When passed as a sexually transmitted infection, Hepatitis C occurs primarily in gay men. That’s all that Amsterdam gay health activists needed to know before they brought local businesses and sex venues together to begin creating a plan to wipe out new Hep C infections in their community.
The “NoMoreC” campaign is sponsored in part by Sauna NZ, Amsterdam’s gay bathhouse, so it seemed only appropriate that Queerty contributor Mark S. King (My Fabulous Disease) spend some time there to discuss the campaign with the sauna manager and some of the campaign’s supporters. It’s the latest in his series of video reports from AIDS2018, the international AIDS conference which just concluded.
Wait a minute. You mean King is filing another sexually-themed video report from AIDS2018? You betcha!
And you’re welcome.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Coming up next: a final farewell to Amsterdam and AIDS2018.
Watch:
Discover more
Vince
I thought Hep C was transferred mostly through blood ie needles. I would think Hep B would be more of a threat.
Kangol
There’s a Hep B vaccine.
Kangol
There’s currently no vaccine for Hepatitis C, right? So even using PrEP, which does prevent HIV in most cases, won’t prevent Hep C transmission, right? But PrEP + condoms will lower the possibility of transmitting not just HIV but Hep C and a wide array of other sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs), so why isn’t this the recommendation that most pro-sex organizations, as well as porn producers, are making? Instead, I tend to see advocacy for PrEP, but still comparatively little discussion of Hep C or other STIs, including antibiotic/drug-resistant strains of certain STIs.
tham
No there’s actually a cure for Hep C (there’s commercials for it).
Kangol
@tham, thanks. But I could have sworn I’ve read more than once that while there’s a vaccine for Hep A–and I got the vaccine for Hep B–there’s no vaccine for Hep C. When did it debut? Earlier this year? I think there’s treatment for Hep C, but no vaccine, right?
1dizzy1
There’s a cure for Hep C but probably not an affordable one for many people. https://www.pharmacytimes.com/resource-centers/hepatitisc/will-hepatitis-c-virus-medicaton-costs-drop-in-the-years-ahead
theszak
The Strategy. BEFORE sex test TOGETHER for A VARIETY OF STIs Sexually Transmitted Infections including HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus then make an INFORMED decision, google… tested together before sex
frankcar1965
Extremely bad advice, as bad as “sero sorting”. What does testing together accomplish? The next day one or both can go out and get infected, tests are only good for that second in time. Do you trust your partner? Many who have been infected TRUSTED their partner without question, and it got them no where. See Poz magazine to find out that most who get infected are in “monogamous” relationships. You may be monogamous but he may not be.
Kevan1
Strange the Hep C treatment that is curing the Baby boomers were and are all mostly straight.
Kangol yes there is a Hep A and B vaccine. It is given in three rounds.
Geeker
How about not going to bathhouses…problem solved.
frankcar1965
How about you minding your own business and stop judging others?
myklstarr
what frankcar1965 said.
NCSilverBear
This was the “suggestion” — which in some cities became the law — back when the HIV/AIDS epidemic started. The baths were taking the full blame for spreading, what was an unknown, the “gay disease”.
The suggestion that we stop going to the baths finally ended in most of them being shuttered, either for lack of business or they got shut down by the health department.
In any case, the uproar from the Gay community at the time, was very negative and oppositional to the suggestion that we “police” ourselves and take better care of our health by practicing “safe sex”.
I think we still have much to learn from our history on how to take better care of ourselves. Can we still have “fun”, but, stop killing ourselves in the process? There has to be a healthy medium. Celibacy, monogamy, staying home and jacking off — these sorts of options do not fit everyone.
But, until we find cures & vaccines for HIV, Hepatitis and for other life threatening and/or contagious STD’s, for the moment, all we have to defend ourselves is learning how to use our combined common sense.
Heywood Jablowme
Sexual transmission of Hep C is so rare, and so extremely difficult to even do, that I wonder why a bathhouse should be concerned about it at all. They may as well worry about poisonous snakes or lightning strikes. Why not worry about more prosaic but serious-enough dangers, like gonorrhea?
Unless maybe needle drug use is common in Dutch bathhouses and they don’t want to throw them out, for some reason?
brianlange
I have never been to a bath house or any anonymous sex hook ips. So I am free of C