Month: June 2002

Categories
News The Fly-By

NAKED CITY

A somewhat official missive recently turned up in our in-box, trumpeting a rather sensuous-sounding civic event, scheduled to occur on July 3, 2002. The letter, which contained more capital letters than one letter should, read, “The Mayor’s Office of Multicultural and Religious Affairs, Division of Public Services and Neighborhoods, City of Memphis anf The Multicultural Public Relations Committee, Cordially Invites You to Proclaim, Pledge, and Celebrate, ‘A Community in Love.'”

With all due respect to those involved, Fly On the Wall would like to officially respond, “Not Until After We’re Married.”

Categories
News News Feature

OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS

GIVE AND TAKE(BACK)

Listen:

My girlfriend wanted me to go on vacation with her this summer. Now she’s acting all wacked out, talking about how we’re practically engaged and dropping hints about the kind of diamond she wants.

I agreed to go to the beach for a week, not marry her. On top of everything, she’s decided that I’m paying for the entire trip because I’m the guy. What the hell?

Signed,

Reluctant

Okay:

As always, I really don’t know. Have you given her any indication that the two of you will be married? Such as, perhaps, saying: I want to marry you as soon as possible? Or, when you’re my wife, we’ll ….? Ideas don’t just come from no where. I’m not saying the idea came from you necessarily; I’m just saying. Maybe she’s got it into her head that only people who are truly, truly in love go on vacation together (an idea she needs to be divested of since it’s totally not true). Who knows?

What I will say, is that if you’re not going to marry her sometime soon or buy her that canary diamond she’s interested in, you need to let her know that. This is one of these holes that if you dig it too deep, you’re going to be trapped in a pit with a tiger. Better stop now while it’s still shallow and you can still escape with both your legs.

But about you paying because you’re the guy? Well, that just ain’t right. Unless you make a bazillion dollars more than she does (I think the latest statistics I saw said that a woman makes 7′ cents for every dollar that a man earns, but you know, whatever … just because dry cleaning costs us more, as do our clothes and makeup, haircuts, birth control … I better stop; I’m starting to change my mind) or have taken on the role on “Sugar Daddy” in this particular film, she should share the cost of vacationing with you. Now, how you’re going to let her know this — you’re on your own (This is like one of those pits we were talking about). I just hope you get to keep your legs. You’ll need them for waterskiing.

Listen:

This loser I was dating just broke up with me. Now I’m leaving town and he wants his furniture back. Can I just take it with me? I’m going to need it when I get there. I want to make sure he doesn’t get it, too.

Signed,

Keeping the Couch

Okay:

I can’t see any reason why you should have to give it back. I mean, morally, you probably should, but if he can’t prove that it’s his and he’s not the type to go to the cops or shoot you over it … And if it’s not going to fill you with sad memories of your break-up or induce psychotic episodes over what a tool you were for dating him, I say, why not? Load up the truck.

BUT. If it is going to make you crazy or he is crazy, you can always just leave it on the side of the road for someone to come pick up (if it’s

nice stuff, I think it takes five minutes, tops). The possibilities of what could happen are endless … it could all get wet and moldy, or animals could nest in it or maybe he would see it on the side of the road and try to load it — by himself — into the back of his car, throwing his back out in the process.

See, I think you should get new furniture whenever you can — it’s such a

hassle to move and re-decorating is so much fun. Unless you really love the color scheme, I’d leave it. The best idea … if you really don’t want him to have it (love hurts, doesn’t it?) is to call the Salvation Army.

Sometimes they’ll do pickups and then you know it goes towards a good cause.

Just an idea.

And, whatever you do, don’t set it on fire.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

DREW GOODEN EXCITED TO BE WITH GRIZZLIES

Drew Gooden, a 6 foot 10 forward out of Kansas,was selected in the 2002 NBA draft lottery by the Memphis Grizzlies as the 4th pick overall. As a star for the Jayhawks Gooden averaged 19.8 ppg, 11.4 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.8 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game. Gooden, an Associated Press First Team All-American and Big 12 Conference Player of the Year, arrived at the Memphis Pyramid with his family wearing a smile. The Flyer interviewed him there.

The Flyer: What are your thoughts on making the adjustment from college to professional basketball and moving from California to Kansas to Memphis?

Gooden: I’ve got to start all over from scratch. I have a new city to live in and make my home. I also have a new career to look forward to and I’m just ready to start.

The Flyer: How exciting is this whole draft process? Does this experience feel surreal in any way?

Gooden: Yeah, it’s finally happening and it’s a dream come true. Coming here today and seeing how happy my family is in Memphis it’s just a great experience overall.

The Flyer: Summer League will be coming soon out at the Pyramid, on the Long Beach State campus, and in Salt Lake City. Tell me what you look forward to doing in those game situations?

Gooden: Just showing guys that I can play at this level and trying to win. I want to win the summer league and make a statement that we are a team that can make the playoffs next year. And just go out there and play and just have fun.

The Flyer: How will you approach playing basketball in the NBA, the greatest level in the world? Or will your mindset just be playing basketball?

Gooden: I have a lot to look forward too and I don’t know the half of what’s gonna happen so that’s why they call us rookies because we don’t know. My eyes are open, my ears are open and I’m just trying to see what’s going to come next.

The Flyer: What do you tell fans who are waiting with excitement in Memphis to see you play?

Gooden: Wait patiently. The time will come.

The Flyer: So, How good is Gooden on the basketball court?

Gooden: How good is Gooden? He’s good enough. I’m the 4th pick in the draft. That says a little something there, but I can show you better than I can tell you.

The Flyer: How does it feel to be selected out of the NBA draft by a legend like Jerry West Who has picked Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and now Drew Gooden?

Gooden: It feels good, just for my name to be mentioned with Jerry West is a good feeling. For him (West) to see something in me says a lot because he has seen a lot of great players and for him to think that I have the same upside and can help this team win means a lot to me.

The Flyer: Is there anything else you want to tell Memphis Grizzlies fans?

Gooden: Like I said, just sit back patiently and wait, because this team is on the rise and we’re gonna do some big time things this year.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

Crisis Is Real

To the Editor:

I am writing in response to all the hype regarding the proposed state income tax (Viewpoint, June 20th issue). I am extremely concerned about how a “no new revenue” plan will affect us here in Shelby County. The county school board is asking for more money to fund much-needed new schools. Without tax dollars, how will this be possible? Also, as a student at two local colleges, I am tired of having to pay higher tuition each year. My University of Memphis tuition will be going up 17 percent this fall; last year it went up 15 percent. Without state dollars, I see students paying tuition fees equivalent to private universities, which many cannot afford. While I am not excited about a new income tax, I feel it is a far more responsible route for lawmakers than making awful cuts that will hurt school children, college students, and senior citizens.

The state budget crisis is real.

So real that we may have to pay higher property taxes to make up for money for schools and emergency health care that the state won’t provide. In fact, Memphis and Shelby County schools may close or may never be built if the legislature can’t find new revenue. Many of our local hospitals will be impacted greatly, having to cut needed programs or even close their doors.

One way or another, we have to fund these crucial services, and I would prefer to pay for them with a state income tax that I can deduct from my federal taxes.

Lawmakers should stand up and do the courageous and proper thing and support Jimmy Naifeh’s tax-reform plan. It is simply the right thing to do.

William Hanley

Memphis

Another “Magic Kingdom”?

To the Editor:

In 1965, Walt Disney Productions bought 28,000 acres in Central Florida (about the size of Manhattan). The “Magic Kingdom,” built on approximately 200 of the 28,000 acres, opened in 1971. Later, the company built Epcot Center, Disney MGM Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

In 1976, I moved to Memphis and learned there were 5,300 acres of undeveloped land in the center of Shelby County called Shelby Farms. I was astonished and amazed that a city could be so fortunate to have the equivalent of six Central Parks.

I propose that a Disney development for part of Shelby Farms would be of enormous economic value to the Mid-South area. The development, which would showcase American agricultural enterprise, would be called “Disney Country of Mid-America.”

I propose that the prison facility be relocated, that the city of Memphis and Shelby County become joint-venture partners, and that this partnership lease about a fourth of the property (the northwest corner) to the Disney company.

The revenues for Memphis and Shelby County would be enormous! And Disney Country of Mid-America might just become the catalyst for the cooperation between our government entities that our diverse population has long hoped for. Let’s think big for a change!

J. Kenneth Pfohl

Memphis

Daly Praise

To the Editor:

I want to thank Bruce VanWyngarden for his article on John Daly’s Make-A-Wish golf tournament (“The Right Place At the Right Time,” June 20th issue). It was funny, poignant, insightful, and spotlighted a wonderfully worthwhile event. In short, just what I want to read in the Flyer. More of the same, please.

Lewis Nordan

Bartlett

We’re Number Five!

To the Editor:

The Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco tops out at 853 feet, dwarfing all those pyramids on your list (Fly On the Wall, June 20th issue). I guess that makes Memphis, at best, number five. You may pass this information along to The Boston Globe, if you wish.

David Crook (a Memphis native)

Editor

The Wall Street Journal Sunday

The Memphis Flyer encourages reader response. Send mail to: Letters to the Editor, POB 1738, Memphis, TN 38101. Or call Back Talk at 575-9405. Or send us e-mail at letters@memphisflyer.com. All responses must include name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters should be no longer than 250 words.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Bottom Of the Barrel

Perhaps the courts will end up doing what political rhetoric, newspaper editorials, and scores of public demonstrations have thus far failed to do — find a solution to the state’s ongoing fiscal problem. By now, the statutory limit on legislative days has expired — which, in practice, means no more than that the state is not obliged to pay salary or expenses for any further dalliance in Nashville by the 132 members of the General Assembly who have thus far failed to agree among themselves on how to deal with a looming billion-dollar shortfall in revenues.

Shutting off the legislators’ stipends may not matter much, since, presumably, few if any of them got themselves elected for the sake of a state payday (though, arguably, some have developed a taste for various other forms of lagniappe, some of it stemming from the ranks of lobbyists ever ready to dispense advice and, one way or another, aid and comfort).

Here is how things stood at the beginning of the week that, formally, will end the current fiscal year. A state income tax would provide enough funds, on a recurrent basis, to get the state out of its current dilemma, but House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, who is carrying that ball (or cross) these days, stood to have an even tougher time of it than he did three weeks ago, when, to his and everybody else’s surprise, he fell five votes short of passage in the House. Since then, his prospects have been diminished by sagging momentum in general and in particular by the tragic suicide of Rep. Keith Westmoreland, a Kingsport Republican who favored the income tax, as well as by the return to action of Rep. Sherry Jones, a Nashville Democrat and income-tax foe who is recuperating from an automobile accident.

The so-called DOGS budget (for Downsizing Ongoing Government Services) is still a specter. Prepared by the legislative leadership as what their opponents have charged was a scare tactic, the draconian budget would eliminate whole departments of government, abolish most state parks, and slash deeply into educational funding. Not even the most reckless anti-taxer will espouse the goals of the DOGS budget publicly, though House Finance Committee chairman Matt Kisber of Jackson and several officials in the administration of Governor Don Sundquist warned last week that, if nothing else intervenes, the dogs might end up barking after all.

There is, of course, the late-blooming CATS budget (for Continuing Adequate [but not excessive] Taxes and Services), which a bipartisan group of legislators has proposed as an expedient. Calling for the maximizing of the local sales tax option across the state while imposing “sin” taxes on tobacco and alcohol and raising various levies on the business sector, the proposal has met with a barrage of opposition, not only from the usual special interests but from those who believe that it would further set back the cause of ultimate tax reform.

Some hodgepodge of all the above may occur, and it appears that an idea that once was dismissed out of hand — a call for a constitutional convention to revamp the state’s fiscal structure totally — may actually figure in what is finally passed.

As in each of the previous three years, when the state’s lawmakers managed to talk themselves out of any kind of resolute action, a run on state government’s ever-dwindling reserves is being considered. Even the most optimistic soul in Nashville can see no more than $500 million in the woodwork, however, and to use it up will mean that the cupboard is finally bare. Those candidates for governor who say they can “manage” their way out of the fiscal crisis may have to quite literally start with nothing.

Categories
Book Features Books

Taking the Plunge

The Dive From Clausen’s Pier

By Ann Packer

Knopf, 370 pp., $24

Things were going if not great then well enough for Carrie Bell and Mike Mayer the day Mike took a dive off Clausen’s Pier and wound up a quadriplegic.

Clausen’s Pier: at Clausen’s Reservoir, an hour’s drive north of Madison. Madison: home of the University of Wisconsin, where Carrie and Mike had graduated college just a couple of years before. Madison: Carrie’s and Mike’s hometown as well, with Mike still living with his parents. Carrie and Mike: junior high sweethearts since the day Carrie, age 14, spotted Mike on the school’s ice-hockey team and the two became a couple made for each other. Marriage: only a matter of time, sometime but when? Mike: without much thought, taking a job at a bank. Carrie: at her library job with no greater thought and wearing Mike’s engagement ring. All of which makes Carrie’s spur-of-the-moment decision one night to pack a duffel bag and quit Mike’s bedside, quit Madison entirely, and head in her car for New York all the more a mystery — to Mike, to Carrie’s mother, to Mike’s parents, to Carrie’s best friend Jamie, even to Carrie herself.

Carrie’s decision: not as spur-of-the-moment as those around her might think. And not so much a mystery when one considers Carrie’s unhappiness, ill-defined but unmistakable and simmering for some time. Carrie had been aware of it, Mike had been aware of it, and Mike’s accident brought that unhappiness into full if no more understandable view. Plus, Carrie’d met a guy, a New Yorker named Kilroy who was visiting Madison, one evening at a dinner party, an evening when Carrie couldn’t bring herself to make one more hospital visit and play wife-to-be to an invalid, a role she was finding she couldn’t fill. This guy Kilroy was sharp, worldly. He’d sized Carrie up — hometown girl, no goody-two-shoes maybe but so Midwestern — without putting her needlessly down. Plus, Carrie’d run into another guy, a high school friend from Madison named Simon who’d gone to Yale and come out of the closet and from Yale had moved to New York. Simon, she found, she could talk to, be honest with. There was indeed a world out there. Carrie would join it. She’d look up Kilroy.

She moves in with Simon and the dilapidated brownstone in Chelsea that he shares with a houseful of roommates working to make something of their dreams. She halfway moves in with Kilroy, who shows her a native New Yorker’s Manhattan and gives her a taste of the big-city life she’s been craving and wasn’t getting in her college town hometown.

Something about Kilroy though … he’s smart as hell but hellbent on achieving … not a thing. He knows New York like the back of his hand, but his apartment’s a blank: whitewashed walls, standard furniture signifying nothing. His knowledge of history, science, and literature, pool-playing and fine cooking is considerable, but he settles for temp work and latter-day Marxist pronouncements. He’s mum on the subject of his parents and equally mum on the subject of his given name. When he reveals his age, even less about him adds up, but, hey, Carrie’s crazy about the guy — great in bed, a little aloof sometimes — and willing to put off, to her own bewilderment, the questions put to her by those back home. This isn’t the Carrie they knew and loved, but it’s the Carrie whose arrival’s been overdue. And it took a departure to make that arrival possible.

No departure, though, from this: Carrie’s abiding love, be it in Madison or Manhattan, for sewing, for the feel and measure of fabrics, her joy at working her sewing machine, working from patterns, fashioning new patterns. And in Ann Packer’s meticulously observed first novel, The Dive From Clausen’s Pier, patterning’s the thing, the pattern we put to life, the decisions we do and don’t make, right, wrong, or somewhere in between and for all the right or wrong reasons. Or maybe right and wrong are beside the point, as Carrie’s mother, a therapist, explains (convincingly?) in answer to Carrie’s proper guilt for abandoning Mike:

“[Y]ou do what you do. Not without consequences for other people, of course, sometimes very grave ones. But it’s not very helpful to regard your choices as a series of right or wrong moves. They don’t define you as much as you define them.”

So let Carrie’s final move in this fine novel not be a defining one (it sure has the look of one), and you can argue all you want whether she makes it for all the right or wrong reasons. But this Kilroy character … you don’t see him now or ever with a friend in the world, just as he’d have it and just as for Carrie Bell that’d never do.

Categories
News The Fly-By

NAKED CITY

A somewhat official missive recently turned up in our in-box, trumpeting a rather sensuous-sounding civic event, scheduled to occur on July 3, 2002. The letter, which contained more capital letters than one letter should, read, “The Mayor’s Office of Multicultural and Religious Affairs, Division of Public Services and Neighborhoods, City of Memphis anf The Multicultural Public Relations Committee, Cordially Invites You to Proclaim, Pledge, and Celebrate, ‘A Community in Love.'”

With all due respect to those involved, Fly On the Wall would like to officially respond, “Not Until After We’re Married.”

Categories
News

The Air Up There

Air-quality reports have become a regular feature of local television news: warnings from the Shelby County Health Department to the young, sick, and elderly that our air simply isn’t safe to breathe.

The threat is primarily from ozone, a pollutant exacerbated by the heat and humidity so common during Memphis summers. About one-third of the pollution problem comes from the region’s power plants, which have been harshly criticized by environmental groups for not doing enough to reduce emissions.

Stricter pollution guidelines were established in 1997, but power-industry lawsuits and the Environmental Protection Agency’s foot-dragging have delayed enforcement of the standards. The delay will push 59 Southeastern cities — with 23 million residents — into noncompliance, says a representative from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), an East Tennessee-based environmental group that has filed an intent to sue the EPA.

“The eight-hour ozone standard [that was established] to protect human health in 1997 puts many more areas in non-attainment,” says SACE spokesperson Ulla Reeves. “The power industry has been fighting it, but recently, the courts shot down their appeals. Now, we are trying to hold the EPA’s feet to the fire to enforce the laws that protect public health and the environment.”

Another major air-pollution problem, Reeves says, is the Tennessee Valley Authority’s reliance on outdated, dirty coal-fired power plants. While 56 percent of TVA’s power comes from coal-burning power plants, those plants produce 93 percent of TVA’s nitorgen-dioxide emissions, the pollutant that reacts with sunlight to form ozone.

And sulfer dioxide, the tiny particulate matter that might be more harmful than previously believed, is emitted at twice the levels from coal-burning plants as from new plants.

These old power plants are allowed to slide by the new emissions standards due to a “grandfather clause” that gave power companies the right to operate older plants without installing new technology because they were soon to be retired. Reeves says power companies have invested tens of millions of dollars in these old plants under the guise of routine maintenance without updating their pollution-controls equipment. A lawsuit has been filed, but the case remains in litigation.

“Pollution knows no boundaries. That’s why we need a national cleanup,” Reeves says. “There are hundreds of grandfathered power plants that should have been cleaned up a long time ago. Industry made the upgrades but didn’t install the new technology, resulting in serious pollution problems.”

TVA is installing scrubbers at more than half of its coal-burning plants, including Memphis’ Allen Steam Plant, but this technology will only be used during peak pollution times, Reeves says. SACE recommends shutting down coal-fired power plants and looking for renewable energy options like solar, wind, and geothermal power. TVA currently derives only 1 percent of its power from renewable sources.

Diane Arnst, technical manager for the pollution-control section of the Shelby County Health Department, says Memphis and Shelby County are in compliance with current ozone standards and the standards SACE is suing to have imposed.

There haven’t been any days of dangerous levels of ozone yet this year, Arnst says, but she adds that it’s important to warn the public and commends local television stations for their cooperation. Elevated levels of ozone can cause irritated lungs in asthmatics, young people, and the elderly; higher levels can affect everyone. During high-ozone days, the Health Department recommends that pollution-sensitive people stay indoors with the air conditioning running, and that everyone avoid exercising outside between the peak ozone hours of 4 and 7 p.m.

Sulfer dioxide, tiny particles of soot that bypass the lungs’ natural defenses, might soon be monitored as closely as ozone, Arnst says, adding that preliminary research shows these particles could trigger heart attacks.

Arnst says the recent improvement in Memphis’ air-quality standards is due to a “significant” reduction of emissions from the Allen plant. Two new natural-gas power plants near Lakeland and Arlington are being constructed. Arnst says natural gas is cleaner-burning and provides more power with less environmental impact.

Earlier this month, the Bush administration finally caught up with the rest of the world and issued a report stating that global warming is caused in part by burning fossil fuels. The report detailed how the environment of the United States will be substantially changed in the next few decades — disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves, and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes. However, the administration isn’t proposing any major shift in its policy on reducing greenhouse gases.

A report issued last month by several environmental groups, including SACE and the United States Public Interest Research Group, determined that over 860,000 Tennessee children live near coal-fired power plants. These children are exposed to pollutants that cause many health problems, from asthma attacks to neonatal death and slowed neurological development. The authors of the report urge legislation to protect our children from air pollution.

“[The report] shows that our children’s health is at stake if we fail to clean up these plants, especially since we have the technology to do it,” says Dr. L. Bruce Hill, senior scientist at the Clean Air Task Force and author of the report. “With a plan moving through Congress for a cleaner energy future, now is the time for parents to better understand the risks of air pollution on their children — and the ultimate cost of delayed action.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

Hepatitis C

Carol Westmoreland didn’t think much about it when her body began to feel tired. Working 14-hour days as a client consultant, fatigue had become part of her job. One day in June 1997, she slowed down enough for a doctor’s appointment, and what started as a routine physical soon became the unthinkable.

Westmoreland was diagnosed with hepatitis C already in its late stages. Doctors estimated she had had the illness for at least 15 years. “I was already at stage 3 to 3 1/2 when the doctor found it, but [fortunately], I had no cirrhosis [of the liver],” Westmoreland says during a hepatitis C support-group meeting. She was immediately placed on the organ-donor list, given a short time to live and an even shorter time to find a donor. “I got my liver totally by coincidence,” she says. “The donor had hepatitis B, and I had taken the hepatitis B vaccine for an overseas trip. Of the people that matched the donor, I was the only person on the list who had had the vaccine.” After only four months, Westmoreland received a new liver.

Although she takes 30 pills a day and spends $2,200 a month on prescription drugs, Westmoreland is one of the lucky ones. A twitching in her hands is the only remaining trace of her illness.

The People’s Disease

Westmoreland is one of the four million Americans (estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) affected by the liver disease, one out of every 50 people. Although more than four times more people are infected with hepatitis C as have HIV, most of the carriers don’t know they are infected.

“About 80 percent of people who have hepatitis C don’t know it,” says David Sloas, a gastroenterologist with the Gastroenterology Center of the Mid South. “Many people are not aware that you can have hepatitis C and not have unhealthy liver enzymes. Until the disease becomes advanced, it usually causes very little in the way of symptomatology. That’s why it’s not picked up unless someone has routine screenings and the doctor notices that their enzymes are elevated or unless they give blood.”

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) gets its name from the inflammation (itis) of the liver (hepat) caused by the virus that lives inside liver cells and reproduces. Like hepatitis B, hepatitis C is a blood-borne disease. Because tests were not developed for the C-type virus until 14 years ago, the virus spread silently for years through blood transfusions (before 1992), needle sharing, and tattooing. Many of its recognized victims are 40- to 60-year-olds who are seeing their doctors for other reasons, only to discover they have late-stage hepatitis. “[Hepatitis C] is not a typecast disease. It is an across-the-board disease with no respect for race or gender,” says Sloas.

The American Liver Foundation reports that, following the increased number of blood donations made as a result of the September 11th tragedy, as many as 10,000 people nationwide learned that they were infected with hepatitis C.

No one knows how long hepatitis C has been around. Tests have long been given for the A and B types of the virus. But not until 1988, through DNA analysis, was type C isolated. Before this discovery, the illness was known as “non-A, non-B hepatitis.”

Laboratory tests used to detect hepatitis-C infection include the liver-enzyme test, which measures the amount of certain liver enzymes in the blood. High levels of these enzymes, especially alanine aminotransferase, can suggest liver damage. (Antibody tests are blood tests that look for antibodies against the virus in the blood.) A positive test means that a person has been exposed to the virus because the immune system has started to make antibodies in response to the infection. Doctors can also order viral-measurement tests to determine the amount of virus in the blood. A liver biopsy is performed after the disease has been positively identified. The procedure involves inserting a thin needle into the liver and removing a small amount of tissue to be examined. The biopsy can be used to confirm that a person has chronic hepatitis, to determine the condition of the liver, and to help establish the best treatment.

How Hepatitis C Is Spread

Infection Source

Transmission Possibilities

Definitely

 Rarely Suspected
Between family members

Job exposure to blood

Needle injuries

IV drug use (shared needles)

Transfusions

Hemodialysis

Orally

Sexually

Anal/Oral Sex

Mother to child at birth

Body piercing

Acupuncture/tattooing

Recreational cocaine

Source: American Liver Foundation

Disease Progression

David Prince was on a health kick when his illness was discovered. An avid runner, Prince visited his doctor in 1998 for severe foot fungus and stomach cramps. Thinking the symptoms were due to his exercise regimen, he was shocked to learn that he had been living with hepatitis C since 1975. “I think there’s still a lot that’s not known about hepatitis C,” says Prince. “Some of it is still a guessing game.”

The guessing game is due to the difference in each individual’s response to the virus. “The ongoing inflammation of the liver in some people will progress to cirrhosis, in which the healthy liver is replaced with scar tissue,” says Sloas. “More than 90 percent of the people who contract hepatitis C become chronic [with the disease lasting more than six months]. They do not ‘clear’ it, meaning they keep it, it stays active, they don’t make antibodies to it. And that’s the exact opposite of [hepatitis] B, in which 90 percent clear it and only 10 percent become chronic.”

Most patients live from 15 to 30 years after the point of diagnosis, until, if they are fortunate, a liver transplant is performed. During this time, HCV steadily progresses. The longer a person is infected, the faster the progression. With time, the disease doesn’t slow down, it speeds up. Advanced age and alcohol and tobacco use have been found to speed the progression, as have certain genotypes and subtypes of the virus, according to Sloas. There are six genotypes and many subtypes, with genotype 1 being the most difficult to treat. As the genotype number increases, the disease becomes easier to treat and can result in less damage. But Sloas warns that patients may develop several genotypes and subtypes because the virus can mutate. HIV co-infection increases the risk of cirrhosis and speeds up the progress of the hepatitis virus. Chronic HCV, left untreated, can also lead to liver cancer.

By the time many patients are diagnosed, they are already cirrhotic. Shirley Durst, leader of the monthly support group, explains that HCV is usually divided into four stages, with each stage progressing toward end-stage HCV. At age 57, she is at stage 4. “I have a very scarred, cirrhotic liver,” says Durst. “I’ve had to have my spleen removed because of the scarring.” Durst contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion. Since her diagnosis, she has held the support group together for 10 years.

The progression of the disease has made hepatitis C the leading cause of liver transplants. More than a third of the over 17,000 names on the transplant list have end-stage hepatitis C. The shortage in donor organs will result in almost 2,000 HCV deaths each year, according to the American Liver Foundation.
Estimated cost for a transplant and related procedures can be more than $300,000.

Treatment

“I had my first physical ever in January [2002], and my liver-enzyme levels were high. I had a liver biopsy two weeks ago, and that’s when I found out that I had had hepatitis C for 25 years before [doctors] found it,” says Lynne Andrews. Andrews is new to the support group and admittedly knew nothing about treatment for the disease.

HCV is usually treated with interferon shots (a protein produced by cells in response to infection by a virus) or alpha interferon with ribavirin. Ribavirin is used to slow virus replication and is taken in pill form. Treatment usually lasts six months to a year.

But not all HCV patients respond positively to interferon. “Interferon kicked my butt,” says Westmoreland. “My body would not respond to it. My only chance was a transplant.”

With the different combinations of drugs used to treat HCV, the treatment can be expensive, costing more than $20,000 for 12 months, and it can have uncomfortable side effects. “I had to take antidepressants to combat sudden mood swings,” says Prince. “My appetite was bad at first, but luckily, I stayed the same weight.” Some patients also report flu-like symptoms, including fatigue, fever, head and muscle aches, hair loss, and even worsening of existing heart conditions. Ribavirin may destroy some red blood cells, causing tiredness.

Even with the side effects, the treatments have a more than 50 percent success rate. The virus is never cured but goes into remission or is undetectable in follow-up tests.

Changing Attitudes

The American Liver Foundation predicts that the death rate for hepatitis C will triple over the next 10 years, exceeding the number of deaths due to AIDS. The number of people diagnosed with HCV will also triple. Volunteer doctors on the foundation’s hepatitis C commission estimate that 1.8 percent of a selected population is infected with the virus. “Based on the formula, these statistics seem too high,” says Sloas. “Yes, the number of people diagnosed with HCV will triple, but we will see fewer new cases develop. [For example], hepatitis C patients only make up 5 percent of my clientele.”

The 80 percent drop in new cases is due in large part to medical advances and lifestyle changes: Blood used in transfusions is now being tested for the virus; tattoo and body-piercing establishments must adhere to sterilization requirements for their instruments; and the danger of sharing needles for IV drugs is better known.

“Physicians’ perceptions were different in the past,” says Sloas. “Hepatitis C was thought of as a hippie, druggie disease. A lot of doctors thought a major infection source and transmission possibility was by sexual intercourse.” However, hepatitis C is less likely to be sexually transmitted than hepatitis B, which involves a greater number of bodily fluids, like semen. “The lifestyle choice that is prevalent in new cases is the use of nasal drugs,” says Sloas. Drug users inhale cocaine or other substances through straws. Often, nosebleeds result, leaving remnants of blood on the straw, which are then passed on to other users.

Celebrities have given the disease a face, bringing hepatitis C and its impact into the limelight. Former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson admits to being infected with the disease while receiving a tattoo in Tahiti, and country singer Naomi Judd has also announced her infection. “I’m glad to see that the stigma has been removed from [the illness],” says Sloas. “We’ve got to teach kids about hepatitis C the same way we teach them about sex.”

Looking Toward the Future

Winn Stephenson, president of the American Liver Foundation, Mid-South Chapter, sees education as the key to lowering HCV statistics. A hepatitis victim, Stephenson was diagnosed with auto-immune hepatitis during a 1985 routine physical and is unsure how he contracted the virus. Since taking the helm of the chapter in February, Stephenson’s plan for the chapter has included developing education and support groups. He plans to organize monthly awareness campaigns and provide members of the organization with information on treatment advances. “We have to blast the word [about hepatitis] from every place,” says Stephenson. “Nowhere is too small to give a quick elevator-length speech.”

But his main goal is funding. “As a country, we’ve got to swing government funding to get better medication and treatment,” says Stephenson. “At the end of the day, money buys power.”

“At present, it is not cost-effective or necessary to test everyone for hepatitis C,” says Sloas. “Only people who know they are at risk for previous exposure need to be tested. If you are at risk, ask your doctor to test specifically for hepatitis C.”

New treatments are currently in development by such companies as Vertex and Eli Lilly. The treatments may replace the common drugs or be added to them in a drug cocktail, as with HIV viruses. None of these treatments will be available for several years.

“The disease is a long ride,” says Prince. “You need patience because you have to wait on everything.”

Some Symptoms of hepatitis C

  • Fatigue is the most common symptom — nearly all people with hepatitis complain of some degree of tiredness
  • Stress
  • Depression
  • Muscle and joint aches and pains
  • Anxiety and irritability
  • Headaches
  • Sleep disturbances
  • Jaundiced eyes
  • Less common symptoms include pain or discomfort in the abdomen on the right side, itching, nausea, appetite/weight loss, and mental fuzziness
Categories
Opinion

Big Fish, Big River

Wesley Hollis has been doing a little fishing in his retirement.

Make that a lot of fishing. Hollis, 74, is one of the last of Memphis’ commercial fishermen on the Mississippi River. On a bad day, he’ll bring in over 100 pounds of catfish, carp, and buffalo; on a good day, his haul exceeds 300 pounds.

In 25 years of almost daily fishing on the river, Hollis has landed monster catfish weighing well over 100 pounds, run through at least 10 boats, battled poachers, rammed a catfish spine through his big toe, and fallen out of his boat and nearly drowned. For his trouble, he makes enough money to maintain his boat, motor, trailer, and nets plus a little extra. For the money, he may be the hardest-working 74-year-old in Memphis.

Hollis calls commercial fishing his hobby and says he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he stopped. You can usually find him at the boat ramp on the north end of Mud Island around 6 a.m. As the sun comes up in a haze over the downtown skyline, Hollis slips a light rubber suit over his jeans and shirt and checks to see that everything is in place in his 20-foot boat — three large plastic coolers, a paddle, net, gaffe, assorted hooks and knives, and extra gas tank. Usually, his son accompanies him, but on this day he has agreed to take me along instead, provided I do my share of the work.

A big, friendly man, Hollis was a supervisor for several years for a dairy in Midtown before taking up commercial fishing in 1977. He shares the boat ramp with a handful of sport fishermen distinguished by their smaller boats and trailers.

“I want to be comfortable and safe,” Hollis explains. When the wind is out of the south, the river is choppy, and the wake of an upstream barge produces waves three feet high. Slam over those in a 14-foot john boat and you’ll soon want something bigger.

Hollis cranks the big outboard motor to life and heads upriver toward the mouth of the Loosahatchie River. He wrinkles his nose at the foul smell in the morning air and points toward shore at the city sewer, the source of the problem. The water is browner than it was a few weeks ago.

“I don’t know whether it’s Missouri mud or what,” he grumbles, but it is not good for the fishing. His nets in the Loosahatchie yield an eight-pound yellow catfish that has suffocated in the mud, a three-foot paddlefish that is also dead (and out of season to boot), and a few live yellow cats and carp. Dead fish go back in the river, live ones into the coolers. “There isn’t enough oxygen in this water, and there’s too little current this far from the big water,” Hollis says. “A few weeks ago, I took 45 buffalo out of this same spot.”

You can’t get rich in this line of work. Hollis gets 30 cents a pound for buffalo, 60 cents a pound for catfish, and 10 cents a pound for carp in the rough. The fish markets won’t buy anything over 15 pounds, so Hollis peddles big fish for bait or gives them away. A year ago, he caught two flathead catfish over 100 pounds apiece. He wound up selling one to a man in West Memphis who promptly gutted it, sliced it lengthwise down the middle, and stuffed the two sides into his freezer without further ado.

Hollis heads upriver to a chute on the Arkansas side where he has strung out a long net marked by floating milk jugs. When he cuts the motor, the only sounds are bird calls and the gentle lapping of the current against the bow. I hook the jug with a gaffe and Hollis begins hauling in line hand over hand. A big carp and a blue catfish are caught in the skein, and Hollis painstakingly separates net from fish with a small tool called a shucker. The fish still have plenty of fight in them and flop heavily against the bottom of the boat. A nearby trot line has snagged a 35-pound flathead catfish, an ugly mother if there ever was one.

“Watch how you handle them,” he advises. “A guy helping me one time was pushing them back between his legs when a fish flopped right up into his balls. He like to went through the floor.”

A small blue cat once stuck its poisonous fin into Hollis’ boot and all the way through his big toe. When he pulled it back out, his foot was throbbing with pain, and by the time he got to a doctor, the boot was filled with blood.

Hollis’ most serious accident happened 15 years ago when he was fishing alone and fell out of his boat into 20 feet of water and caught his foot in a net. He bobbed to the surface three times, gulping air and trying to free his foot. By the fourth time, he figured he was a goner, but his foot came free and he swam to a sandbar. Another fisherman saw his empty boat float by and rescued him.

“I said I would never fish anymore after that,” Hollis says.

But he did. A few weeks later, he was back on the river, albeit with a partner.

“I’d come out here even if I wasn’t fishing,” he says. “I just love this river so much.”