New York Times: Eliminate the TB Scourge
Uvistra Naidoo, pediatrician and research scientist

“…Today we have an ineffective TB vaccine, insufficient diagnostic tools, TB drugs with pernicious side effects, a growing problem of bacterial resistance to current treatments, and an inexplicable lack of urgency, even though one-third of the planet’s population is infected by TB, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. … Where is the reflection of this reality in research priorities and overlying policies? … TB control and prevention have not been embraced [the way other diseases, like Ebola, have been] despite the disease’s extraordinary global impact and cost. … The world urgently needs President Obama’s leadership on this. But his global health budget request for the coming year would cut TB aid funding by 19 percent. … Drug-resistant TB can and must be confronted — but researchers and health care experts need the money to develop new vaccines and drugs…” (5/19).