Speech: Hope for an Epidemic
Joel Engardio with Mark Lim in 2000
Supervisor Joel Engardio shares the story of his late boyfriend Mark Lim to raise awareness for the group San Francisco Hep B Free Bay Area. Mark didn't get the information that could have saved his life, but this group is working to make sure no one else suffers the same fate. There is hope we can end the epidemic of hepatitis B and liver cancer in the Asian and Pacific Islander population.
Remarks by Supervisor Joel Engardio
SF Hep B Free Bay Area fundraiser
October 16, 2023
I’m here to tell the story of my late boyfriend, Mark Lim.
He was 29 and I was 26 when we met. Mark was a young doctor, just a couple years out of his medical residency. The future looked bright.
We were going to a music festival in the East Bay on a Saturday afternoon. As we walked in, Mark felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He stopped and then just doubled over.
I helped him back to the car. On the way home, we got stuck in traffic at the Bay Bridge. The pain was getting more intense. Mark climbed into the back seat. He curled up in a ball. We thought maybe his appendix was going to burst.
I drove to the hospital where Mark worked. All the doctors and nurses knew him. They couldn’t figure out why he was in so much pain. It wasn’t his appendix. An ultrasound showed patches all over his liver.
Those were tumors.
Mark was fit. Always at the gym. He never drank alcohol. So it was a big surprise when Mark ended up with advanced liver cancer at age 30. The first symptom was the extreme pain he felt going to the concert. That’s how sudden it was.
A few months later, I was driving Mark home from chemotherapy. There was a bus in the next lane. We couldn’t believe the ad we saw on the bus. We had to read it again at a red light.
The ad warned that one in 10 Asian Americans are infected with hepatitis B and don’t know it — and they could get liver cancer.
Finally, Mark’s illness made sense. He was Asian American. The bus ad was sponsored by the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University.
Mark was a doctor and he never heard of the Asian Liver Center. None of the doctors he worked with heard of it either.
We made an appointment. Then we found out that the Asian Liver Center was just a basement storage room at Stanford — a tiny office. This was in 2001. It showed just how little the medical establishment paid attention to hepatitis B in Asian Americans back then.
We met with the director, Dr. Sam So. He was on a mission to end an epidemic of hepatitis B. He called it a “silent killer” of Asian people worldwide. Dr. So was a renowned liver transplant surgeon.
Yet there he was, in the basement.
Dr. So told us it was too late for Mark. Dr. So also told us Mark didn’t get the information that could have saved his life.
Chronic hepatitis B is often passed from mother to child at birth. Mark was born and raised in suburban Chicago. But his mother lived in China and the Philippines, before moving to the United States.
No one thought to test Mark. And for 30 years, Mark’s chronic hepatitis B was a ticking time bomb. Had Mark known his status and monitored his liver, he could have caught the tumors in time for surgery.
It was devastating to hear Dr. So tell us it was too late for Mark. Dr. So was angry, too. He told us about his mission to get the medical establishment to pay attention to the needs of Asian Americans.
Before Mark died, he was able to help save other lives by telling his story. He was in the San Francisco Chronicle’s first report about the threat of hepatitis B.
Dr. So worked on his mission with laser focus. He was tireless. He became a founder of SF Hep B Free Bay Area. And he inspired a diverse coalition of philanthropists, politicians, business leaders and students to champion the cause.
New heroes jumped into action. The list is long: Ted Fang, Stuart Fong, Janet Zola, Fiona Ma, and Caryl Ito. These are just some of the heroes who have saved many lives because of their work.
Today, the Asian Liver Center has its own building on the Stanford campus. And SF Hep B Free Bay Area continues to grow. The next generation of activists is making progress — including Dr. So’s son Richard So.
There is hope. Remember that bus ad I told you about? The one I saw with Mark back in 2001? It announced that one in 10 Asian Americans have hepatitis B.
Well today, the number is one in 12. That’s progress. But we still have work to do. We need a lot more help to finish the job. Thank you for joining us.
Learn more about the epidemic of hepatitis B and how to end it:
Asian Liver Center at Stanford University
SF Hep B Free Bay Area
Calling Out a Silent Killer (San Francisco Examiner)
Read a personal story about how Mark navigated his illness:
The Birthday Closet
A photo remembrance and reflections 20 years later:
Caramel Apple Lessons