Calling all boomers: The real reason you should get tested for hep C

The baby boomer generation may well be the first in civilization to have taken its health and longevity for granted.  

Get sick? The average member of this population might once have asked. Die? Who, me? 

{mosads}But as boomers are now quickly discovering, nobody stays healthy forever, much less attains immortality.

That’s why it’s time to get real, especially when it comes to hepatitis C. And that means it’s time for boomers – anyone born between 1945 and 1965 – to get tested. 

Though reliable statistics are unavailable, boomers in large numbers appear to be ignoring that advice. The reasons why are numerous: they know little or nothing about the disease, they doubt they’re running any risk, they believe insurance coverage for the test is unavailable, or they suspect treatment is largely ineffective and rife with side effects.  

Hepatitis C? Who, me? You must be kidding. I eat broccoli, sleep eight hours a night and can do 50 pushups. 

Well, boomers should think again. Otherwise – and let me put this as plainly as I know how – they could already have the disease and get even sicker and die. 

The urgency for taking such necessary precautions is growing. Awareness of hepatitis C among boomers remains dangerously low. All too often, even while serious liver damage is silently occurring, the disease has no symptoms, and can go long undetected, sometimes for decades. The longer people live with the virus, the more likely they are to develop life-threatening liver disease and even liver cancer. 

Get tested? Why? What’s the worst that could happen to me? 

How about this for an answer: an estimated 35 percent of baby boomers with undiagnosed hepatitis C already have advanced liver disease.  

But if more boomers get tested, maybe that percentage can be lowered.  

Here are the facts about the connection between hepatitis C and baby boomers in the United States. 

·       Three in every four Americans with hepatitis C — more than two million in all — are boomers.   

·       Of the approximately 17,000 Americans who die annually from the virus, 75 percent are boomers. 

·       No generation of Americans is at greater risk for hepatitis C than boomers. They’re five times more likely than other American adults to have the disease. 

That data comes courtesy of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And that’s why since 2012 the CDC has recommended that all baby boomers get tested for hepatitis C. In fact, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine, endorsed that recommendation the following year.

Why are boomers so at risk?  

Many could have become infected from receiving a blood transfusion or organ transplant before 1992, when widespread screening of blood virtually eliminated hepatitis C from the blood supply. Others may have become infected from injecting drugs, even if only once. Still, many baby boomers remain unsure how or when they were infected. And even boomers with no known risk factors or behaviors should still take CDC’s advice and talk to their doctor about getting tested for hepatitis C – because they may have had contact with the virus without knowing it.

None of the reasons for skipping the test, whether denial or delusion, are adequate arguments. Most insurers now cover the routine medical test for hepatitis C for boomers at no cost, and Medicare reimburses for the screening as well. New and effective treatments, with few side effects and high cure rates, are increasingly available.  

Here’s another incentive: one-time testing of all boomers would detect an estimated 800,000 undiagnosed hepatitis C cases and save as many as 120,000 lives.  

Nothing should stop you from finding out the truth. If you test positive, you can take a follow-up test and talk to your doctor about getting treated. In most cases, though, you’ll learn you’re in the clear. In either case, you should know your status. Knowing is better for your health than staying in the dark.

May is Hepatitis Awareness Month, thanks to CDC. So if you’re a boomer, go. Get tested. Promise yourself you’re going to do it. Consider it non-negotiable. And while you’re at it, tell your contemporaries to do the same. 

After all, health and longevity should never be taken for granted. 

Clary is executive director of the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable, a coalition of more than 250 public, private and voluntary organizations working to fight, and ultimately end, the hepatitis B and C epidemics in the United States.