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Appalachia gripped by hepatitis C epidemic, bracing for HIV
AP ^ | 6/4/15 | CLAIRE GALOFARO

Posted on 06/04/2015 4:05:03 AM PDT by markomalley

Patton Couch shook his head and clenched his teeth, recounting the night four years ago when he plucked a dirty needle from a pile at a flophouse and jabbed it into his scarred arm.

He knew the odds; most of the addicts in the room probably had hepatitis C.

"All I cared about was how soon and how fast I could get it in," he says. "I hated myself, it was misery. But when you're in the grips of it, the only way I thought I could escape it was one more time."

Couch, 25 years old and one month sober, is one of thousands of young Appalachian drug users recently diagnosed with hepatitis C. Yet public health officials warn that it could get much worse.

Two-hundred miles north, Scott County, Indiana, is grappling with one of the worst American HIV outbreaks among injection drug users in decades. Kentucky, with the nation's highest rate of acute hepatitis C, might be just a few dirty needles away from a similar catastrophe.

"One person could be Typhoid Mary of HIV," said Dr. Jennifer Havens, an epidemiologist at the University of Kentucky's Center on Drug and Alcohol Research, who has studied Perry County drug users for years as the hepatitis rate spiraled through small-town drug circles there. An explosion of hepatitis C, transmitted through injection drug use and unprotected sex, can foreshadow a wave of HIV cases.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Kentucky; US: Tennessee; US: West Virginia
KEYWORDS: appalachia; hepatitisc; hepc; hiv
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1 posted on 06/04/2015 4:05:03 AM PDT by markomalley
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To: markomalley

We’re supposed to feel sorry for them and open up our wallets for another government program? I just can’t feel any sympathy for someone who knowingly engages in reckless dangerous behavior and then suffers the consequences.


2 posted on 06/04/2015 4:10:49 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: from occupied ga

I understand the sentiment, but as our economy collapses a lot of the social pathologies historically found in urban slums are now spreading throughtout the general population like wildfire. People with no sense of purpose are basically self-medicating for deep-rooted chronic depression; we are watching the death (literally) of a civilization. Not that the country itself will disappear, or that there will be some violent armageddon;instead, it will limp along increasingly populated by foreigners and will bear no resemblance at all to the WASP country founded nearly 250 years ago that dominated the world for about a century.

I’m shocked by the number of young “Anglos” today with spotty employment, poor education, no intention of having families, and who are solely focused on smoking marijuana - the opium of our day.


3 posted on 06/04/2015 4:16:17 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: markomalley
"Yet public health officials warn that it could get much worse."

Not that much worse since the number of individuals who engage in behavior that will put them at risk is fairly small. The vast majority of West Virginians who don't engage in the risky behavior are at absolutely no risk.

4 posted on 06/04/2015 4:17:54 AM PDT by Sooth2222 ("In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." - Joseph de Maistre, 1753-1821)
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To: from occupied ga
We’re supposed to feel sorry for them and open up our wallets for another government program?

I could support ONE government program in this case: a sanitarium. That not so much for them, but to protect public health.

5 posted on 06/04/2015 4:18:39 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: Sooth2222
The vast majority of West Virginians who don't engage in the risky behavior are at absolutely no risk.

Unless one of those vast majority come into contact with an infected person. Therefore, see post #5.

6 posted on 06/04/2015 4:19:34 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: markomalley

There’s a vaccine for Hep. C.

While driving to Myrtle Beach and back recently, I noticed a number of billboards, purchased by the CDC, advising everyone born between 1945 and 1964 to be tested for Hep C.


7 posted on 06/04/2015 4:23:19 AM PDT by Tax-chick (I don't find this stuff amusing anymore.)
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To: Tax-chick
There’s a vaccine for Hep. C.

Thanks, didn't know that.

But vaccines don't help those already infected, do they?

8 posted on 06/04/2015 4:25:05 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: kearnyirish2
are now spreading throughtout the general population like wildfire

No they're not. They're spreading among the lowlife scum, but the majority of the general population that does not engage in shooting up with dirty needles and anal sex is at very low risk.

The ones in the general population who are at risk are the medical personnel who are forced to treat these dregs and because of HEPA laws have no idea if they're infected or not.

9 posted on 06/04/2015 4:27:32 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: markomalley

No, vaccines don’t help the currently infected, but getting one would be a wise choice for the uninfected in an area with a growing incidence of the disease. In addition to dirty needles - tattoos, as well as drug use - and sexual transmission, Hep. C can be spread by unsanitary food preparation and in medical situations.


10 posted on 06/04/2015 4:27:47 AM PDT by Tax-chick (I don't find this stuff amusing anymore.)
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To: from occupied ga

I guess my point was that more and more people are ending up as “lowlife scum”, so to speak; they know they have no future, and it reflects in their behavior.


11 posted on 06/04/2015 4:29:10 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: markomalley
are now spreading throughtout the general population like wildfire

There is actually a cure for hep C these days. I don't know if it's 100% effective, but I do know it exists, and a full treatment course costs about $28,000 which of course the "activists" are screaming about since it seems too expensive for their pampered druggie parasites to afford (but somehow they can afford drugs to get high)

12 posted on 06/04/2015 4:31:08 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: markomalley

unmentioned...... total number of new cases


13 posted on 06/04/2015 4:32:54 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc.;+12, 73, ..... No peace? then no peace!)
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To: markomalley

Most of Heroine addicts are crossovers from the now much more regulated and controlled oxytocin.

When the clamp down oxytocin hit these areas, most turned to heroin.

Not making excuse for these poor souls, but the oxytocin vacuum was filled with free primed herione customers.


14 posted on 06/04/2015 4:34:24 AM PDT by guyfromjrz (fresh breath, it speaks for itself.)
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To: bert
unmentioned...... total number of new cases

The story probably referenced this journal article: Increases in Hepatitis C Virus Infection Related to Injection Drug Use Among Persons Aged ≤30 Years — Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, 2006–2012

From the article:


15 posted on 06/04/2015 4:37:38 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: kearnyirish2
more and more people are ending up as “lowlife scum”, they know they have no future, and it reflects in their behavior

While I can't really dispute your comment since I A. have no real statistical data and B. Suspect it's true even without the data, you have to ask WHY they end up like that. People have free will, and every life is the result of a series of choices. One or two bad decisions probably won't drop you into the bottom of society. You have to work at making it to the bottom of the heap by consistently making the wrong life choice. Party or study? Get high or stay sober? Engage in anal sex with strangers or avoid that sort of thing? Get a steady job or collect welfare? Drop out a bastard or six with as many different baby daddys as you can find or look for a permanent relationship? etc.

There are people who end up in the sh.t through no fault of their own. people who get cancer or are the victims of accidents caused by other people, etc., and for them I do have sympathy, but for the vast majority of 0bama voters who want to have a good time at the expense of the rest of us, the sooner they autodarwinate the better.

16 posted on 06/04/2015 4:43:37 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: from occupied ga

sovaldi (gilead)


17 posted on 06/04/2015 4:59:36 AM PDT by SteveH
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To: markomalley

Obama’s killing the coal industry isn’t helping Appalachia.


18 posted on 06/04/2015 5:21:17 AM PDT by Does so (SCOTUS Newbies Will Imperil America...)
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To: markomalley

Self elimination program


19 posted on 06/04/2015 5:30:03 AM PDT by VTenigma (The Democratic party is the party of the mathematically challenged)
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To: from occupied ga

It’s very effective and the cost is closer to 80k.

I know someone cured by it.


20 posted on 06/04/2015 5:31:17 AM PDT by dmz
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