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DC UPDATE
Here are the top priority actions:

  1. Call both your Senators and ask them to oppose the nomination of RFK Jr. Here is a sample script [Make it personal, rely on your own expertise and experience.]: 

    Hi, I am a constituent of Senator ___________. I am a ___________(scientist, nurse, patient, etc.) from __________(town/city). I am calling to ask him/her to oppose the nomination of RFK Jr. for Secretary of HHS. Mr. Kennedy is unqualified for the position and holds views on many public health issues that are not supported by science or evidence and will endanger the lives and well-being of all Americans, including myself and my family. I will follow up with the Senator on this.  

  2. Ask your friends and families, especially in these states – Alaska, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia – to call into their Senators with the same message. 

  3. Call or email your Representative in the House and ask them to support a strong CDC budget, especially for their TB programs.


​Pro Tips: Call the Capitol Switchboard at 1-202-224-3121 and ask for your senator/representative or give your state if you do not know their name. When you are connected to an office, ask for the Health Legislative Assistant. If you leave a voicemail message, include your name, phone number, and email so they can respond to you. If you would like additional details, email us at leadership@stoptbusa.org. Bonus points if you write us at leadership@stoptbusa.org and tell us how your call went!!
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JOURNAL ARTICLES


Discover many more peer-reviewed articles on our website page ‘Peer-Reviewed Publications’!​




EVENTS, CONFERENCES, & COURSES  


Stop TB USA
stoptbusa.org
leadership@stoptbusa.org
PO Box 260288, Atlanta, GA 31126 USA

February 2024

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GREETINGS FROM THE CHAIR
I don’t think I am alone in feeling like this has been a hellscape of a fortnight. The unmitigated censorship of people and data and illegal impoundment of all federal funds have disrupted every aspect of how we keep the United States safe. These actions by the 47th Administration will cause damage to our economical, physical, and mental health as well as to our national security even if they are reversed by Congress or the courts; it is so much easier to destroy building blocks of our civilization than to build them. But we must remember, disorientation and overwhelm are the goals. We will not succumb. We will keep focus on the 1-2 issues that we are most passionate about…like seeing a #TBFreeUSA!

- Cynthia A. Tschampl, PhD, Chair

p.s. Don’t forget to join us for our annual meeting, Feb. 28th, 10:30am Eastern; register here.



TB Wire past issues: 2024, 2023, 2022 

Updated Clinical Guidelines for Drug-Susceptible and Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment

  • The American Thoracic Society, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, European Respiratory Society, and Infectious Diseases Society of America published updated clinical practice guidelines for treating drug-susceptible and drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) disease in children and adults in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The updated guidelines offer patients and healthcare providers shorter, safer, and more effective regimens with fewer pills and injections.

TB IN THE NEWS


TB Incidence Reports: 

TB Articles:


Read lots more TB news on our website page  ‘From TB Wire’!

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TB BOOKSHELF


Illness as A Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors 

by Susan Sontag

​ISBN: 9780312420130
























Last month’s TB Bookshelf on Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain ended with a mention of Susan Sontag’s Illness as a Metaphor. In her introduction to the follow-up second essay, AIDS and its Metaphors, Sontag writes how she intended the first as a call to arms against despair among those, who like her, were undergoing treatment for cancer. But reading these works also provides understanding how the masses and the most powerful can distance themselves from those who are suffering, effectively dismissing and condemning those infected with (or at risk for) any number of diseases–as most recently shown by the shuttering of USAID. Sontag’s work encompasses how disease (specifically TB, cancer, and AIDS) need not be considered a familial or moral disorder, or punishment from the divine to be separated from known science: in this harmful messaging, illness stems not from a virus, a bacteria, or mutated cells–it becomes a metaphor to be wielded against the sufferer.

In her discussion, Sontag first explores the distance from a normal healthy, vibrant society. For example, the TB sufferer was both in a literal sense–TB sufferers and the mentally ill were sent to sanitariums–and a figurative one–the TB patient is passive, resigned to death. We should consider how this is a stark contrast to the core American myth of rugged individualism.  One can hear the question of those espousing cutting off funds: “Why waste money on…” those undergoing what Sontag calls “[...]a prototypical passive death [...] a kind of suicide” (Sontag, 24).

From there Sontag describes other ways those suffering from disease become others. She explores the belief that disease “expresses character” (Sontag, 43) making it a flaw in the individual that may spread into the body politic. The danger is clear as “the most terrifying illnesses are those perceived as not just lethal but dehumanizing” (Sontag, 126). Noteworthy among her examples is how Hitler said Jews produced a “racial tuberculosis among nations” (Sontag 82-83)--in addition to also being syphilis, cancer, and cholera. Treatment for such diseases demanded the radical treatment of not curing the afflicted, but removing the people from society.

The current drives for mass deportation, isolation, and deprivation of life-saving drugs, is slightly less graphic than the gas chambers, but the effect is the same and justification comes not through scientific fact, but the most fashionable metaphor, a war (to complement those on poverty, homelessness, drugs…). She shows how easy it is to conjure one: consider this segment from her description of the HIV virus–“the invader takes up permanent residence,”[emphasis mine] (Sontag 106). This logic is fodder for nativists using TB to justify their actions, e.g., (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/us/politics/trump-title-42-migrants.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oE4.paSv._sXVpID9oqBg&smid=url-share)

But we’re not in a shooting war, just a fight against greed, disinformation, and cruelty; as Sontag argues:
    “We are not being invaded. The ill are neither unavoidable casualties nor the enemy. 

[And] about that metaphor, the military one, I would say if I may paraphrase 

Lucretius: Give it back to the war-makers.” (Sontag, 183)


For us, our task may begin (but will not end) with the action items in the DC Update and the note from the chair. 



- David Moskowitz and the Stop TB USA Media Work Group

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Other Opportunities: 

​g Shortage Reportto include isoniazid (INH)on 05/23/23.View the report here.2023-2024 TEA Mini-Grant Program RFP and Information Session Open Now!Applications dueJune 16th, 2023.
-CDC recently published a“Dear Colleague Letter”addressing reported drug shortage challenges for U.S. TB
programs.
-FDA updated its Drug Shortage Reportto include isoniazid (INH)on 05/23/23.View the report here.2023-2024 TEA Mini-Grant Program RFP and Information Session Open Now!Applications dueJune 16th, 2023.
-CDC recently published a“Dear Colleague Letter”addressing reported drug shortage challenges for U.S. TB
programs.
-FDA updated its Drug Shortage Reportto include isoniazid (INH)on 05/23/23.View the report here.2023-2024 TEA Mini-Grant Program RFP and Information Session Open Now!Applications dueJune 16th, 2023.
-CDC recently published a“Dear Colleague Letter”addressing reported drug shortage challenges for U.S. TB
programs.
-FDA updated its Drug Shortage Reportto include isoniazid (INH)on 05/23/23.View the report here.

2023-2024 TEA Mini-Grant Program RFP and Information Session Open Now!Applications dueJune 16th, 2023.
-CDC recently published a“Dear Colleague Letter”addressing reported drug shortage challenges for U.S. TB
programs.
-FDA updated its Drug Shortage Reportto include isoniazid (INH)on 05/23/23.View the report here.2023-2024 TEA Mini-Grant Program RFP and Information Session Open Now!Applications dueJune 16th, 2023.
-CDC recently published a“Dear Colleague Letter”addressing reported drug shortage challenges for U.S. TB
programs.
-FDA updated its Drug Shortage Reportto include isoniazid (INH)on 05/23/23.View the report here.

​​Nominate A TB Elimination Champion


  • Do you know an individual or organization making a significant impact in the fight against tuberculosis (TB)? Celebrate their efforts this World TB Day by nominating them as a 2025 U.S. TB Elimination Champion! Visit the U.S. TB Elimination Champions webpage to learn more about the process and submit your nomination by February 14th.





















TB RESOURCES & REPORTS

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CDC Updates Introduction to Tuberculosis Slide Set
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  • CDC updated its Introduction to Tuberculosis slide set, a helpful resource for those new to tuberculosis (TB). The slides offer a basic overview of TB in the United States, including directly observed therapy (and video directly observed therapy. Visit the CDC website to download the updated slides.













Find more TB resources on our website page ‘TB Resources’!






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