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Body Shop founder has hepatitis C

14/02/2007

Body Shop founder Anita Roddick admitted today that she has suffered from the hepatitis C (hep C) virus for the past 35 years.

The ethical campaigner said she had contracted the virus during the birth of her youngest daughter in 1971 but had "no idea" about it until routine blood tests picked up the problem.

"It's a bit of a bummer but you groan and move on," she wrote on her website today.

It has led to her having cirrhosis of the liver and the potential to develop liver cancer, but this, she says, has only made her more determined to make the most out of life.

"Having hep C means that I live with a sharp sense of my own mortality – which in many ways makes life more vivid and immediate. It makes me even more determined to just get on with things," she said.

Hep C is known as the "silent killer" as people can live for years with the virus without showing any symptoms; just one in ten people with hep C in the UK has been diagnosed.

It affects the cells of the liver, potentially causing significant damage, and is transmitted through contact with infected blood.

Dame Anita has become the patron of the Hepatitis C Trust and she has made clear her determination to raise public awareness of the virus herself and to lobby the government to also do so.

"I want to blow the whistle on the fact that hep C must be taken seriously as a public health challenge and must get the attention and resources that it needs," she said.

The Body Shop was founded in 1976 and now serves over 77 million customers. Dame Anita works on the creative team for the company as well as campaigning against sweatshop labour by multinational corporations.


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