepatitis C in 2001, but that

might have been 15 or 20 years after I had contracted the illness, "

Lawford said.

" It's my intention to make people aware that a simple $40 blood test

is a lot better than a having to get a liver transplant. This is a

life-threatening disease, but there is a cure.

" But you must be tested -- people have to be proactive and ask for

the test. I would be dead if I had not been tested. "