November 14th, 2006 @ 9:58pm
Ed Yeates Reporting
Fifty to sixty thousand people in Utah have an infection and most -
probably 90 percent - don't even know they have it. While many were
infected as long as 30 years ago symptoms are just now showing up.
It's like reading an insidious mystery. Imagine trying to read that
mystery. You check out the book only to find the pages at the end are
missing. You never find out when it happened or who did it!
Kathy Stay is in her 30's, only to find out she contracted a virus a
long time ago. When and how, nobody knows for sure.
Doctors told Tim O'Rourke he had picked up the virus probably when he
was only 18-years old.
Tim O'Rourke, Victim: "I was devastated. I went back to work and
closed my office door and cried."
The list goes on, including people like Mick Worthen and Bruce Hatch
who need to see health care workers all the time.
Bruce Hatch, Victim: "The problem with the disease is it sneaks up
on you. Twenty or 30 years, you don't notice you are losing energy and
that you're getting anemic and fatigued, when it's just one day at a
time."
A lot of people some 30 years later are just finding out they have
Hepatitis C, now considered the number one blood borne virus in the world.
Amber Jarrett says symptoms are often vague and overlooked.
Amber Jarrett: "People tend to dismiss the symptoms as just stress
or a busy life."
Twenty five percent of those infected get rid of it on their own, but
75 percent don't.
Tim's not a smoker, nor a drinker, doesn't shoot drugs. He has a family
and a good job, and yet, Hep C suddenly triggered inside his body, and he
now needs a liver transplant to survive. He tires easily, often using the
lunch hour to take a nap in his car. Like Bruce Hatch, the virus attacked
without warning.
Amber Jarrett, Salt Lake Valley Health Department: "It's not
unusual for somebody to actually get diagnosed and already have cirrhosis
and have no symptoms."
Where and when did all these folks get infected? Thirty years ago it
could have been contaminated mass immunizations in the military. Bruce
Hatch was in Vietnam.
Bruce Hatch: "Kind of an assembly line injections that they would
give you, kind of like cattle going down the chute."
Tim was also in Vietnam, during the cleanup at the end of the war.
Tim: "Every time we landed on a tarmac or any given base in
Thailand or whatever, some medic would come up and wouldn't let us off the
plane until we got all the series of injections."
And for Kathy, it could have been when she was a baby.
Kathy Stay, Victim: "I had a transfusion as a baby, and Hep C can
be dormant for approximately 30 years."
People you wouldn't consider high risk for Hep C have it and are
getting sick. That's why support groups are calling for more widespread
routine screening and testing.
