HCCAP comment ltr SSA 2004 reformat 1006

Hepatitis C HCCAP December 27, 2004 Jo Anne B. Barnhart, Commissioner of Social Security P.O. Box 17703 Baltimore, Maryland 21235-7703 RE: Revised Medical Criteria for Evaluating Impairments of the Digestive System, Chronic Liver Disease Dear Commissioner Barnhart, The Hepatitis C Caring Ambassadors Program, a national, nonprofit advocacy organization, is pleased to submit the enclosed comments on the revised medical criteria for evaluating impairments of the digestive system detailed in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published in the Federal Register on November 14, 2001 (66 FR 57009) . Our comments and suggestions are restricted to chronic liver disease, and specifically address issues surrounding chronic hepatitis C, the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the United States. We submit our comments in response to the reopening of the comment period as published in the Federal Register on November 8, 2004 (69 FR 64702). We were pleased to participate in the SSA Policy Conference on Chronic Liver Disease held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and appreciate this opportunity to provide input into the proposed revision of the listing criteria for chronic liver disease. We have submitted our comments via the Internet, and also are supplying you with a hardcopy herein. We hope our comments and suggestions will be carefully considered, as like you, we believe the proposed revisions are ...