Posted: 16-Mar-2005 << BACK
The day the music stopped by William Little - The Times.
David Marks, a former guitarist with the Beach Boys, went into hospital with a suspected broken rib and discovered he had the liver-threatening disease hepatitis C
HEALTH PROBLEMS seem to be as much a defining feature of the Beach Boys as their sun-kissed harmonies. Brian Wilson was so depressed that he stayed in bed between the middle of 1973 and the end of 1975, Dennis Wilson ended up on the streets after going crazy before drowning in an accident in 1983, and in 1998 the sweet-singing Carl Wilson died from cancer at 51.
And now David Marks, rhythm guitarist in the band during the early 1960s, has revealed that he has hepatitis C. He is in London this week to launch a photography exhibition to help to break the taboo surrounding the disease. A portrait of Marks from the exhibition is shown above.
They discovered I was hepatitis C by accident, he told me. The musician had gone to hospital with a suspected broken rib. They tested me for various illnesses and my blood came out positive.
I was lucky I went into hospital when I did because the virus was still in the early stages and I had minimal liver damage.
Though Marks admits to being very frightened by the diagnosis, he says he didnt know much about the disease then, let alone that it could be life-threatening.
Hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus, is often referred to as the silent epidemic. The virus causes inflammation of the liver the bodys immune system starts to attack the organ but many people show no symptoms for years until the liver is already damaged. Between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of people who contract hepatitis C will develop chronic liver infections, and about 20 per cent of them, if untreated, will develop serious liver disease, including cirrhosis and liver cancer, over a period of 20 years.
The Department of Health has estimated that about 200,000 people in England are infected with hepatitis C, although only 38,000 diagnoses have been reported.
However, yet-to-be-published research from the University of Southampton suggests that the Health Department figure is an underestimate. According to William Rosenberg, professor of medicine at the university, between 500,000 and 700,000 people are infected, putting 125,000 at risk of serious liver disease.
David Marks now realises that the virus began having an impact on his health a few years before his illness was diagnosed. Mike Love, a fellow band member, had a very rigorous touring schedule, Marks recalls, and he was the only original Beach Boy touring. He asked me to come back in 1997 to add authenticity to the show. But I had a hard time travelling. I got tired easily, I was getting infections, I had more coughs and colds, and I got ill more than usual when I drank my liver wasnt processing alcohol as well as it normally did.
He left the band two years later in 1999. Marks says: Wed just finished a tour in Europe. I decided to take the time off and take care of my health and get on with my life. It has made my life better in other ways. I have started taking good care of myself. I pay attention to my diet. Ive stopped drinking and smoking.
The main cause of infection is intravenous drug use. Less common causes include sexual intercourse, skin-piercing, and tattooing using equipment that has not been sterilised.
Theoretically, hepatitis C can also be spread by the sharing of blood-contaminated toothbrushes and razors. (Marks says that he had to be careful not to expel blood into the sink after brushing his teeth, because it could have infected members of his family.) There is also a one-in-20 risk of mother-baby cross-infection, and a risk from medical and dentistry procedures abroad. And before the introduction of viral inactivation of blood products in 1984, and before 1991, when screening of blood donors was introduced, some recipients of blood and blood products were infected.
Professor Rosenbergs concern is that we are diagnosing only a tenth of the cases. And why is it, he asks, that only 5 per cent of cases that are diagnosed are resulting in people coming through for treatment? In France they diagnose 50 per cent of cases and treat 25 per cent of them.
He believes that there is a serious lack of understanding of the condition, a failure of referral and inadequate resources to treat the patients coming through.
Marks says that many people wont go forward for diagnosis and treatment because they worry that they might be being labelled junkies. We have to be careful, he says, that we dont scare people from being cast into a stereotype that will prevent their being treated.
