Remember swine flu? How about the world health fear before it, bird flu? SARS? Here's a flashback to the scare from the '90s: tuberculosis. Unlike the other 3, which are coming under control or have effectively disappeared, TB is a major threat today. In fact, right now the Marshall Islands is in a medical emergency situation because of drug-resistant TB. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iL8mHur4QvF-FbcNZPWwa...) Here's the scenario: Someone contracted TB, & was put on a medication regiment. They refused to take their medicines. Those TB bacteria that survived the treatments were the most highly resistant to the drug, so when the disease recovered & resumed ravaging their lungs (& later their brain, eyes, lymph nodes, spine, bones, skin, & kidneys), it was composed solely of the drug-resistant strains of bacteria. The scares in the US have been about people who boarded planes with active TB (they were contagious). In 2007, such an incident resulted in a quarantine in the US, the first quarantine since 1963. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10538667) Why do we care? Our drugs are some of the most advanced in the world, but if economic issues or the evolution of TB resistant to our drugs, we could have our next epidemic. This is still almost solely an international issue, as the US still has drugs capable of curing over 60% of multidrug-resistant & extensively drug-resistant cases (and yes, there are enough drug resistances to have both of those two categories in play worldwide).(http://nejm.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/359/6/563)

Article by Alex Heimbigner