Goodbye to the Boys on the Bus: How the VA Cured My Hepatitis C

Goodbye to the Boys on the Bus: How the VA Cured My Hepatitis C

By R.V. Scheide June 9, 2015

The magic pill arrived in 2013 in the form of sofosbuvior, which belongs to a new class of drugs known as nucleoside analogs. In clinical trials, sofosbuvior, in combination with interferon and ribavirin, completely eradicated the virus in more than 90 percent of the test subjects, and cut treatment duration from 48 weeks to 12 weeks. The test subjects didn't just go into remission. They continue to be virus-free. They are in essence cured, something the old treatment with interferon and ribavirin cannot claim.

While sofosbuvior is a genuine miracle drug, it comes at a high price. When it first hit the market, each pill cost $1000, which over the course of the 84-day treatment (12 weeks) adds up to $84,000. However, because the Veteran's Administration has a large pool of Hepatitis C patients ...

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