06.29.07
Health notes: Hepatitis B program cutbacks, Japanese-language health podcast
For your consideration:
- One in 10 Asian Americans has hepatitis B (which can cause cirrhosis and liver cancer), mostly because they weren’t vaccinated at birth.
- Ninety-two percent of infected pregnant women in the U.S. are of Asian ancestry.
- Santa Clara County, Calif., has the country’s highest rate of babies born to infected mothers.
Add these facts together, and you’ll be left wondering why Santa Clara County supervisors have decided to slash the budget for the county’s hepatitis B prevention program for pregnant women, in the interest of erasing a budget deficit.
Dr. Sam So of the Stanford Asian Liver Center says of the development, “This is really very disturbing because the Santa Clara County perinatal hepatitis B program used to be a model for the rest of the country. We cannot continue to salvage it without the funding stream from the state, which is the largest funder.”
A county supervisor says that the program’s one remaining staff member will fill the bill, with the help of county hospitals. But So disagrees.
“The prevalence of chronic hepatitis B and liver cancer is recognized as the greatest health disparity for Asian Americans in this country,” he says.
In better news, the University of Michigan has launched a monthly Japanese-language health podcast for the benefit of Japanese here and abroad. The podcasts, which feature graphs, videos, audio and links, are available here.