We celebrate the purported geniuses who discovered the cure–but we don’t acknowledge that discovering a cure means nothing unless and until we get the cure to the people who need it–an enterprise we’ve failed at to a remarkable degree over the last 70 years.
Also barely any people know that one of the biggest contributors to preventing and tackling tuberculosis was a trans man named Alan Hart. He was able to save countless lives in the 1900s despite an onslaught of transphobia that followed him wherever he went.
[OP’s image is the office whiteboard meme with the text: Since 1958, when tuberculosis became curable, the disease has killed more people than died in World Wars 1 and 2 combined. And yet we don’t study it in our history textbooks, because we do not want to reckon with the reality that the most important historical forces are not generals or kings, but systems of resource extraction and distribution that we all participate in, and that rob the most vulnerable among us not only of quality of life but of life itself”]
Wikipedia gives an excellent little summary of Hart’s impact in the detection of TB:
Hart became interested in their [X-rays] potential for detecting tuberculosis. Since the disease often presented no symptoms in its early stages, x-ray screening was invaluable for early detection. Even rudimentary early x-ray machines could detect the disease before it became critical. This allowed early treatment, often saving the patient’s life. It also meant sufferers could be identified and isolated from the population, greatly lessening the spread of the disease…. By the time antibiotics were introduced in the 1940s, doctors using the techniques Hart developed had managed to cut the tuberculosis death toll down to one fiftieth.
In 1937 Hart was hired by the Idaho Tuberculosis Association and later became the state’s Tuberculosis Control Officer. He established Idaho’s first fixed-location and mobile TB screening clinics and spearheaded the state’s war against tuberculosis. Between 1933 and 1945 Hart traveled extensively through rural Idaho, covering thousands of miles while lecturing, conducting mass TB screenings, training new staff, and treating the effects of the epidemic.
An experienced and accessible writer, Hart wrote widely for medical journals and popular publications, describing TB for technical and general audiences and giving advice on its prevention, detection, and cure. At the time the word “tuberculosis” carried a social stigma akin to venereal disease, so Hart insisted his clinics be referred to as “chest clinics”, himself as a “chest doctor”, and his patients as “chest patients.” Discretion and compassion were important tools in treating the stigmatised disease.
… In 1948 Hart was appointed Director of Hospitalization and Rehabilitation for the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission. As in Idaho, Hart took charge of a massive statewide x-ray screening program for TB, emphasizing the importance of early detection and treatment. He held this position for the rest of his life, and is credited with helping contain the spread of tuberculosis in Connecticut as he had previously in the Pacific Northwest. Similar programs based on his leadership and methodology in this field in other states also saved many thousands of lives.
By now, thanks to people like Hart, we know how to detect and treat TB. We could invest in a worldwide campaign to eradicate it, but the rich countries that are able to fund this are not willing to do so because the people dying don’t live in rich countries. In the words of the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – Mark Dybul: “we have the tools to end TB as a pandemic and public health threat on the planet, but we are not doing it.”. Before covid, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death worldwide from a single infectious agent, and it looks like it will reclaim that status in 2023.
ALT