How Serious Is a Hepatitis B Infection?

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Vaccine derived immunity is thought to be short lived. Between 30-50 percent of vaccinated individuals lose their antibodies within seven years.

Up to 60 percent of persons who initially respond will lose detectable antibodies within 12 years. This means that administering hepatitis B vaccine at birth will provide little to no protection to the real risks of acquiring hepatitis B: promiscuous sexual behavior and IV drug abuse.

Furthermore, antibody count does not necessarily mean that you have acquired immunity to a particular pathogen. There are many cases of people acquiring the very disease they were supposed to be protected from despite high antibody count.



Approximately 50 percent of patients who contract job function email list hepatitis B develop no symptoms after exposure. However, the exposure ensures that they will have life-time immunity. An additional 30 percent develop only flu-like symptoms, and again, this group will acquire life-time immunity. The remaining 20 percent exposed to hepatitis B will develop the symptoms of the disease. 95 percent of this 20 percent will fully recover, with life-time immunity. Therefore, less than five percent of people who contract Hepatitis B will become chronic carriers of the infection.

The numbers get even smaller: Of that five percent, nearly 75 percent (or 3.75 percent of the total exposed) will live with an asymptomatic infection and only 25 percent, (or only 1.25 percent of the total number of people exposed) will develop chronic liver disease or liver cancer, 10-30 years after the acute infection. (Hyams, K.C. (1995) Risks of chronicity following acute hepatitis B virus infection: A review. Clin. Infect. Dis. 20, 992-1000). Think of that in terms of probability: The possibility of contracting the disease is exceedingly difficult for children and only 1.25 percent of those that are exposed will actually develop the most serious complication.