New medications shown to eradicate hepatitis C.

On its front page Saturday, the Los Angeles Times (4/12, Healy) reported that twenty-five years “after scientists first identified the hepatitis C virus, doctors are declaring victory over an infection that afflicts more than 3 million Americans and kills more of them than HIV. In a series of clinical trial results, a new generation of antiviral medications was able to clear the liver-ravaging virus from virtually all patients’ bloodstreams in as little as eight weeks.” The new medications “are ‘a triumph of modern medical technology,’ said Dr. Jeffrey Tice, a UC San Francisco physician who was not involved in any of the clinical trials.”