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  • Hepatitis Victoria’s "Little Hep B" Hero Book

    [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lIUuZRIcwA[/embedyt]Hepatitis Victoria in Melbourne, Australia recently released their “bright, colorful, positive and silly” children’s book, Little Hep B Hero! In addition to creating a book, Hepatitis Victoria also created an animation. Little Hep B Hero, which is available in English, Simplified Chinese and Vietnamese, gives children and their families a delightful glimpse into a young girl’s visit to her neighbor and friend, Rosa. As Rosa and the young girl prepare food and lemonade together, Rosa tells her about living with chronic hepatitis B. Rosa explains what the liver does, what hepatitis B is, how the virus is transmitted, how she maintains a healthy lifestyle with chronic hepatitis B, and shares tips on preventing hepatitis B transmission. Little Hep B Hero also provides cute and easy to understand visuals of the little girl as a superhero while Rosa explains this information. The book does an excellent job of explaining liver functions and what the hepatitis B virus does to the liver! The analogy of using a sieve to demonstrate how the liver filters toxins in the body was creative. The book also does a great job of indirectly tackling some myths associated with hepatitis B. For example, people are often hesitant to share meals with those living with chronic hepatitis B. Little Hep B Hero lets its audience know that you cannot get hepatitis B through food preparation or sharing a meal, so Rosa cooks a meal for her neighbors. Little Hep B Hero is an important read for future generations and their families! Getting the conversation started early about hepatitis B will address the stigma and discrimination associated with it. When children are talking about hepatitis B and are knowledgeable about it, hepatitis B isn’t a scary topic anymore. The message of hepatitis B as a family matter highlights the importance of educating and testing family members. For more information, check out their press release,

    http://www.hepb.org/blog/hepatitis-victorias-little-hep-b-hero-book/
  • Hepatitis B Foundation Executive Director Joan Block Steps Down, But First Shares Her Love Story

    Tim and Joan Block By Joan Block, RN, BSN, Executive Director and Co-Founder The story of the Hepatitis B Foundation is a love story that’s never been told. In June, I will retire after 25 years of service, so now feels like the right time to share my personal story. In 1987, I was diagnosed with hepatitis B. I had just married Tim (co-founder and president of the foundation and its research affiliate, the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute) when my doctor suggested I get tested for hepatitis B because I was born in Korea. We were devastated by the diagnosis. As a young nurse in the 1980s, the only hepatitis B patients I knew were dying of liver failure or liver cancer. They were kept in isolation rooms where I had to wear a gown, gloves, and mask to even provide them with basic care. This was a dark and scary time for us. There was nowhere to turn for information or support, and no available treatment. The prospect of our life together was overshadowed by fear and uncertainty. My husband Tim, a research scientist, took immediate action by changing his focus to hepatitis B and began the quest to find a cure. We reached out to our close friends, Paul and Jan Witte, and together we decided to create a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding a cure for hepatitis B and helping those affected. In 1991, the Hepatitis B Foundation was officially established. A quarter of a century later, the foundation has grown from a grassroots effort into the world’s leading nonprofit research and disease advocacy organization solely dedicated to hepatitis B. Joan M. Block, RN, BSN, Co-Founder and Executive Director There are many reasons why I waited so long to share my personal story. At first, it was fear and shame. The stigma of having an infectious disease was strong, even though I had acquired hepatitis B at birth. Later, I wanted to keep the focus on the mission of the foundation, not on my personal story. Today, however, I realize that there is a compelling need for people

    http://www.hepb.org/blog/hepatitis-b-foundation-executive-director-joan-block-steps-first-shares-love-story/
  • How Do We Raise Awareness About Hepatitis B Without Reinforcing Racist Stereotypes?

    By Christine Kukka When my daughter thinks about how active she should be in raising awareness about hepatitis B,  she gets tripped up by racial identity and politics. Recently, she attended a workshop where people living with hepatitis B told their stories. It was empowering and energizing, and then she went home to a state where the majority are white, the governor claims immigrants are bringing in new diseases, and no one has ever heard about hepatitis B. “Suddenly, I feel paralyzed,” she told me. “I look at the other people in my hepatitis B group and all of us were Asian or Black. I’m afraid if I tell my story here at home that everyone will assume everyone who’s Asian has hepatitis B.” Instead of increasing white America’s compassion and empathy towards people with hepatitis B, she fears it might make them more afraid of people of color. Her fears are understandable. In this era of Trump, hate crimes and backlash against immigrants have increased. She’s afraid speaking out might unwittingly reinforce simmering racist stereotypes. She wonders if she has that much courage. She’s worried about how it will affect her personally. Already she sees some clients she works with gravitate and open up more to her white coworkers. “I don’t know if I’m over-thinking it all, and feeling overwhelmed about how to handle this,” she confided. There is a story about a Asian-American researcher who worked on hepatitis B for decades. When she conducted some independent screening in her community and discovered that a large percentage of Korean-Americans tested positive for hepatitis B, she was fearful. She never published her findings, she was afraid it would fuel racism against Asian-American immigrants. She chose self-censorship instead. Much has been written lately about how much more empathy the American public and some politicians appear to have toward the rural opiate addiction crisis now that it has a “white face,” given that addiction in

    http://www.hepb.org/blog/raise-awareness-hepatitis-b-without-reinforcing-racist-stereotypes/
  • Like Hepatitis B, Addiction Is a Chronic Disease That Needs Treatment Without Judgement

    By Christine Kukka Addiction is a chronic disease, like hepatitis B, type II diabetes, cancer and heart disease. These diseases all run in families, are influenced by environment and behavior, and are notoriously difficult to treat. No one chooses to develop diabetes or heart disease. Nor do they choose to be a drug addict or alcoholic, or infected with hepatitis B. Yet, how we view and treat people with these chronic diseases varies drastically. As a society, we view heart disease as a tragic occurrence. It kills roughly the same number of people as cancer, lower respiratory diseases and accidents combined and costs us more than $316.6 billion in health care and lost productivity. But most heart disease is preventable and results from an inability to make wise choices about food and exercise. Yet, when we hear about a heart attack, we don’t shake our heads and say, “If only they had exercised more,” or, “too bad they didn’t have enough self-control to lay off the junk food.” But we do say that about smoking, drug addiction and alcoholism, and about some of the chronic infectious diseases that result, such as hepatitis B or C or HIV. How often do we who have hepatitis B quickly tell our friends that we were infected at birth, to make sure they know it wasn’t from drugs or promiscuity? Even we who live with hepatitis B can get caught up in the notion that some hepatitis B cases carry shame and others do not. If we can get past our moral judgements about addiction and view it instead as the chronic disease it is, maybe we can also stop moralizing and judging people with STIs or viral hepatitis or HIV. Maybe we can finally get better at talking about it, preventing it and treating it. There is overlap between “respectable” chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease and stigmatized diseases like addiction to tobacco, alcohol or street drugs. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse: Tobacco contributes to 11 to 30 percent of cancer deaths

    http://www.hepb.org/blog/like-hepatitis-b-addiction-chronic-disease-needs-treatment-without-judgement/
  • Facing the Threat of Hepatitis B Following Sexual Coercion or Assault

    … antibodies). If the victim has been vaccinated in the past, he or she should immediately get a hepatitis B vaccine dose (called a booster dose.) When the perpetrator's hepatitis B status is not known: If the victim has not been immunized against hepatitis B, he or she should received the hepatitis B vaccine series. If the victim has already been vaccinated against hepatitis B, no treatment is needed. In South Africa, for example, women’s inability to control their lives sexually is fueling the HIV epidemic. One study that followed 1,500 pregnant women who were in married or stable relationships found an astonishing HIV infection rate of 38 percent. Many reported having been abused physically and sexually in the recent past, which helps explain why AIDS is now the biggest killer of young women in southern Africa. Image courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Sexual assault is not always accompanied by physical violence. A woman may not have the power to require her partner to use a condom without risking physical or verbal abuse, or a person may not tell his or her sexual partner that they have hepatitis B. Coercion can be silent, and fueled by ignorance and low self-esteem. Here is an email that the Hepatitis B Foundation recently received that illustrates this: “My boyfriend is hepatitis B and C positive, as he was a drug addict. We had unprotected sex often over two to three months. I want to ask, is there any chance of myself being infected?” Sadly, this woman is at very high risk of infection, especially from hepatitis B. What stopped her from insisting he wear a condom or walking away from a relationship with a man who had little concern for her health and welfare? Poverty, a lack of choices, resources and education, and a host of other factors stop victims from walking away from their abusers every day around the world. To protect the health of people around the world, we need to fight in any way we can to stop sexual violence, protect

    http://www.hepb.org/blog/facing-threat-hepatitis-b-following-sexual-coercion-assault/
  • Mohsin Khan, MSc, PhD

    Staff Scientist. National Institute of Health My research is focused on hepatitis B virus (HBV) pathogenesis, host-HBV interplay, and antiviral drug discovery. My current research is dedicated to studying the molecular mechanisms of the HBV life cycle, HBV-induced reprogramming of host cells, DNA replication, and screening of drugs. In this regard, my special focus is on the biosynthesis and regulation of HBV covalently closed circular (ccc) DNA, HBV entry receptors, and HBV-HCV coinfection.  Read the journal picks of the month from our Emerging Scholars Scientific and Medical Advisory Board here.  

    https://www.hepb.org/news-and-events/reports/emerging-scholars-scientific-and-medical-advisors/mohsin-khan-msc-phd/
  • NYC Marathon

    CHARITY RUNNER PROGRAM TCS NEW YORK CITY MARATHON NOV. 5, 2023 Hepatitis B Foundation is thrilled to be selected as an Official Charity Partner of the 2023TCS New York City Marathon. The TCS New York City Marathon, the largest marathon in the world, features a 26.2-mile course through all five boroughs of New York City—Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx. The participant field includes 50,000 runners—comprised of world renowned professional athletes alongside a mix of competitive, recreational, and charity runners. Each year, on race day, more than one million spectators line NYC streets to cheer on the runners, while millions more watch the live broadcast. As an Official Charity Partner, the Hepatitis B Foundation has been provided a limited number of entries for the 2023 marathon to be used exclusively for fundraising purposes. For charity runners, a minimum fundraising amount of $3,500 is required for each “RUN 4 HEP B” team member and should be raised through individual fundraising efforts. Benefits of joining our RUN 4 HEP B team:  Guaranteed race entry for the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon  A personalized fundraising page to collect online donations  Fundraising support and guidance  Team branded gear and more! Note: there is a $3,500 fundraising minimum to join RUN 4 HEP B. If you areinterested in being considered, please complete the application here as soon as possible, and email to Run4HepB@gmail.com. Already have guaranteed entry? You can still join us! Runners who have already secured entry via lottery or qualifying time can receive all the benefits mentioned above by fundraising on behalf of RUN 4 HEP B. Email us at Run4HepB@gmail.comfor more information.

    https://www.hepb.org/news-and-events/nyc-marathon/
  • Work begins on a $19 million expansion of the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center (PABC)

    State and federal grants will cover nearly half of the construction costs. Doylestown, Pa., Sept. 17, 2020 – Construction has begun on a $19 million expansion of the nonprofit Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center (PABC), which is one of the nation’s most successful life sciences incubators. Today, the PABC’s leadership joined with local elected officials to celebrate with a ceremonial “Construction Kickoff.” The PABC, which is next to the Doylestown Airport in Buckingham Township (3805 Old Easton Road), has more than 70 member companies, 41 of which have operations in the facility. “We are confident in Pennsylvania’s future, as our investment in this major expansion clearly demonstrates,” Timothy M. Block, Ph.D., founder, president and CEO of the PABC, said. “We also appreciate the vote of confidence in our operation by state legislators and federal officials, who provided the grants needed to move our project forward.” The PABC has received $4.4 million in grants from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, according to state Sen. Steven J. Santarsiero. “Entrepreneurs at the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center have produced more than $2 billion in company value, created hundreds of new jobs and launched several publicly traded companies,” Sen. Santarsiero said. “Our state investment not only spurs further economic growth to the area’s biotech sector, but it has the added benefit of helping to save lives and to improve the quality of life for many.” State Rep. Wendy Ullman noted that state funding helped launch the facility in 2006. She added, “The PABC has generated many significant innovations in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors that have the potential to benefit human health worldwide.” The PABC expansion also is funded by a $4.7 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Agency. The remainder of the cost is being financed by a local bank. The expansion will lead to additional jobs at the facility, perhaps more than 100, Dr. Block said, along with dozens of new companies and millions of dollars in commercial activity. PABC-member companies currently employ more than 300 highly skilled scientists, staff and students. Research and development at the facility has produced two new FDA-approved drugs and two new medical devices that are now on the market, with more than 10 new drugs and medical devices in clinical trials. The PABC also houses a teaching lab and state-of-the-art research facilities where college undergraduate and grad students, as well as students from the Central Bucks School District and other area districts, receive training in biomedical research. “We’ve been at full capacity for the past seven years and we have a waiting list of companies that want to locate in the PABC,” said Louis P. Kassa, MPA,  executive vice president of the PABC and the Blumberg Institute, which manages the center. “At the same time, there will be opportunities for new companies to move into the PABC with our expansion. And I am very confident that we will be fully subscribed when we cut the ribbon in fall of 2021.” The project entails construction of a new 37,000 square-foot rectangular, two-story building between two existing structures, which will mean a 40% expansion of the PABC. It will provide 15,000 square feet of new laboratory space and a larger main entrance. Other features include more offices, conference rooms and a 200-seat event space. “A key addition will be the HatchBio Accelerator, which will provide common space for very early stage companies,” Kassa said. “It’s our goal to provide a continuum of support for scientists and their emerging technologies, and the HatchBio Accelerator will be ideal for pre-incubation companies that do not yet require dedicated space.” The project includes infrastructure improvements, such as additional parking and a stormwater holding basin, which is on four acres next to the PABC purchased for that purpose. The most recent state grant, which was announced Aug. 28, will fund renovation of existing space to add research and training labs plus new offices to be used for R&D associated with COVID-19. The construction manager is The Norwood Company. The architect is Steven Cohen of Princeton. Cohen also designed the current facility, which was an empty printing facility and warehouse where up to 146 people once worked. The PABC website provides details about PABC membership options and upcoming events, such as the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center’s annual life sciences industry conference, which will be held on Nov. 5 as a webinar. About the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center (PABC): The PABC is a nonprofit life sciences incubator-accelerator, offering state-of-the-art laboratory and office space to early stage biotech companies, as well as the Hepatitis B Foundation and Blumberg Institute. Managed by the Institute and led by a board appointed by the Foundation, PABC is home to more than 40 small to mid-size science, research and pharmaceutical companies. The center uses a highly successful services-based approach to nurture and guide its member companies to success, advancing biotechnology, maximizing synergies among nonprofit scientists and their commercial colleagues, and launching new ideas and discoveries that will make a difference. PABC is in Bucks County, in the heart of the Philadelphia-New Jersey pharma belt. To make a donation to the PABC, click here.

    https://www.hepb.org/news-and-events/news-2/work-begins-on-a-19-million-expansion-of-the-pennsylvania-biotechnology-center-pabc/
  • William's Story

    Excited by the impending birth of his first child, William decided to plan for his family’s financial future. He was shocked to learn through a required health insurance blood test that he has hepatitis B and spent sleepless nights wondering how he contracted the virus and whether it was a death sentence. After wading through dense layers of information online, he went in for further tests and was reassured by a caring provider that with monitoring, dietary changes, and an active lifestyle, he can live a long life. He realized that knowing where hepatitis B came from isn’t as important as focusing on staying healthy.  

    https://www.hepb.org/research-and-programs/patient-story-telling-project/williams-story/
  • Bunmi's Story

    After her father passed away, Bunmi had to request his death certificate in order to learn the cause of death: liver cancer. She felt stifled by the lack of willingness within her family to talk about hepatitis B, and she wonders if old superstitions about illness in Nigeria are contributing to the stigma surrounding the virus both there and in African immigrant communities in the U.S. She is determined to help end the silence.  

    https://www.hepb.org/research-and-programs/patient-story-telling-project/bunmis-story/