LAUSR

to the patients and the society” and as a “strategy for HCV eradication” using the model from the United States deserved robust comment. First, more than half the excess mortality in US patients with chronic HCV is due to tobacco, alcohol use, and obesity.2 The epidemic of the modern times are not about infections by viruses or bacteria but by industrial products (tobacco, alcohol, and processed foods) killing people on a much larger scale.3 In the United States, not only the prevalence of diabetes/obesity is increasing but also prevalence of alcohol, now a “public health crisis.”4 Indeed, almost no alcohol control policies, marketing on social media has a free ride. Worse than inertia, some states, as Washington, promote alcohol use: (a) in 2008, it axed funding for the Basic Liquor Law Enforcement Academy, ending the program; (b) in 2011, it ended the state monopoly on liquor sales despite warnings it will increase alcohol use; (c) in 2017 it decreased liquor taxes and fees from $35 to $31per gallon.5 Second, why overlooking that multiprofessional psychosocial interventions are effective versus health risk behaviors?6 However, these low-cost interventions are not reimbursed by most health care insurance schemes in contrast to directacting antiviral treatments whose price is a critical issue. This denial is most puzzling and deserves scrutiny. Third, the burden of health risk behaviors and social determinant of health in patients with chronic HCV infection is universal as evidenced by a recent report.7 However, (a) the use of injection drugs is a critical issue in the spread of the viral infection; (b) being a male, a black, a smoker, and living below the poverty line are significant predictors of chronic HCV positivity.8