Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement,

and a former health commissioner here in Baltimore.

Our goal is to bring evidence and experience to illuminate critical public health issues.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.orgia.

That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes.

Today, it's all about the liver. I talked to Thelma Thiel, the founder and chair of the liver health initiative, an advocacy

organization devoted to increasing understanding of the liver and how to protect it.

Now, I met her more than 15 years ago when she came to my office wanting to talk about

the liver.

The conversation has been going ever since.

Let's listen.

Delma, Thiel, it is great to have you on public health on call.

Thank you so much for joining me.

I want to start by asking you to explain to our audience how you became involved in the liver.

Well, it was kind of a tragic story because my newborn baby was diagnosed with the

the throcious of the liver, and that was five decades ago when I didn't know anything about the liver or cirrhosis.

And unfortunately at that time, the physicians didn't really know very much.

And the most frequent indication of liver disease was associated with alcohol.

I was repeatedly asked if I drank when I was pregnant, and of course I didn't. When they said he had cirrhosis but they didn't have any idea as to what the cause was.

He had abdominal surgery at two weeks of age and found out that he had intra-hypatic

bilioritresia which was a disaster.

...