The study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at each Center, and all the patients are provided written informed consent. After screening, patients are randomly assigned to one of 2 treatment groups (PPC or placebo). The two treatment groups are given the combination of pegylated interferon (180 μg injected once weekly) (Shiffman et al, 1999; Sulkowski et al, 1999), and ribavirin for 48 weeks (genotype I) or 24 weeks (other genotypes). If the latter do not respond in terms of HCV RNA, they are also treated for 48 weeks. Ribavirin is administered orally twice a day at a total daily dose of 1000 mg for patients who weigh 75 kg or less and 1200 mg for those who weigh more than 75 kg. These drugs are started and stopped at the same time, the PPC (5 chewable tablets of 0.9 gm each per day) or corresponding placebo (obtained from PHOSPHOLIPID GmbH, a successor of Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Cologne, Germany) are given to each patient for the 3 years.