Hepatitis B: A Killer With Little Warning

Hepatitis B: The Real Killer Is Silence

In Tell Me More’s “Behind Closed Doors” segment today, Michel Martin talked about a “silent disease” – one with symptoms you can’t see or feel.
Until it’s too late. And “too late” means liver failure or liver cancer – two conditions that Hepatitis B can lead to, if it goes untreated.
The Centers for Disease Control report that Hepatitis B affects more than a million people in the US.

Half of those diagnosed with chronic Hepatitis B are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and most were infected before arriving to the U.S.

Wait … what?
That was my immediate reaction. It was unnerving news for me because I was born in Vietnam and came to the US in the early 1990s.
So, I’m very vulnerable. And very embarrassed.
Why did I not know about something so widespread in my ethnic community, until now? Probably because no one really talked about it.

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