JB Smiths Blog – Author @ books4free.com

I’m too lazy to go look but I wonder if his albums sell under the huge multimedia Time Warner banner?

He STILL denies having gotten the drug through any kind of drug use, and even adds, “It doesn’t much matter how you got it, you got it.” And this is true, but MUCH more people get Hepatitis C now a days via needles and or sharing straws, which never occured to me while I was out there drinking and drugging, than do by using dirty tattoo needles. Ironically, I just returned from Macon GA and for some reason I believe the bucket story now. That probably is exactly how he got it, and ohhh how disgusting.

It is still humble and cool of him to come out and speak about Hep C, and that he’d gotten a liver transplant of a 29 year old liver, and even more shocking I thought, was that the CNN announcer mentions that he still has Hep C, and that he is living with it. So he was not cured of the virus at all? I wonder if they will try and run him through the new Telaprevir with the higher success rates. I hope so, I hope they can clear him of the virus as they did me, but as Dr. Hutchinson from Duke told me “the young do better than the old.” I wonder what his prognosis is for Interferon with the new drugs, and if the liver transplant makes it impossible to go under Interferon or somehow prevents the full blown chemo like side affects? Still, I may have been a little harsh when I blogged about Gregg before, denying any drug use and stating that he’d gotten it from dirty tattoo needles. In the big scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter how you get it, none of us invented the disease, it matters what you do with it, and if you man up and fight it, quit drinking, and persevere through all the long odds to beat the nasty little beat me down.

Still, I’d be happier if he’d use his name to go out and promote free Interferon use with Telaprevir to all, I mean, they shortened the length of time, doubling the odds, but also doubling the cost. Most of us don’t have Rock Star retirement plans. And it’s the kind of thing that with a concentrated government effort, they could eradicate just like polio, instead of just bilking people left and right.

Let me tell you too, if I find out he’s working for Roche or Merck and this was a publicity stunt for some new medication they are charging triple for, and he still couldn’t admit he’d gotten it using needles, then I’ll be just as irritated. Or to find out his rock star royalty got him the transplant liver faster, that would be just as aggravating. On this one it is probably better I don’t do any research. For now, Gregg has my compassion and sympathy and even my thanks for doing this interview, regardless of if it’s connected to his record sales, and/or paid pharma giants, more than likely even if all that was true, his agent just tugged his heart strings and Gregg was just doing what he thought was right.

He’s still one of the baddest musicians ever to walk the planet. I pray his recovery from Hep C and his transplant stays strong and that he’s able to go through the new Interferon treatments with telaprevir and beats it.

-Jared Bryan Smith