Viral Hepatitis Community
August 2010 - Meet A Member - Sierra Hope
CalHEP is featuring interviews with some of our members, to help you learn more about the work of others within the Alliance. Read our first interview with Sami Rhodes to learn more about her work at Sierra Hope.
July 2010 - Butte County Public Health Department Receives Hepatitis C Grant
Congratulations to the Butte County Public Health Department, who recently received a $25,000 grant from the Sierra Health Foundation. The goal of the project is to reduce the spread of Hepatitis C by providing targeted education, testing, referral for treatment and support services to high-risk individuals, primarily at drug rehabilitation centers and homeless shelters. They were one of 21 proposals selected from 290 applicants. Congratulations!
July 2010 - Diana Sylvestre Featured in New York Times Article
New York Times: Betty Stevenson used heroin for many years and spent seven years in prison for forgery. She finally cleaned up, only to discover that she been infected with hepatitis C from contaminated needles and had serious liver disease. Ms. Stevenson was successfully treated by Dr. Diana Sylvestre, the founder and lone physician at a clinic here set in a former factory near a blighted neighborhood known as Ghost Town. “By the time I got here and to Dr. Sylvestre, I was dead, I had no hope,” said Ms. Stevenson, 68, who is now raising three great-grandsons. “She literally saved my life.” Dr. Sylvestre has earned avid devotion from many of the several hundred addicts and former addicts, ex-convicts, poor and uninsured whom she has treated for hepatitis C. Getting such patients help is a challenge that, if not met, could thwart the success of new hepatitis C drugs aimed at subduing the virus. Read the entire article on CalHEP Steering Committee member, Diana Sylvestre.
May 2010 - San Mateo Raises Awareness of Hepatitis B
The City of San Mateo kicked off “Hepatitis B Awareness Week” today with a ribbon tying ceremony in Downtown San Mateo, followed by a proclamation from Mayor John Lee at the City Council meeting. Organized by the Jade Ribbon Youth Council, a group of high school volunteers from San Mateo, the ribbon tying ceremony in Downtown San Mateo will tie green ribbons to raise awareness among the public about the “silent killer” known as Hepatitis B. San Mateo City Councilmember David Lim was on hand to tie the first ribbon. The Jade Ribbon Youth Council is a project of the Asian Liver Center at Stanford.
May 2010 - Help & Education for Liver Patients (HELP!) Receives Assembly Certificate of Recognition
Help & Education for Liver Patients (HELP!) was recognized by Assemblymember Bill Monning for their initiative and leadership in addressing Hepatitis C as a public health threat in their community. The certificate also recognized Hepatitis Awareness Month. Congrats to HELP! on receiving recognition for their great work.
May 2010 - Hep B SF Campaign Featured in National Media!
The Hep B SF Campaign has received a great deal of media attention recently related to their new campaign. Here are a few of the stories: New York Times, In Ads, Plea for Asians to Get Tests for Hepatitis; CBS News story , PBS News Hour and NPR Morning Edition. Congratulations on the coverage.
Look what Mendocino County AIDS/Viral Hepatitis Network is doing. Another CalHEP member, Libby Guthrie, is in the news.
Click here for details. Read Together We Can!
March 3, 2010, opportunity becomes available through the California Department of Public Health Immunization Branch. Community-based organizations that are registered as providers through the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program and/or the Adult Hepatitis Vaccine Project (AHVP) may be eligible to receive reimbursement of up to $250 for purchase of a refrigerator to increase their vaccine storage capacity. For more information about the Vaccine Storage Capacity Expansion Program, please see the email below.
If you work with an organization that is a VFC provider or an AHVP site that, with increased vaccine storage capacity, could be more able to deliver free hepatitis A and B vaccines to at-risk adults through the Adult Hepatitis Vaccine Project. Click here for more information about the project or contact Mey Phu at (510) 620-2642.
"Hep C Task Force Launched"
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's recently established Hepatitis C Task Force will be holding a series of public meetings as it crafts recommendations. Some 12,000 people with hepatitis C virus live in San Francisco, and one HCTF aim is to identify local service providers and resources. Plans for boosting diagnoses and awareness of HCV are also part of its charge.
"The key is going to be public awareness and educating medical providers to ask questions and get people tested," said task force member Alan Franciscus of the Hepatitis C Support Project....
The task force will work to devise recommendations for funding and a comprehensive, citywide HCV strategy. Members will assist prevention efforts and awareness campaigns. One of HCTF's first actions was to send letters to California's US Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Jackie Speier urging them to co-sponsor the "Viral Hepatitis and Liver Cancer Control and Prevention Act of 2009."
"Our ambitious game plan is to have recommendations to the mayor by the end of 2010 and then continue to convene in 2011," Allgaier said. Public meetings are held on the second Monday of the month, with the next one set for Feb. 8 at 5:30 p.m. at 25 Van Ness Ave., third-floor conference room. Bay Area Reporter (San Francisco) (01.21.10):: Liz Highleyman
Steering Committee Member Alan Franiscus Making the News!
Thanks to a disease that lays dormant for up to 30 years, Baby Boomers well past their wild years are starting to suffer the consequences.
When Alan Franciscus was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1996, his first question was, "Am I going to die?" When his doctor assured him that many treatment options were available, he had a second question: "What is hepatitis C?" Looking back, Franciscus, a 61 year-old San Francisco resident says: "One of the most disturbing things to me was I had never heard of it. I really did not know a thing about it." To read more about this story checkout the January 11, 2010 edition of Newsweek. To learn more about Alan and his work look to the HCV Advocate.
CalHEP's Medical Advisor Diana Sylvestre, MD is Making the News!
Fox News at 5: Rallying for increases in testing and treatment for at-risk people
Health care workers and patients held a rally outside the Alameda health department. They say hepatitis c causes 10,000 deaths a year. They say the state doesn't allocate any money. Alameda county does not have a systematic testing program. What we would like to do is try to encourage the state to offer testing to at-risk individuals in the state and to get the county hospitals to start treating hepatitis again. It's estimated there are 700,000 people in California. 30,000 of them in Alameda county and that half of them don't know it (KTVU-FOX SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND-SAN JOSE, CA, reported on November 18 2009).
Even as awareness of hepatitis C grows, the scant resources devoted to its treatment are being slashed.
Dr. Diana Sylvestre is not an alarmist. But when it comes to the hepatitis C virus (HCV) — the country's number one blood-borne pathogen — she says we are in the midst of a grave public health crisis with Oakland as an epicenter. And that's inexcusable, she believes, because hepatitis C can be beaten through treatment. Many of the infected experience no symptoms, and those requiring care have a good chance of clearing the virus with medication. But even as awareness of the problem has grown, the already-scant resources devoted to it have been slashed. (The Epicenter of a Public Health Crisis, Eastbayexpress.com, By Julia Landau, November 18,2009)
Welcome to CalHEP's New Website: Your Connection to the Viral Hepatitis Community
CalHEP is delighted to introduce you to its new website, designed to foster our ability to serve as the hub of education and advocacy to combat the viral hepatitis epidemic in California. Besides its sharp new look and easier navigation, the site features more ways for members to get involved and interact. Stay informed on policy and research by checking out our “Education Center” and “Policy” sections. Search for members by county, organization name, or type of organization via a database on the “Member Profiles” page. Get to know your CalHEP leadership and staff by checking under the “About Us” section. Send us information on your events, and we’ll post them to the calendar and highlight them in our member news section. Send us your stories, and we’ll write them up for our “Viral Hepatitis Community” page and our monthly newsletter. Please take some time to explore the site, and we’d love to hear your comments.
Members in the Spotlight
Santa Cruz AIDS Project
CalHEP welcomed the Santa Cruz AIDS Project as its newest member in October 2009. SCAP provides comprehensive syringe-exchange and harm-reduction programs in Santa Cruz County. Founded in 1985 to lead a community response to the ever-changing HIV/AIDS pandemic, SCAP is dedicated to reducing the adverse health, social, and economic costs of high-risk behaviors through a wide variety of outreach, education, referrals, and services. Visit SCAP’s website.Asian Liver Center
Stanford University’s Asian Liver Center stepped into the national spotlight at the Washington, DC, conference held in September 2009: “The Dawn of a New Era: Transforming Our Domestic Response to Hepatitis B & C.” The Asian Liver Center’s founder and director, Samuel So, MD, FACS, discussed model programs, such as the Jade Ribbon Campaign, for routinely screening foreign-born Asians and Pacific Islanders for hepatitis B infection. Dr. So is the Lui Hac Minh Professor in the School of Medicine and Surgery at Stanford and a former CalHEP board member. Learn more about the Jade Ribbon Campaign. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
In August, 2009 CalHEP welcomed the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health as a new member. Check the organization's website.In Memoriam
Sherri Rae Ziegler February 28, 1959 -- June 26, 2008
Sherri Ziegler, CalHEP founding steering committee member and tireless hepatitis C advocate, died, June 26, 2008, following a short illness. Read the special edition of CalHEP’s newsletter memorializing Sherri’s passing.
View a slide show of photos of Sherri.
Read remembrances of Sherri.
