Happy 20th Birthday, hepc.bull! Hope you will enjoy HepCBC’s 20th Anniversary hepc.bull Newsletter! Pages 9-12 of this issue are a reprint of the original March 1996 issue!
We can hardly believe it ourselves...the hepc.bull is 20 years old? YES!
GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT: Much of the March, 1996 issue shows the awkward beginnings of what became an inspiring grassroots movement of, by, and for Canadian HCV+ people! This bulletin was not produced by HepCBC as we know it today, but by HeCSS (Hepatitis C Survivor’s Society) which became the Hepatitis C Society of Canada (HeCSC). HepCBC eventually separated from HeCSC, incorporating May 13, 1999 as HEPCBC Hepatitis C Education and Prevention Society.
WHY HEPCBC: This new organization was able to do things the parent organization would not support, such as bus ads, educational pamphlets, the hepc.bull, and distribution of Peppermint Patti’s FAQs. The bus ads, urging people to “GET TESTED for HEP C, the SILENT KILLER!” first came out in 2000. Things have changed only a little, in some ways; we’re still doing bus ad campaigns and trying to get as many people as possible tested! JOAN KING (Joan Diemecke back in 1996) and CD MAZOFF, PhD, who are both still on the HepCBC Board, have made sure the hepc.bull has been faithfully published 11 months a year, every year since they took it over in 2000.
EARLY DRUGS: Skip to the last article on the last page, and you’ll find the beginning stirrings of research progress including mention of now-forgotten Infergen by Amgen, an un-named vaccine by Chiron, Roferon by Roche, and a combo therapy of thymosin alpha + alpha-interferon by SciCLONE, plus one sentence mentioning what would become the eventual “winner” for the succeeding 16 years, Schering Plough’s ribavirin + alpha interferon.
WARTS & ALL: We had to reformat a little to publish pages 9-12 (the original March, 1996 hepc.bull) as searchable text, but here you go, including “Warts (such as a long article on Ozone Therapy) and All”. ENJOY!