Worry over drug-resistant TB
On the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the national health care law, medical researchers from around the globe gathered at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT for the annual New England Tuberculosis Symposium. The focus of the all-day event was a disturbing global health trend: the emergence of a form of incurable tuberculosis that is drug-resistant. The highlight of Thursday’s symposium was an eight-member panel, moderated by Barry Bloom, that focused on the reasons for the emergence of drug-resistant TB, especially in poorer nations such as India, and what can be done to remedy this growing crisis. Bloom is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and the Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Khisimuzi Mdluli from TB Alliance, a global nonprofit working against the disease, spoke repeatedly about the need to develop new drugs to combat tuberculosis....