No, it has been referenced before but you don't see it mentioned in a lot of articles. There is evidence that the straw or dollar bill used can get contaminated with blood from the nasal passages. Lots of bloody noses from snorting dope. Meth and cocaine seriously irritate mucosa. Seems entirely plausible when you think about it.

A summary of current recommendations for care. 

HCV - AASLD Testing and Linkage to Care 

SF,

Well stated my friend! The advances in care in just 5 years has been nothing less than stunning to observe. We have seen some long term effects arise from the old SOC's and I'm happy to see the Interferon protocols disappearing. Many of us will have to deal with them for awhile or forever, who knows. It's my hope that with each new protocol the possibility of treatment/post Tx side effects will lessen in both chance and severity. Certainly the new DAA's are showing that to be true.

You correctly stated that because of the Pioneers, our road to the future has been extended and enhanced. Each new drug has been proven by years of trials and research. The only way that happens is through their willingness to find a cure. Because of each member here and elsewhere, we are finally achieving that goal...

Thanks Tig. I like to read everything I can!

I was just about to post that link and saw you beat me to it Tig. :) I will be taking some of this info printed out into my doc's office next week.  Here's a quote from that site I found interesting:

"It is important to keep in mind that FDA only will approve drugs that have gone through rigorous testing," said IAS-USA panel co-chair Michael Saag from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "We cannot run a Phase 3 trial on every possible [drug] combination or every possible patient population. The website allows experts in the field to look at the emerging data and craft what we feel the evidence supports, [which] may fall short of what is specifically in an FDA-approved package insert." 

"For genotype 1 patients who cannot take interferon, the panel recommends sofosbuvir plus the HCV protease inhibitor simeprevir (Olysio), with or without ribavirin, again for 12 weeks. This off-label regimen has not been through full Phase 3 testing, but performed very well in the Phase 2 COSMOS trial. 
An alternative for this group is sofosbuvir plus ribavirin for 24 weeks, though the panel noted that it is not as effective as sofosbuvir plus simeprevir, especially for patients with liver cirrhosis." 

"For patients infected with genotype 1a HCV, baseline resistance testing for the Q80K polymorphism may be considered. However, in contrast to using simeprevir to treat a genotype 1a HCV patient with PEG/RBV when the mutation markedly alters the probability of an SVR, the finding of the Q80K polymorphism does not preclude treatment with simeprevir and sofosbuvir, because the SVR rate was high in patients with genotype 1a/Q80K infection (SVR12 rate for cohort 1 was 86% [24 of 28 patients]; SVR4 rate for cohort 2 was 90% [10 of 11 patients]). To date, virologic failure has not been observed in patients in either cohort infected with HCV genotype 1b and with HCV genotype 1a in the absence of the Q80K polymorphism. Thus Q80K testing can be considered but is not strongly recommended."