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

TB IN THE NEWS


​TB Articles:


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TB Incidence Reports:

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

​​​EVENTS, CONFERENCES, & COURSES  

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“What You Need to Know About TB” fact sheet available in new languages
What You Need to Know About Tuberculosis informs readers about the transmission, symptoms,
testing, and treatment of TB. The fact sheet is now available in eleven languages: English, Chinese,
Chuukese, Creole, French, Marshallese, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
















​The 2024 TB Education and Training Network (ETN) and TB Program Evaluation Network
(PEN) Conference is September 17-19 in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference presents a unique
opportunity for TB program staff. It allows them to expand their understanding of TB education, training,
and program evaluation. The conference will include sessions on updated TB information and best
practices, as well as networking opportunities amongst conference attendees. The audience for this
conference includes professionals in TB health education, communication, and program evaluation. These
individuals represent the federal, state, and local levels. Visit the CDC website to learn more about the
conference












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September 2024


GREETINGS FROM THE CHAIR
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I wanted to take this moment to acknowledge the amazing efforts of our Work Groups (how we, as a group of ordinary and passionate volunteers, are moving to #EndTB). I am so proud and grateful for all they do. Here a quick list – do you want to come join the fun?! Just email us atleadership@stoptbusa.org:

  1. Media Work Group (MWG) - meets every week and helps shape all our website, newsletter, and social media content as well as media  advocacy and communications training events.

  2. Medicare Work Group (CMS WG) - meets once a month until we achieve the concrete goal of Medicare formally declaring a  National Coverage Determination for TB infection testing.

  3. Academic Detailing Work Group (DWG) - meets every other week and is led by primary care providers who want to help educate other primary care providers on the essentials of screening, testing, and treating TB.

  4. TB on Wikipedia Work Group (WWG) - meets every other week to help update the tuberculosis page on Wikipedia.

  5. Pharmacy Outreach Work Group (PWG) - Meets about once a month and works to educate pharmacists on how they can help #EndTB, as well as working in coalition with the CTCA on the issue of TB drug shortages nationwide.

  6. Government Relations Work Group (GWG) - in the planning stages and will focus on legislative advocacy and communicating with elected officials.

- Cynthia A. Tschampl, PhD, Chair


​​​​​Stop TB USA: Where we unite to #EndTB!

Invite a friend to sign up to receive the TB Wire and be a part of Stop TB USA!


​Consider donating: Make a check out to NTCA (our fiscal home) with “Stop TB USA donation” in the memo line.

Send to PO Box 260288, Atlanta, GA 31126

ANNOUNCEMENTS




​Other opportunities

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.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.

TB REPORTS & RESOURCES

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

Who wants to raise money, who wants to donate money for North Koreans?

Dr. KJ Seung of the Eugene Bell Foundation asks this question in Out of Breath, a documentary about Dr. Stephen Linton’s efforts to treat multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB in North Korea. While similar questions are present in the background, this is not about the Pyongyang regime, i.e. the extent to which they are willing to accept outside help for their MDR-afflicted population (or the endemic food shortages–even though mal- and undernourishment drive active TB incidences). Nor is it about the specifics of diagnosis and treatment in a country whose Department of Health views MDR as a top priority. 


What stands out in Out of Breath is the individual human cost of tuberculosis--on the sufferer, their family, and the caregivers. Boston-based Dr. Seung describes how he wasn’t scared of TB until he witnessed it on a large scale: Following this disclosure, the film illustrates TB on the smallest, most intimate scales at the rural Sonchon Tuberculosis Center: first, an unnamed 14-year-old bed-ridden girl with tuberculosis lymphadenitis causing an open wound in her neck and an adult male, Kim Taesung who has endured two unsuccessful treatments and breathes as if “running a marathon” even when resting on a cane. These patients–those who survive to complete treatment–spend 18-24 months in such rural facilities reduced to – in Linton’s own
description–people “who eat, take bitter pills and then sit around and lament [their] situation.” They have an “infectious cancer” whose most insidious aspect (and motivation to submit to treatment) according to Seung is “[They] don’t just die. [They] actually kill the people that [they] love.”


The latter half of the film focuses primarily on Linton, the son of missionaries who is in his own and his wife’s words, obsessed with MDR TB. He also knows he’s a guest of a nation whose citizens are conditioned to pass the time singing songs (included in the film) praising their leader. While he is soft-spoken, his message is blunt as he tells the wife of one patient, “He’s giving up on life” if the man doesn’t take his pills. Echoing this is North Korean doctor Jung Chul who tells staff, “When it comes to side effects, as a rule even if the patient is throwing up or whatever [...] you need to decide which is more threatening to the patient’s life, the TB or the treatment,” making it clear there is no decision: the TB is always more threatening to the patient and others. 


Treating MDR under the best circumstances is not easy. Linton talks about how treating MDR costs 150 times drug susceptible TB saying “if we lose our teeth we must chew with our gums as a last resort.” A  regular volunteer, professor of Korean history Avram Agov, points out the additional concern: “We forget that besides the regime and the elite, there are millions of people,” of whom, according to BMJ Global Health’s calculations, will suffer 80,000 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8499335/) will suffer MDR in 2025.

- David Moskowitz, Stop TB USA Media Work Group Chair

TB Wire past issues: 2024, 2023, 2022 

DC UPDATE
Get in touch with your members of Congress and ask them to… 

  1. Write or speak to the Chair and Ranking member of Appropriations in favor of a minimum of $225 million for CDC’s fiscal year 2025 TB programs as TB cases increased 16% in 2023 and will continue to rise as the full impact of COVID-19 comes to bear.
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  2. Write a letter to CMS Administrator Brooks-LaSure in support of a **timely** National Coverage Determination of LTBI screening and testing.

  3. Co-sponsor the End TB Now Act, H.1776/S.288! [Here’s a helpful fact sheet and a press release about the End TB Now Act.]


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 that they can respond. If you would like a sample script, email us at leadership@stoptbusa.org. Bonus points if you write us at leadership@stoptbusa.org and tell us how your call went!!



JOURNAL ARTICLES

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

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TB BOOKSHELF

















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​Out of Breath
Directed by Hein S. Sok

Produced by Taegon Kim and Hein S. Sok
Journeyman Pictures
Duration: 63 min.


Run time: Approximately 53 minutes