Mainstream medicine has not yet found a cure for hepatitis C but there are signs that natural medicine, based on traditional Chinese medicine (increasingly known as TCM), may be more successful in treating the disease. Multinational drug companies are interested in the herbal therapies which have been developed in England by TCM specialist John Tyndall, who was in Dublin recently to give a workshop to women infected with hepatitis C from anti-D. As the clinical manager of the NHS-funded Gateway Clinic in London (which uses TCM to treat patients with HCV, HIV/AIDS and cancer) and the director of the new Yuan Centre, for hepatitis C research and treatment based at Middlesex Hospital, Tindall has been involved in developing natural therapies for over 15 years. "We have two case studies, which may be written up in the British Medical Journal soon, because they represent something really unusual for medics. Both these ladies have managed to reverse their cirrhosis . . . (In one case) it's taken a year and she's had hepatitis C for more than 30 years, which is exciting."
Pharmaceutical giants such as Wellcome are interested in the herbal products - they are "excited, but irritated at what we're doing", Tindall laughs. They want him to use fewer than 12 herbs in a remedy: "They say to me `Can't you use just one herb?' but I say `I'll become just like you - I'll make people ill with side-effects. That's bad medicine'."
Annette Dunne, from Leixlip, Co Kildare, was infected by antiD in 1977 and has been taking Tindall's herbal tablets for a year. "There have been significant changes," she says. "My quality of life now is unbelievable. It's an overall change, not just one particular part of my body. My energy levels have lifted, my hair has grown back, pain has eased in my joints. And mentally I feel uplifted." While enthusiastic about TCM, she also stresses the importance of mainstream medicine and continues to see a specialist at St James's Hospital.
Tindall also works with orthodox medicine: London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is to test one of his herbal products to reduce the side-effects of the drug interferon.
Belief in TCM isn't necessary: "I was completely sceptical," says Matthew Dolan, who wrote the excellent and comprehensive Hepatitis C Handbook after being diagnosed with HCV. "I thought Chinese herbs were linked to witchcraft . . . Then, about five weeks into my treatment, I experienced this surge in my energy levels . . . Eventually my viral load dropped dramatically. My hepatologist was gobsmacked."