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Last updated 3:58AM ET
February 13, 2012
KPLU Local News
KPLU Local News
Deadly and Stubborn, TB Threat Rises
by Keith Seinfeld, KPLU Science and Health Reporter (2009-06-17)
Sitting in a negative-pressure isolation room, Ben Turner, ARNP, has been the clinic supervisor at King County's Tuberculosis Control Program, located at Harborview Medical Center. Keith Seinfeld Photo
SEATTLE, WA (KPLU) - If you listed the deadliest diseases in America a century ago, near the top of the list would have been tuberculosis. Today, it's largely forgotten. First came better sanitation, and then the introduction of antibiotics after World War Two. But tuberculosis never went away in developing countries, and it's had a bit of a resurgence in America. Now, drug-resistant TB is spreading. As a global summit on the disease convenes this week in Seattle, KPLU science and health reporter Keith Seinfeld explores why it's so hard to treat tuberculosis:
(To hear the full story from KPLU's Keith Seinfeld, click "play" above.)

For more resources about tuberculosis, try these for starters:

- About TB, from the Global TB Vaccine Foundation (AERAS)
- A brief, readable history of TB (from the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey).
- All the data on TB, from the World Health Organization
- King County's Tuberculosis Control Program
- This week's Pacific Health Summit on tuberculosis



For a different take on topics of science and health care, check out Keith Seinfeld's KPLU blog.

© Copyright 2012, KPLU
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