March 2007: Write a letter to the editor urging U.S. leaders to do more to fight TB.World TB Day is March 24. Every year, World TB Day is an opportunity to ramp up our efforts to create greater political will and financial commitment to fight tuberculosis, which takes the lives of nearly two million people each year, mostly in the developing world. The poor are particularly vulnerable to TB because their social, political and economic marginalization means they often live in crowded areas, suffer from poor nutrition, and have limited access to quality health care, all of which increase the risk of becoming infected by this airborne killer. The theme of World TB Day 2007 is “TB Anywhere is TB Everywhere,” which emphasizes that TB is a global emergency that the demands the world’s urgent action. The recent deadly outbreak of extremely drug resistant TB, or XDR-TB, poses an unprecedented worldwide health risk and threatens to rollback our progress in the fight against TB and HIV/AIDS. Follow the guidelines for letters to the editor (for word count, etc . . .) provided by your local papers — you can find that information on the newspaper website. Always include your address and phone number with your submission as many papers have to call and verify the source. Make your letter short and punchy. To write a letter through the RESULTS web page go to http://capwiz.com/results/dbq/media/ Tips for Writing your Letter:
Sample LetterThank you for your recent coverage of the Asian Bird Flu. While news of the potential of this disease is frightening, it is not nearly as frightening as TB, a current global health emergency, which but for the cost of $16 worth of drugs, takes the lives of almost 2 million people every year. As World TB Day (March 24) approaches, South Africa is dealing with an outbreak of “extremely drug resistant” TB (XDR-TB). This strain of TB is the direct result of poor TB control. XDR-TB killed 52 of 53 patients in a reported outbreak — half of them within 16 days. XDR-TB is spreading in southern Africa and has been detected in at least 28 countries on 5 continents — including the U.S. Worse, because of the deadly synergy between HIV/AIDS and TB, XDR-TB threatens to roll back progress in the fight against the AIDS pandemic. Congress must address this curable killer urgently by providing the U.S. fair share of $1.4 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which provides more than half of all external funding for TB and $400 million in bilateral TB assistance. I also urge Congresswoman X to sign on to the Stop TB Now Act of 2007. This legislation supports achieving the Global Plan to Stop TB 2006–2015, which, if funded and implemented, will cut TB deaths in half by 2015 and ultimately eliminate TB as a global health problem by 2050. BackgroundTB is the leading killer of people infected with HIV/AIDS. The deadly synergy between TB and HIV/AIDS has been highlighted by Nelson Mandela: “TB is too often a death sentence for people with AIDS,” Mandela said. “Today we are calling on the world to recognize that we can’t fight AIDS unless we do much more to fight TB as well.”[1] TB treatment, however, can also be an opportunity in the fight against AIDS. Providing HIV testing in TB clinics is one of the best ways to help find out their HIV status and keeping people with HIV/AIDS alive by getting them access to life-saving anti-retrovirals. Without effective TB control we will not only see millions of unnecessary deaths from this completely curable killer, we will see a rise in multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) abroad and in the U.S., which is far more difficult to cure. TB treatment is affordable — a full course of TB drugs needed to treat standard TB is only $16 in the developing world; however, MDR-TB is far more expensive — a resurgence of MDR-TB in New York City in the early 1990s cost over $1 billion to control. More frightening are recent outbreaks of “extremely drug resistant” tuberculosis (XDR-TB) in South Africa. XDR-TB is a type of TB resistant to not only first-line TB drugs, but also too many second-line, back-up drugs and it is the direct result of incomplete or ineffective TB treatment. The South African town of Tugela Ferry saw the first wave of epidemic XDR-TB early last year. It killed 52 of 53 patients — half of them within 16 days. Since then the count has risen to 184 deaths in South Africa. XDR-TB is spreading in southern Africa and has been detected in at least 28 countries on 5 continents — including the U.S. XDR-TB is very dangerous, and mortality rates for people who are co-infected with HIV/AIDS and XDR-TB are extremely high, warning us that XDR-TB’s unchecked spread threatens to rollback progress made in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The extent of the epidemic is relatively unknown, since many African countries lack the capacity to even find and treat people with XDR-TB. According to Center for Global Development, XDR-TB is ranked as second most important global health issue behind bird flu for 2007. TB exists in every one of our states, and failure to control TB everywhere will make it impossible to control here. You can find data about TB in your state at: http://bluewinkle.com/ntca/respro_tbsites What Should the U.S. Congress Do?In 2000, the U.S joined nations around the world in agreeing to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These 8 key development Goals include a focus on global health: Goal #6 aims to stop and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and other killer diseases, including TB. We must keep our promises to those suffering from these diseases through increased investment so that everyone has access to effective treatment. Leaders in Congress must:
[1] Fifteenth International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, 15 July 2004, http://www.aids2004.org/mainpage.aspx?pageId=291 |