Google's portrayal of HepC

[virt111]

I'm sure many of you have noticed that Google has for a while been including sidebar information based on the search keywords. When you type "Hepatitis C," for example, you will see an illustration of a guy with tattoos, goatee, and looks a bit disheveled along with a synopsis of the disease. They have a graphic of a liver superimposed over top of him with a text call-out pointing to it. We can logically assume that they wish to call attention to the liver, and rightfully so. Why the felt the need to have that particular illustration, when a medical illustration of the liver would have sufficed, is bewildering.

For me, this is unacceptable. Could you imagine the outcry you'd get with some other diseases if they put a stereotype illustration there?

You can submit "feedback" using the button/link at the bottom of the sidebar if you so desire. I've already voiced my displeasure.

Thanks for reading.

Marc

[Idyllic]

I just left feedback as well!!

[Idyllic]

Oh Wow I am on my PC using Firefox and I just typed Hepatitis C in Google search and I exactly see the illustration you mention in your post!

It's a late 40's male, graying to white hair with a beard and a mustache wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and his sleeves are rolled up all the way past his elbows to show three of the old time tattoos. One is an anchor with a rope around it (Navy??)


Same result on my ipad via Safari!!

[Dee1956]

Hey there!  Thank you so much for sharing your story.  It resonated with me quite a bit.
Dee

[flyinlynn]

I think it is stigmatized for the simple reason it is associated with IV drug abuse plain and simple.

For those who did not get hep c by using IV drugs other people may believe that they did and are not being truthful. They experience the stigma that people believe that at some time in their past they shot up drugs.

As for me I really don't feel the stigma that much. My close friends and coworkers know I had hep c and are happy for me now that I am cured.

I contracted hep c when I was about 20 while in the Army serving in Germany. Yes I did try drugs all of 3 times but I guess that was enough either that or the tattoo I got at a GI bar that was done in a guy's apartment over the bar not an autoclave in sight. Just 5 of us sitting around the kitchen table smoking, drinking beer, and getting tattoos.

But that was 38 years ago and not the person I am today. I do not regret my youthful wild side it was who I was then. I am who I am today because of all I have been and all that I will be. And I am not ashamed.

[orphanedhawk]

The sad thing is that people often think, " I didn't shoot drugs I can't have that disease," and never think to get tested. There's a reason they call it the silent epidemic and sadly google is perpetuating an untrue stereotype.

BTW: Many, many, many people got the virus during the Vietnam war era from the military air-jet gun vaccinations. Vets tell stories of one guy after another getting the shot, walking away with blood running down their arms while the next guy gets a shot and the air-gun hasn't even been wiped clean. Could the military's culpability be part of why this virus is stigmatized in the way it is??

[virt111]

I have tattoos as well, and that's not my issue. It's always been fair game for the media to stigmatize Hepatitis C.

[virt111]

Let me also add that Gilead's Harvoni commercials, which are very well done, were designed, in part, to shed the negative image of HepC that has plagued us for many years. You can argue that they want to sell their product, so of course they're going to portray a different culture. Well, that has a great potential side effect in that it may sway people's mindset that they've had by the media's unfavorable representation of the disease through the years.

Unfortunately, Google is quite happy to perpetuate the stigma associated with Hepatitis C to the world.

Peace.

[flyinlynn]

I just hit their feed back link and disagreed with their bullet that said hep c can be spread easily. I added a link from web MD. About to provide feed back that says "Can't be cured, but treatment can help"

I  don't have a problem with the guy. he looks like my friends. I have tattoos and if I was male I would probably resemble the picture.