News Briefs

Tutu to IUATLD: TB care a human right

Sessions address global drug resistance

The third week in September, TB experts from around the world traveled to Madrid for the annual world conference held by the Interna tional Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. This year’s conference was held in Madrid. As TB Monitor went to press, attendance figures were still unavailable; however, opening ceremonies were marked by a taped address from Nobel Peace Prize recipient and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who defined access to TB care as a human right — and lack of such access as human rights violation.

Alex Goldfarb, Russian TB expert from the Public Health Research Institute, was scheduled to speak at an opening-day press conference on the TB picture in Russian prisons. Sessions also were scheduled on global trends in drug resistance.

Fate of proposed TB standard still up in the air

Mark-up session postponed five times

The fate of the new TB standard proposed by the federal Office of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was still anyone’s guess as TB Monitor went to press in mid-September.

A mark-up session scheduled for a bill that would have asked Congress to commission a special study on whether the new standard was needed was postponed — five times.

"We’re all still waiting to see what will happen," says Jennifer Thomas, lobbyist for the Association of Professionals for Infection Control, a group that strongly opposes a new TB standard.