Tuberculosis ravages the world
Every year, between 2 and 3 million people die of Tuberculosis. According to the World Health Organization, the world has possessed the medical capability to cure virtually every single case of Tuberculosis on earth since 1952. We just don’t.
Since the great majority of people afflicted with TB live in developing nations, news of the humanitarian crisis rarely reaches the majority of people living in the industrialized countries. The crisis, however, is well within our capacity to solve. A patient with Tuberculosis can be treated with a daily ration of four drugs which must be taken for a period of six months. This costs about $100. However, if the treatment is stopped before completion, or if some of the drugs are taken and others aren’t, the disease can evolve into a drug resistant strain. Treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is significantly more costly. Furthermore, proper treatment of regular TB has a nearly 100% success rate, while treatment of MDR-TB is considerably less certain.
The bottom line is that government and nonprofit funds are needed to stop the spread of TB before it mutates and spreads. The US government supports the fight against TB through the Center for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health and USAID, but funding is minimal. According the the Center for Defense Information, Congress spent $1.461 BILLION in 1999 on military spending for equipment and programs that the pentagon DIDN’T EVEN WANT! If you quintupled TB spending, it still wouldn’t reach that level.
ACTION FOR CONCERNED CITIZENS
1) Let your local Congressman and Senator know that you feel funding for TB control and research should be a priority.
- Write letters to them
- Meet with them locally or in Washington, DC
* Sample letter to Congress on International TB Funding (click here)
* Contact information for your Congressman or Senator
2) Write President Clinton, urging him to make a major foreign policy statement on infectious diseases, including TB.
* Sample Letters
- TBI letter #1 to Clinton (on TB in general) – Clinton’s response
- TBI letter #2 to Clinton (on increasing research dollars for TB) – Clinton’s response
- Nobel laureate letter #3 to Clinton (focus on research for diseases that impact a large proportion of the world’s population)
* President Clinton’s Address:
President William Jefferson Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20501
3) COPY AND DISTRIBUTE THIS PAMPHLET
4) Contact groups working to stop the Tuberculosis crisis:
Affordable Medicine for All
Princeton Project 55′s Tuberculosis Initiative
The Public Health Research Institute