Dear Hepatitis C Support Project (HCSP) / HCV Advocate Readers:

As of August 13th, 2019, our organization (HCSP) has been shut down. Additionally, the HCV Advocate website and our blog will be taken off-line.

When I began HCSP more than 20 years ago, there was almost no information for patients about hepatitis C (HCV) to help guide them to obtain medical care and treatment. Back in the day, treatment consisted of a drug called interferon. It was an injectable medication that cured only a minority of patients, and it had severe side effects. Now we have medications in a pill form that can cure more than 90% of people who take these life-saving drugs. Another benefit of the newer drugs is that they produce few side effects compared to the older HCV medications, and the drugs are typically taken for 8 to 12 weeks.

But the fight is not over! There are still millions of people infected with HCV who have not been tested, treated, and cured.

We now have a whole new generation of HCV advocates and activists to work with current HCV advocates and activists. The fight goes on!

I have treasured my work in HCV and the many friends, patients, and advocates I’ve met over the years. Many of these include the people at HCSP, our collaborators and contributors that I have with worked over the last 20 years.

One of the organizations we have collaborated is with Hep. Please look to Hep for the latest information about HCV, HBV and HIV coinfections. Click here to visit Hep Magazine.

Thank you for the support and encouragement you have provided to me and HCSP over the past 20 years.

To Your Health,

Alan Franciscus
Executive Director, Hepatitis C Support Project

Editor-in-Chief, HCV Advocate

For Rosanne Christensen, Lucinda Porter, RN, Leslie Hoex, Kate Christensen, Judith Barlow, and Clara Maltras