I have a question, how do you know HCV was not transmitted by sharing personal grooming items? Like piercing jewelry... Bet no one asked? Also, check the local dentist office.

We've had microbiologist after microbiologist tell us that the HCV cells in seminal fluid are dead cells, corpuscles, and can no way transmit the virus as HCV is blood to blood only. Seems sharing personal items, the jewelry or maybe razors or similar, may play a larger role here and you are misinformed by those that benefit making HCV a STD.

Love your site, keep up the good work, but also beware on this information. Here's a link to non-drug related transmission of HCV More ...

First this parasite is so small no one has ever seen it....ever look at a condom under high power?.......it looks like is made of lace...if this parasite were transmitted through sex everyone in the world would be infested.......

As someone who heads up an organization called Local Area Support For Hepatitis, I can tell you that it is so rare for Hep C to be sexually transmitted that it is almost unheard of. Hep C is almost always transmitted through blood-to-blood contact. It is not at all uncommon for those who are infected to be diagnosed after they have already been infected for 10, 20, or 30 years. Often, men and women who have been married for many years will find out that one person is positive and has never passed the virus on to their spouse. For those people, unless the uninfected spouse is made very uneasy by that diagnosis, no change in behavior is advocated (use of condoms, etc). The exceptions are men who have sex with men (the anal area is more subject to bleeding) and men who have sex with a woman who is menstruating. Even during sex, the risk is much greater for male-to-female transmission than the other way around because the area of exposure is so much greater for women. This article is rife with misinformation! Shame on you, Alan Ripka! Are you phishing for business? Good luck proving this in court!

Hollis Pickett
LASH
Redding CA