TB Fight Hits a Wall in India - making more resistant strains through poor public policy

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1...71954.html

Okay, this is just sad. India is now giving a 6 drug cocktail to anyone with drug resistant TB - However, you must NOT be resistant to 4 of the 6 drugs for the program to work. Guess what? Most folks on the program ARE RESISTANT TO THE DRUGS AND MAKING A MORE VIRULENT FORM OF TB. Will India stop? Nope, they are pushing ahead and probably going to create a form of TB that is completely resistant to drug therapy. The only option left (after drug treatment fails) is to quarantine the patients and isolate them so others don't get infected. You can also collapse one of the lungs in the hopes of protecting the other.

Idiots, they are going to create a super TB that can't be contained.

Here's some of the article (even more depressing)

"MUMBAI—Here on center stage in the global crisis of drug-resistant tuberculosis, top doctors are sounding a new alarm: India's emergency strategy to defeat the disease may be having the opposite effect—encouraging TB instead to mutate into more deadly and unstoppable strains. In its new strategy, India is treating some, and perhaps many, drug-resistant TB patients with drugs that they are already resistant to. That can allow the bacteria to build resistance to new drugs as well.

On Friday, a prominent specialist described research to The Wall Street Journal showing that the government's treatment plan wouldn't work on fully two-thirds of the 300 patients analyzed at one major Mumbai hospital. The results suggest India's plan is "a futile exercise" that will "serve to amplify resistance," said the researcher, Dr. Zarir Udwadia. "It is morally and medically disastrous."

Shown the findings, Mario Raviglione, director of the World Health Organization's Stop TB Department, called India's approach to treating drug-resistant TB "complete nonsense."

Greed is Good™

On the brightside it will be a form of population control which India is badly in need of, but clearly at the cost of people eventually dying prematurely from TB. However, I don't know how much you can expect from a country as backwards as India.

Quote from brbubba : On the brightside it will be a form of population control which India is badly in need of, but clearly at the cost of people eventually dying prematurely from TB. However, I don't know how much you can expect from a country as backwards as India.

Unfortunately, it's not like the TB knows not to venture outside of India.

I'd kill for some lamb biryani and naan right now....

Quote from bonkman : Unfortunately, it's not like the TB knows not to venture outside of India.

True true, but you'd likely see the worst of it isolated to India with an occasional case popping up here.

This sort of thing speaks volumes for why we need to take special care to control immigration into this country. If we do not control our borders, how can we prevent epidemics arising in other countries from spreading here?

Quote from JackHandey : This sort of thing speaks volumes for why we need to take special care to control immigration into this country. If we do not control our borders, how can we prevent epidemics arising in other countries from spreading here?

So you believe that we should prohibit U.S. citizens infected with the super TB strain from reentering the country until they are cured?

Quote from kharvel : So you believe that we should prohibit U.S. citizens infected with the super TB strain from reentering the country until they are cured?

Except I don't think you would be cured. Also how do you test for it? The current test most US doctors use is the PPD test which gives false positives for anyone who got the vaccine, mostly foreign born people. The QFT test is better, but most doctors are either too stupid or ignorant to use it. That being said, both tests require time to either process or wait for results, way more time than someone could reasonably be held in customs. Also I think the ACLU and everyone else out there would have a hard time allowing them to draw blood at customs.

Quote from brbubba : Also I think the ACLU and everyone else out there would have a hard time allowing them to draw blood at customs.

Actually, the U.S. Customs can demand anything of anyone before allowing them to enter the country, including but not limited to, drawing of blood.

Quote from brbubba : True true, but you'd likely see the worst of it isolated to India with an occasional case popping up here.

Really? Perhaps back in the day before air travel but not so much anymore...

Quote from kharvel : So you believe that we should prohibit U.S. citizens infected with the super TB strain from reentering the country until they are cured?

I believe that US citizens should be quarantined pending a cure, and non citizens denied access until they find a cure.

Quote from StarNova : http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1...71954.html Shown the findings, Mario Raviglione, director of the World Health Organization's Stop TB Department, called India's approach to treating drug-resistant TB "complete nonsense."

I am not sure how many of you read this article in the actual Wall Street journal paper. The very next day after this was published, there was a strong reply from the same WHO director stating that the statements made in the article about him are completely wrong. He has written that India complies with the recommendation of WHO and fully cooperating to eradicate TB.

Now as a subscriber and regular reader to Wall Street journal myself am not able to understand whether the contents of this article is fully genuine.