I hope everyone had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday yesterday!  I obviously don’t have any updates to provide since yesterday on my personal health; however, I thought I would write about an interesting and very heated discussion that I had with a number of friends on Tuesday evening about HCV reinfection after successfully completing treatment and being cured.

Prior to starting my Harvoni treatment, my doctor and I had a long discussion about reinfection.  Yes, it is very possible to be reinfected with HCV once you have been cured.  There are a number of articles like this one that discuss the “once in a lifetime” rule being considered by the insurance companies that limits patients to only one chance at treatment due to the extraordinary cost of Harvoni and other similar new drugs.  

What are your thoughts about insurance companies limiting the new HCV treatments to once in a lifetime due to cost?  Is that fair?  Is the one chance in a lifetime enough of a deterrent for those of us that were infected through risky behavior to not make the same mistake twice?  Please share your thoughts...