• http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/10/disrupting-a-deadly-disease/

A silent killer is loose in America. It contributes to the death of 15,000 Americans a year and threatens the health of 5.3 million more. It is more common than HIV/AIDS. It is the leading cause of liver cancer - a cancer that is on the rise and continues to be a fatal and costly disease. Yet it remains unrecognized as a serious threat to public health.

This silent killer is viral hepatitis. Most people don't even know they have it until years later, when it causes cancer or liver disease. But we can help avoid such needless tragedies with prevention and surveillance programs and by educating Americans on the pervasive nature of hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

A first step is to change the way viral hepatitis is diagnosed and treated, and that is why we have introduced legislation in the Senate and the House to provide almost $600 million over the next few years to treat this deadly epidemic. Our legislation will make our health care system more efficient. More important, it will save lives.

The bills we have introduced closely mirror the recommendations in a recent report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), "Hepatitis and Liver Cancer," which calls for a national strategy to prevent and control hepatitis B and C.

The report concludes that the current approach is not working: Americans at risk for hepatitis or living with it do not know it, and health providers are not screening for it. That should come as no surprise because there is no federal funding of core public health services for viral hepatitis. Nor is there any federally funded chronic hepatitis B and C surveillance system.

Not surprisingly, the IOM report recommends increased information and awareness about chronic viral hepatitis among health care providers, social service providers and the public; improved surveillance for hepatitis B and hepatitis C; and better integration of viral hepatitis services.

Our call for a national strategy is not unlike IOM's. Specifically, our bills increase interagency coordination between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

It sets up programs to improve understanding of hepatitis B and C and requires the CDC to integrate them into existing immunization, prevention and control programs and support counseling. It also expands current vaccination programs and establishes a national chronic and acute hepatitis B and C surveillance program to identify incidence and prevalence in viral hepatitis and liver cancer.

Hepatitis B is 100 times more infectious than HIV and, left untreated, can cause liver disease, liver cancer and premature death decades after infection. About 2 billion people worldwide have been infected with hepatitis B, and about 170 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis C. Tragically, two-thirds of those infected, on average, are unaware of their status, which increases the chance of spreading the disease.

We cannot afford to be silent anymore. Our fellow citizens are dying daily because our nation lacks a comprehensive prevention, education and medical management program. Each year, about 15,000 people die from liver cancer or liver diseases related to hepatitis B and hepatitis C. That's more than 40 deaths every day.

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