Fighting Hep B Panel Discussion

By Angela Pang – September 7, 2010 (AsianWeek.com)

Ten percent of Asian & Pacific Islanders in the United States have chronic hepatitis B. With its sizable API population, nowhere is the HBV epidemic more pronounced and visible than in the Bay Area, which has the highest rate of liver cancer in the nation.

Why are Asian-Pacific Islanders more prone to getting it than non-Asians? What social, political, economic, and genetic factors help explain why Asians are so at risk? What are considered best practices for addressing hepatitis B – locally, nationally, and internationally? How can community based models like the San Francisco Hep B Free Campaign do a better job of uniting the research, medical, and activist communities in fighting Hep B? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in a landmark public panel discussion on Wednesday September 15, at the Genentech Auditorium on the UCSF Mission Bay Campus located at 600 16th St. in San Francisco.

Featured speakers:

Dr. Baruch Blumberg was the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine Recipient for his discovery of the Hepatitis B virus and he later developed a diagnostic test and vaccine against it. He is currently Senior Advisor to the President of Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Professor of Medicine and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. This year, Dr. Blumberg is the 37th recipient of the Chinese Hospital Medical Staff Award.

Ted Fang is the Executive Director of the AsianWeek Foundation and has played a major role in planning, launching and directing the landmark San Francisco Hep B Free Campaign, the largest, most intensive health care campaign for APIs in the U.S.

Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) is Majority Whip for the California State Assembly and the unofficial chairperson for San Francisco Hep B Free. She, herself is infected with hepatitis B, and is the author of California Assembly Bill 158.

Dr. Marion Peters (moderator) is Professor of Medicine and Chief of Hepatology Research at the U.C. San Francisco, where she holds the John V. Carbone, MD, Endowed Chair in Medicine. Her research focuses on Hepatitis B and C and she is very active in the Hep B Free Campaign.

Dr. Samuel So is the director of the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University, the first non-profit organization in the U.S. that addresses the high incidence of hepatitis B and liver cancer in Asians and Asian Americans. ALC is a founding Steering Committee member of SF Hep B Free and an international expert on hepatitis B.

Co-sponsored by AsianWeek Foundation, Cathay Post #384 Chinese American Veterans, Chinese Hospital, Laotian American National Alliance, San Francisco Hepatitis B Collaborative (UCSF), and Wells Fargo Asian Connection.

To register, please call 415-421-8707; or visit https://secure.acceptiva.com/?cst=ffa8c4

WHEN:
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
5:30 pm Registration
6:00 pm Program

WHERE:
Genentech Auditorium
UCSF Mission Bay Campus
600 16th St.
San Francisco, CA

COST:
Students/Asia Society members $8
Non-members $15