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Editorial: U.S. must lead fight against tuberculosis

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The prospect of a national or global tuberculosis epidemic is frightening - particularly one in which the culprit is a drug-resistant strain, such as the one in the highly publicized recent case of an infected airline traveler.

In part, that is because TB is a once-dreaded disease we have largely forgotten about in this country, since immunizations virtually eradicated it. The emphasis is appropriate, because the recent case of Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker, who traveled to Europe and Canada and then crossed the border into the United States, shows that neither nature nor mankind goes away quietly.

The United States is vulnerable, both from inside and certainly from outside, where TB continues to ravage millions of people every year, notably in Africa and Asia.

And increasingly so, because it is expanding what was its foothold in mankind to a huge footprint across large swaths of dozens of countries where HIV/AIDS epidemics have seriously undermined the collective immune system, and TB is infecting millions and, now, killing thousands. Indeed, it now is killing more than ever before.

In this, we long-isolated Americans have failed to appreciate the wisdom of the English poet John Donne, among whose famous lines are, "No man is an island," and "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

The point, of course, is that Americans are not insulated from the ravages of TB or from any other communicable disease, for that matter. We need to appreciate that we live on a common planet where populations no longer are isolated by vast distances or massive oceans, and that a single, infected traveler can rapidly expose millions in a matter of days or weeks.

The United States needs first to lead the world in getting TB treatment and immunizations to the areas most affected now - the HIV/AIDS-overwhelmed countries of sub-Saharan Africa. While the Bush administration has promised this help, it has been extremely slow in delivering it, as promised, over the course of the last several years.

Second, we need a comprehensive TB eradication plan and funds for a program that taps the best we and the world have to offer, including the expertise of our great medical centers and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We are proud to note that at the forefront of this effort is Rep. Heather Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, who is a co-sponsor of House Bill 1532, the Comprehensive TB Elimination Act, along with Democratic Reps. Gene Green of Texas and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

Wilson, Baldwin and Green get it and are pressing for a law that will give the U.S. Public Health Service the resources it needs to combat TB as it exists today in the United States and the world and to develop the vaccines that will put it down once and for all. The bill would include research funding for a "Blueprint Plan for TB Vaccine Development."

This law is wholly endorsed by the American Lung Association and the health activist group RESULTS, of which Albuquerque is blessed with a dedicated and active local chapter.

In a recent statement advocating a swift and comprehensive U.S. response, RESULTS called the recent, very rare quarantine of Speaker on CDC's orders "a global wake-up call."

The bell is tolling - for each and every one of us.