Editing Kiryas Joel, New York (section)

====Hepatitis A and vaccine trial====
In the 1990s, the first clinical trials for the [[hepatitis A]] vaccine took place in Kiryas Joel, where 70 percent of residents had been affected. This disproportionate rate of hepatitis A infection was due in part to Kiryas Joel's high birth rate and crowded conditions among children, who bathed together in pools and ate from communal food at school. Children who were not infected with hepatitis A were separated into two groups, one receiving the experimental vaccine and the other receiving a placebo injection. Based on this study, the vaccine was declared 100 percent effective. Merck licensed the vaccine in 1995, and it became available in 1996, after which the hepatitis A infection rate fell by 75 percent in the United States.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.advocatesaz.org/2012/05/22/sti-awareness-viral-hepatitis/|title=STD Awareness: Viral Hepatitis|date=May 22, 2012|website=advocatesaz.org|access-date=September 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170926102310/http://blog.advocatesaz.org/2012/05/22/sti-awareness-viral-hepatitis/|archive-date=September 26, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>