Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

scopeblog.stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 276 posts

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#221

Post by samstave »

PierceJoy wrote: post #220
chimeracoder wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the cost of treatment is in the tens of thousands of dollars[1]. It really isn't. That's like walking in to a car dealership, asking how much the car is, and then accepting the salesman's first offer at face value. In reality, insurance will typically cover HCV treatment in the US. Because there's so much competition between HCV drugs, the insurers are able to negotiate deals that are less than a tenth of what the…

The parent comment was replying to a suggestion they partner with organizations who typically help low income and homeless people. I doubt most of them have insurance.

most dont - but you'd be surprised at how many actually do. For example, there are a TON of Vets with PTSD and have coverage through the VA, and MANY are addicts and homeless and low income - but still covered through the VA.

Edit:

Source, experience in this area and my brother is director of the VA health system for the state of Alaska.

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#222

Post by clavalle »

masonic wrote: post #210
phkahler wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> They're priced this way because they're 80-90% cheaper than the previous treatment. Your statement is true. But it also hints at another problem, which is that the default is to price life saving treatments as high as the market will bear. It's a pricing model in line with extortion, the only exception being that the extortionist doesnt have to threaten to kill you - the virus or whatever condition is already maki…

It's a pricing model in line with extortion This common attitude is why I fear that we won't see true cures for anything, except perhaps from government labs. This class of HepC drugs (Solvaldi et al) are cures . Not chronic treatments , but cures. The developer only has that one course of treatment to make all the revenue they ever will on that patient. So what happens when they are told that they can't charge price…

If everyone in the United States with Hepatitis C was treated at a cost of $50K it would be $150 billion dollars.

That's over 8 times what Viagra pulled in over the past 20 years.

I'm not sure where the line between reasonable profit-taking and extortion lies, but it's probably somewhere south of the GDP of Kuwait.

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#223

Post by mderazon »

hep_c_throwaway wrote: post #184
Waterluvian wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely out of curiosity: why did you need a blood transfusion as a child?

I have this genetic disorder called G6PD [0]. It's pretty common, with about 5% of human beings having it. Most people who have it go through life without ever finding out they have it, because it has almost no symptoms. One of the symptoms though is that eating fava beans can kill you. I basically ate a bunch of these beans and soon went into shock. I was rushed to the hospital but the doctors couldn't make an accur…

Pretty common condition in Israel among Iraqi descendant Jews. Babies regularly get screened at birth

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#224

Post by tonfa »

wtdo wrote: post #189
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s basically to the point where it’s: > Go to and be treated for

As an American, how does that work in practice? I know I can go to Vietnam and be treated for a small amount (I was in a Vietnamese hospital for a couple of days due to a really bad strep infection and dehydration as I was unable/unwilling to swallow, and in a separate incident, also had a round of rabies shots after being bitten by a dog there). I figured it was cheap because everything is cheap there and no one the…

> But if I go to Australia, Canada, UK, or any other country, how do I get access to this cheap healthcare without becoming a citizen or paying taxes?

You'd likely pay more than a resident/citizen who may not pay or may a token amount. But this full price will still be very small in comparison to US (eg full price of doctor's consultation in France is like 25 EUR).

Even Switzerland which is expensive for Europe in terms of healthcare is cheap comparatively (a simple ER visit might be a few hundreds, not thousands).

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#225

Post by redis_mlc »

hep_c_throwaway wrote: post #122
crobertsbmw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever figure out why you got HepC? Did you conclude that you had it from birth, or did you remember that you stepped on a nail while traveling in Vietnam?

Yes, I got it from a blood transfusion when I was a child. The Hepatitis C virus wasn't identified until 1989, and blood bank wasn't wide spread until early 1990s, so anyone who received a blood transfusion before then is at risk.

For those reading, you're not going to believe this but ...

From the 70's to the 80's the medical community thought it was a good idea to mix blood from hundreds of donors and then use in transfusions.

That ended up killing nearly all of the hemophiliacs of that era, plus a good percentage of moms giving birth. Add in Hep C, and hospitals were basically butcher shops.

I followed the AIDS and hemophilia crisis in the press in real-time from the first one-column-inch Kapsoi Sarcoma stories. Boy, it wasn't pretty how the medical community reacted in slow motion.

There's an utterly horrifying Canadian movie about this.

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#226

Post by burfog »

oleg_k wrote: post #140

I’m working on direct-to-consumer STD testing in JasonHealth.com . Some thoughts on Hep C testing: Hep C Antibody is a very inexpensive test. We charge $25 for it. It takes a long time for the body to produce the antibodies after infection. This test is only 90% sensitive after 12 weeks ( https://www.hepatitisc.uw.edu/go/screening-diagnosis/acute-d... ). Testing shortly after possible infection with this test is not…

That is obviously not "full STD screening". Missing:

human papilloma virus (HPV), mycoplasma genitalium, trichomoniasis, chancroid (haemophilus ducreyi), Lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV), Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), molluscum contagiosum, scabies, crabs

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#227

Post by crankylinuxuser »

masonic wrote: post #210
phkahler wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> They're priced this way because they're 80-90% cheaper than the previous treatment. Your statement is true. But it also hints at another problem, which is that the default is to price life saving treatments as high as the market will bear. It's a pricing model in line with extortion, the only exception being that the extortionist doesnt have to threaten to kill you - the virus or whatever condition is already maki…

It's a pricing model in line with extortion This common attitude is why I fear that we won't see true cures for anything, except perhaps from government labs. This class of HepC drugs (Solvaldi et al) are cures . Not chronic treatments , but cures. The developer only has that one course of treatment to make all the revenue they ever will on that patient. So what happens when they are told that they can't charge price…

And the cure they "created" was in reality from a university or government lab. Paid for by the citizens.

Ain't regulatory capture and 'release' great?

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#228

Post by zeta0134 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #187
zeta0134 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about the general population, but this seems to be quite common in the homosexual population, especially among males. The big risk there continues to be HIV, but if you're going to get screened regularly anyway, might as well check for everything else. (Source: I am a homosexual male.) I'm not sure there should be all that much stigma attached to it honestly. There are enough non-STI ways to contract som…

> There are enough non-STI ways to contract some of these diseases that I think it makes sense for even married, faithful, and generally low risk partners to get a round of testing every once in a while. Really? Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis? How can you get those without having sex?

I'm not a doctor, so take this with a grain of salt, but generally something classified as an STI has difficulty surviving outside the human body. It's not impossible, and anything that allows that pathogen to get into the bloodstream is a risk factor for the infection to spread. Things like blood transfusions, or unclean practices like needle sharing, could all contribute. Sex is by far the most common means of transmission, but it isn't the only way. It couldn't possibly be; otherwise how would the first human have become infected?

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#229

Post by benchaney »

MisterTea wrote: post #167
vilhelm_s wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the "right" price, you want to incentivize companies to try to develop drugs that will do the maximal amount of good. Like, you could imagine a system where you don't have a free market at all, the government would directly fund both medical treatment (like in Europe) and medical research (like nowhere right now, but you could imagine nationalizing the drug companies). So then, before the hepatitis-c dru…

> I think it's the "right" price, you want to incentivize companies to try to develop drugs that will do the maximal amount of good. So the only incentive to do maximal good is more money. And people wonder why I laugh when it's claimed that we live in a civilized society.

Well, the only financial incentive to do good is money. But that is a tautology, not an observation. There could potentially also be other types of incentives, but I don’t see how they are supposed to apply here.

Re: Hepatitis C kills more Americans than all other infectious diseases combined

#230

Post by refurb »

redis_mlc wrote: post #225
hep_c_throwaway wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I got it from a blood transfusion when I was a child. The Hepatitis C virus wasn't identified until 1989, and blood bank wasn't wide spread until early 1990s, so anyone who received a blood transfusion before then is at risk.

For those reading, you're not going to believe this but ... From the 70's to the 80's the medical community thought it was a good idea to mix blood from hundreds of donors and then use in transfusions. That ended up killing nearly all of the hemophiliacs of that era, plus a good percentage of moms giving birth. Add in Hep C, and hospitals were basically butcher shops. I followed the AIDS and hemophilia crisis in the…

Blood products are still pooled. They often have to be since one single donation doesn’t give enough blood product for a single patient.
Post reply on HN