Why Baby Boomers Should Get Tested for Hepatitis C

If you were born between 1945 and 1965, you need to get tested for hepatitis C. Even if you look and feel well, the virus could be quietly causing damage to your liver. Over the course of a few decades, hepatitis C can cause scarring of the liver and liver cancer. By the time symptoms of liver scarring manifest, including yellow skin or fluid in the abdomen, the one-year survival rate is around 60 percent.Baby boomers are five times as likely to be infected with the virus as other adults. That’s because the hepatitis C epidemic in the U.S. peaked around the middle of the last century, when doctors reused syringes without realizing the risk to patients. Blood and organ donors were not screened for hepatitis C until the early '90s, which means some people were infected when they received an organ donation or blood transfusion.  Continue reading...