David Lombardo Times Union Nov. 16, 2020 Updated: Nov. 16, 2020 8:05 a.m.

ALBANY  — Terri Wilder fondly recalls the fanfare surrounding the spring day in 2015, when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo formally embraced a plan to end the AIDS epidemic in the state.
“I was really proud of that work,” said Wilder, who had been part of the task force assembled six months earlier by the governor to craft the blueprint that he would publicly tout and aggressively implement.

Based on that experience, she was optimistic about her appointment by Cuomo in the fall of 2018 to a task force charged with making recommendations toward eliminating hepatitis C, a viral infection that can cause serious liver damage and effects more than 200,000 New Yorkers.
But nearly 18 months have passed since the hepatitis C task force held its final meeting and their work hasn’t been released by the Cuomo administration. A key accountability measure is caught in limbo, task force members are discouraged from publicizing their recommendations and the virus has likely made a resurgence during the pandemic.
“I don’t know where (the hepatitis C recommendations) are at this point. I stopped asking because it’s too frustrating,” said Wilder, who was a director of an HIV and hepatitis C clinical education program. “I think that work is just as important as our work with ending the AIDS epidemic, and those lives are just as important.”
State health department spokesman Jonah Bruno maintains the task force’s plan will be released “soon,” but did not address the delay or the secrecy surrounding the task force.
New York has traditionally been at the forefront of national efforts to combat hepatitis C, with the highlight being a 2013 law that dramatically expanded testing for the virus among baby boomers. And while that testing law reflected the need at the time, the state’s focus hasn’t necessarily kept up with emerging trends, according to Mike Selick of the Harm Reduction Coalition, which tries to mitigate the negative effects of drug use.
“We found out in the last year or two that young people injecting drugs upstate is one of the biggest populations living with hepatitis C,” Selick said. “Guess where most of our programs are targeted? To middle age and older, Black and Latino men in (New York City).”
In the summer of 2018, after receiving a letter from a coalition of 62 health care providers, caregivers and activists about the need for a coordinated response to the “alarming rise” of the virus, Cuomo announced the creation of a hepatitis C task force.
The hope from the coalition was that a task force endorsed by the governor would have better luck in steering state policy. Many in the coalition were veterans of an earlier partnership with the state Department of Health that produced over 30 hepatitis C recommendations in 2017 that hadn’t been implemented.


The focus on hepatitis C was bolstered by a two-year, $5 million annual commitment in state funds - a 400 percent year-to-year increase - with the bulk of the money going upstate.
“It was very exciting at the time,” remembers Ronni Marks, one of the few task force members who had also lived with the virus.
After an initial Albany meeting in November 2018, the task force members did the bulk of their work in groups on the phone until convening back in Albany for their last meeting in June 2019, when they signed off on a final plan.

“We crossed the t’s, we dotted the i’s, and made sure everybody was on board,” Marks said.

TO CONTINUE READING:​ https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Hepatitis-efforts-shelved-as-experts-fear-surge-15728536.php?IPID=Times-Union-HP-CP-Spotlight#photo

Compiled by INPUD and the Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD)
The need to change our language in relation to people who use drugs has become an increasing topic of discussion, but there is still a long way to go. People who use drugs are highly diverse and their relationship with drug use takes many different forms. Current prohibitionist approaches to drug use and ‘war on drugs’ rhetoric does little to encourage language that acknowledges this diversity. Instead, it promotes and maintains negative stereotypes that construct people who use drugs as morally flawed, inferior, unreliable, and dangerous.
Language does not stand still. It is dynamic, and the language and words we use are always changing. This makes it difficult to be absolute in the way we use language. Nevertheless, there are times when certain language and words used in relation to people who use drugs can be disempowering, divisive, confusing, or give offence.
Compiled by INPUD and the Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD), this guide aims to explain our current position on the use of language and to provide clear advice on what is acceptable to us as communities of people who use drugs. We want to encourage all people to be thoughtful about the language and words they use, and have therefore provided a reference guide that identifies stigmatising language and gives non-judgemental, strengths-based, and respectful alternatives.
Read  HERE:https://www.inpud.net/sites/default/files/000596_INP_Terminology%20booklet_v11.pdf

John Ward- The Lancet
Published Oct 29th 2020020https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32282-0



This year, Michael Houghton, Harvey Alter, and Charles Rice were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the hepatitis C virus (HCV).
1
 Equally important to recognising the rigorous methods employed by these scientists, the Nobel committee also credited this discovery with later development of diagnostic tests and curative treatments. Science is not an end but a means to achieve a greater purpose. The Nobel committee issued a challenge, “For the first time in history, the disease can now be cured, raising hopes of eradicating Hepatitis C virus from the world population”.
1
 I, together with my colleagues in the Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination, agree.
The discovery of HCV placed the world on the path to elimination. Within a few years, reliable tests were available to screen donated blood, reducing the risk of HCV from one in every 14 units to one in every million. Over the following decades, with improvements in blood safety and infection control, new HCV infections declined an extraordinary 90%.
2
​TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32282-0/fulltext​

Having hep C can increase your odds of this other tricky liver condition. Get the facts on risk factors and treatment options.

​Lara DeSanto HEALTH WRITER Oct 20, 2020
iHEALTHCENTRAL

If you have hepatitis C, the fun doesn’t stop with one illness. Often, this liver disease is linked to several other health conditions, including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Understanding how the two are connected can help you learn the symptoms to look out for, plus the best ways to get treatment if the need arises. We asked the experts for more details about NAFLD and how it’s connected to hepatitis C. These are the need-to-know facts about living with both of these diseases.

What Is Fatty Liver Disease?
As the name implies, fatty liver disease occurs when fat deposits build up in your liver. “The fat in the liver can damage it, causing inflammation and scarring,” explains Rena Fox, M.D., a professor of general internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a UCSF Health hepatitis specialist. Although doctors still aren’t sure exactly what causes it, NAFLD is linked to obesity, insulin resistance, high blood sugar, and high triglycerides levels.
There are different types of fatty liver disease, but NAFLD is the most common, affecting 30% to 40% of adults in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While some types of fatty liver disease are linked to heavy alcohol use, people with NAFLD are not over-drinkers.
One of the challenging things about this disease is that it can be hard to detect, since it often has no obvious symptoms until the liver damage is already extensive. “When someone is at a very advanced stage, they may have some pain in the upper-right part of the abdomen, and they may feel tired,” says Dr. Fox. “At a very late stage, they could have fluid in the abdomen, and they could develop yellowing of the eyes and skin. We want to help patients avoid getting to this point.”
There’s also a more aggressive subtype of NAFLD called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is generally diagnosed via liver biopsy. “Patients with NASH are really at risk for progression of disease,” says Rohit Satoskar, M.D., a transplant hepatology specialist at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. This subtype is less common, accounting for about 20% of people with NAFLD. It’s not clear why some people develop NASH, but if left untreated, NASH can lead to serious health problems like cirrhosis or liver cancer.
The NAFLD and Hepatitis C ConnectionWhy should you care about fatty liver disease if you have hepatitis C? While one condition doesn’t necessarily cause the other, there is an important link. “Even without hepatitis C, patients can have fatty liver disease—they can be separate entities,” says Dr. Satoskar. “However, in patients that do have a hepatitis C infection, there is a higher prevalence of fatty liver disease than in the general population.”
In fact, up to 50% of people with hep C also have fatty liver disease. “We believe that the hepatitis virus itself does something to the metabolism of fats within the liver that can lead to more fat deposition,” he says.
This increased risk might have something to do with your particular strain—or genotype—of hep C virus. “If a patient with hepatitis C has what’s called ‘genotype 3,’ they are a little bit more likely to get fatty liver disease,” Dr. Fox says.
About 20% of people with hepatitis C are infected with genotype 3, according to a 2018 study in Annals of Gastroenterology. And while experts don’t know for sure why genotype 3 leads to fatty liver disease more often than other genotypes, it’s likely related to a unique reaction that occurs between the genotype 3 virus and the cells in the liver that leads to greater expression of fatty acid enzymes. Those with hep C genotype 3 who do get fatty liver disease are also more likely to see the disease worsen faster, leading to liver fibrosis.
Even without this particular genotype, people with hep C can get fatty liver disease for other reasons. “Any hepatitis patient could get fatty liver disease from all of the other conditions that put one at risk,” says Dr. Fox, namely being overweight and having high blood sugar or cholesterol issues.

TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.healthcentral.com/article/hepatitis-c-and-fatty-liver-disease

Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81(5), 556–560 (2020).
              
Matthew Bonn , a,* Adam Palayew , M.Sc.,b Sofia Bartlett , Ph.D.,c Thomas D. Brothers , M.D.,d Natasha Touesnard , a & Show All...
+ Affiliations
*Correspondence may be sent to Matthew Bonn via email at: matthewbonn00@gmail.com.
https://doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2020.81.556

Abstract    People who use drugs (PWUD) face concurrent public health emergencies from overdoses, HIV, hepatitis C, and COVID-19, leading to an unprecedented syndemic. Responses to PWUD that go beyond treatment—such as decriminalization and providing a safe supply of pharmaceutical-grade drugs—could reduce impacts of this syndemic. Solutions already implemented for COVID-19, such as emergency safe-supply prescribing and providing housing to people experiencing homelessness, must be sustained once COVID-19 is contained. This pandemic is not only a public health crisis but also a chance to develop and maintain equitable and sustainable solutions to the harms associated with the criminalization of drug use.
​
​The syndemic argumentThe criminalization of personal drug use marginalizes people who use drugs (PWUD), affecting their life, liberty, and security. Prohibition forces PWUD to engage in illegal activities to procure and consume drugs. This creates an international underground economy that generates billions of dollars despite escalating enforcement efforts (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2020b). This foments an environment in which drugs have inflated prices and unpredictable content, are potentially toxic, and are often consumed in unsafe ways. Along with deaths caused by the unintentional consumption of toxic drugs, there are also severe social punishments for drug use, such as being unemployed due to a low-level drug possession charge and/or being denied housing because of a criminal record, resulting in persistent homelessness. These conditions greatly increase the risk of overdose and overdose deaths, as well as injection-related infections—including HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV)—while pushing PWUD away from the traditional health care system (Csete et al., 2016).

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and the associated public health response of social distancing, physical isolation, and international border restrictions, creates greater harms for PWUD who rely on an illicit drug supply (United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 2020). Without a regular supply of drugs, PWUD are less able to physically isolate and will need to travel to obtain funds or purchase drugs. Physical isolation leads to using drugs alone, which increases the risk of overdose death. Many harm reduction and addiction treatment services have had to scale back based on social distancing guidelines (Bartholomew et al., 2020; Dunlop et al., 2020). International border restrictions related to COVID-19 have made the illicit drug supply even more unpredictable and deadly (Canadian Centre for Substance Use & Addiction & Canadian Community Epidemiology Network, 2020; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2020a).
As a consequence, PWUD face concurrent public health emergencies (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2019): increasing overdoses, HIV, HCV, and COVID-19. The confluence of these factors is leading to an unprecedented syndemic. A syndemic occurs when multiple health and social issues intersect and interact to worsen or accelerate disease progression and social outcomes (Singer et al., 2017; Tsai et al., 2017). Health issues such as HIV and HCV overlap with each other because they share similar routes of transmission and risk factors, and multiple social issues frequently co-occur with these infections, such as poverty, homelessness, and injection drug use (Butt et al., 2017; Cleland et al., 2017; Morano et al., 2013). For example, among people living with HCV infection, HIV co-infection accelerates liver disease progression. Poverty and homelessness are frequently found to reduce the likelihood of HIV antiretroviral medication adherence, so when HIV/HCV coinfection, poverty, and homelessness co-occur, they result in accelerated disease progression and poorer health outcomes (Klein et al., 2013).

TO CONTINUE READING:
https://www.jsad.com/doi/full/10.15288/jsad.2020.81.556fbclid=IwAR0CNHeD6S_wKe17xgbE17NFruCHlibCWAOISw8Oe4_RojvH2h7WoNwfgk4
​
​

This year, the medicine prize carries particular significance amid the corona virus pandemic, which has highlighted the importance of medical research.

Oct. 5, 2020, 5:37 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 5, 2020, 6:55 AM EDT
By Yuliya TalmazanResearchers Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice have won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus, the committee announced on Monday.
Prior to their work, the committee said, the discovery of the Hepatitis A and B viruses had been critical steps forward, but the majority of blood-borne hepatitis cases was still unexplained.
“The discovery of Hepatitis C virus revealed the cause of the remaining cases of chronic hepatitis and made possible blood tests and new medicines that have saved millions of lives,” the statement shared by the committee said.
Alter and Rice were both born in the US while Hougton was born in the U.K.
An estimated 71 million people have chronic hepatitis C virus infection, according to the World Health Organization. A significant number of those who are chronically infected will develop cirrhosis, scarring of the liver caused by long-term liver damage, or liver cancer.

Thanks to their work, highly sensitive blood tests and antiviral treatments for the virus are now available.
TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/three-win-nobel-prize-medicine-discovery-hepatitis-c-virus-n1242090​


Recommendedories

By Hilary Swift and Abby Goodnough New York Times
Photographs by Hilary Swift ,Sept. 29, 2020, 2:59 a.m. ET

BARRE, Vermont — On the first Friday in June, Jefrey Cameron, 29, left his home around midnight to buy heroin. He had been struggling with addiction for seven years but had seemingly turned a corner, holding down a job that he loved at Basil’s Pizzeria, driving his teenage sister to the mall to go shopping and sharing a home with his grandmother. But then the coronavirus pandemic hit.
When he returned home that night and tried the product, it was so potent that he fell and hit his head in the bathroom. Mr. Cameron texted a friend soon after, saying that he had messed up and would go to a 12-step meeting with a friend that weekend.
“I promise I’m good and I can’t get in any more trouble tonight,” he wrote. “Sweet dreams, if you wake up before you hear from me definitely call me. The sooner I get up and into town the better.” When Mr. Cameron woke up, he used the rest of the powder — largely fentanyl, not heroin, his family would later learn — from a small bag with a bunny stamped on it. Less than five hours after he sent the text, his grandmother found him dead.
TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/health/coronavirus-overdose-opioids-addi.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20200929&instance_id=22606&nl=toda​

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH- NEWS RELEASES

A National Institutes of Health-funded study found that people with substance use disorders (SUDs) are more susceptible to COVID-19 and its complications. The research, published today in Molecular Psychiatry, was co-authored by Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The findings suggest that health care providers should closely monitor patients with SUDs and develop action plans to help shield them from infection and severe outcomes.
By analyzing the non-identifiable electronic health records (EHR) of millions of patients in the United States, the team of investigators revealed that while individuals with an SUD constituted 10.3% of the total study population, they represented 15.6% of the COVID-19 cases. The analysis revealed that those with a recent SUD diagnosis on record were more likely than those without to develop COVID-19, an effect that was strongest for opioid use disorder, followed by tobacco use disorder. Individuals with an SUD diagnosis were also more likely to experience worse COVID-19 outcomes (hospitalization, death), than people without an SUD.
“The lungs and cardiovascular system are often compromised in people with SUD, which may partially explain their heightened susceptibility to COVID-19,” said Dr. Volkow. “Another contributing factor is the marginalization of people with addiction, which makes it harder for them to access health care services. It is incumbent upon clinicians to meet the unique challenges of caring for this vulnerable population, just as they would any other high-risk group.”
​
​TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/substance-use-disorders-linked-covid-19-susceptibility

September 12, 2020

NEW YORK & MAINZ, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ: BNTX) announced today that they have submitted an amended protocol to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to expand the enrollment of their Phase 3 pivotal COVID-19 vaccine trial to up to approximately 44,000 participants which also allows for the enrollment of new populations.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200912005013/en/
Enrollment in the trial has been proceeding as planned and the company expects to reach its initial target of up to 30,000 participants next week. The proposed expansion would allow the companies to further increase trial population diversity, and include adolescents as young as 16 years of age and people with chronic, stable HIV (human immunodeficiency viruses), Hepatitis C, or Hepatitis B infection, as well as provide additional safety and efficacy data.
The pivotal trial is event-based and there are many variables that will ultimately impact read-out timing. As stated previously, based on current infection rates, the companies continue to expect that a conclusive readout on efficacy is likely by the end of October.

To Continue Reading:
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200912005013/en/
​

BY MORGAN MCKAY NEW YORK STATE
PUBLISHED 5:01 AM ET AUG. 25, 2020   SPECTRUM NEWS

Restaurants and bars are now joining a growing list of businesses that will be able to carry opioid antagonists, like Narcan, in the case of an opioid-related overdose. 
Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation on Monday that expands the list of establishments that are allowed to possess and administer opioid overdose reversal medication. This list will now include malls, beauty parlors, theaters, hotels, restaurants, bars and retail establishments. 
"
​We have made tremendous progress in combating addiction across New York and while we have seen a reduction in opioid deaths over the past 10 years, there is still work to be done," Cuomo said.
The bill will also give these businesses protection under the "Good Samaritan Law," so they will not be penalized for providing medical attention.

"By authorizing the use of these reversal drugs without fear of liability, this new law will also provide peace of mind to residents and business owners around the state who are inclined to help those in desperate need of help," bill sponsor Senator Pete Harckham said. 

​TO CONTINUE READING: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/buffalo/ny-state-of-politics/2020/08/25/cuomo-signs-bill-to-expand-narcan-use?cid=id-app15_m-share_s-web_cmp-app_launch_august2020_c-producer_posts_po-organic