HFI National Briefing on Liver Health...

Placing the Liver Front and Center in Prevention  

An impressive panel of speakers at HFI's February 2013 National Briefing on Capital Hill, hosted by Sen. Tom Harkin, highlight the impact choice of foods and lifestyle behaviors can have on liver health and prevention of obesity, diabetes, fatty liver, drug abuse, high cholesterol, hepatitis, strokes and heart attacks...and the need for including liver health education in schools across the nation. The briefing, aimed at Placing the Liver Front and Center in Prevention, filled an enormous gap in information about the most complex and misunderstood organ in our bodies, the liver. Information about the liver has been missing for decades in schools resulting in overwhelming numbers of chronic liver related illnesses and preventable deaths.

Thelma King Thiel, CEO of the Hepatitis Foundation International (HFI), served as moderator of the briefing for an audience of legislative representatives, and NGO administrators. She shares unique commonsensical communication techniques promoting understanding of the most complex organ in the body, the liver.
• READ MORE about her leadership in liver health.
• LISTEN NOW as she introduces the Speakers Panel.

The Expert Speakers Panel

• Richard Hamburg, MPH, Deputy Director of the Trust for America’s Health, (TFAH) a non profit, non partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priorit.
  • READ MORE about Mr. Hamburg's report.
  • LISTEN NOW to his presentation.
    
• Raymond Koff, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Founding Member and Board Chair of the Hepatitis Foundation International, identifyies the liver as the body’s complex chemical powerhouse, and explains that its major role is to convert the food and beverages we consume into hundreds of life-maintaining body functions 24 hours each day.
  • READ MORE about Dr. Koff's report.
  • LISTEN NOW to his presentation.
    
• Kathleen B. Schwarz, MD, Director, Pediatric Liver Center, Professor of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine highlights the need for increased research and education for the most serious liver diseases in infancy.
  • READ MORE about Dr. Schwarz's report.
  • LISTEN NOW to her presentation.
    
• Linda Hancock, Family Nurse Practitioner and Director of the Wellness Resource Center at Virginia Commonwealth University, shares comments about her 25 years experience with students who are more highly medicated, chemically dependent and overweight students than we have ever had before in our colleges and universities.
  • READ MORE about Dr. Hancock's report.
  • LISTEN NOW to her presentation.
    
• Thelma King Thiel, Chief Executive Officer, Hepatitis Foundation International, closes the program by making liver health personal.
  • LISTEN NOW as she summarizes the briefing presentations.