Paul Simon signing the letter to the presidential candidates, asking them to announce a presidential initiative to find TB when they take office
-Photo courtesy of Alexandra Marvar, Vanity Fair

Last week, the devastation of a little-understood illness was made visible on a grand scale. We need your help in fighting this disease.

My organization, RESULTS, worked with the organizers of the TED prize to make this happen. The TED prize is awarded to three individuals every year to make a wish to help change the world. One of last year’s winners was James Nachtwey, a renowned war photographer. James’ wish was to highlight an issue that needed greater visibility, and he chose extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). His TED talk can be found here.

Since one of RESULTS’ major projects is a campaign to fight TB, we helped people take action to prevent the suffering shown in James’ haunting pictures. Many people think of TB as a disease of the past, but TB kills 1.7 million people every year, and is the leading killer of people with HIV/AIDS. Although TB is treatable and curable, TB programs are chronically under-funded, so many people don’t have access to proper treatment. Their TB becomes resistant to the drugs that are available. That’s how XDR-TB came to be, and has been spreading rapidly in the two years since it was detected.

James documented people who were suffering from XDR-TB. We helped TED with the launch in New York, where the pictures were broadcast in Times Square and Lincoln Center. Other displays will be broadcast worldwide this month, and even at a science base in Antarctica!

We’re asking activists to tell their leaders to make TB a priority. Worldwide, we’ve asked people to write to the leaders of the G8. In the U.S., we’re asking people to sign a letter to the presidential candidates, asking them to announce a presidential initiative to fight TB when they take office. Both McCain and Obama have issued statements citing their concern on TB. We need to move them to action.

You can help us by visiting xdrtb.org to see James’ stirring photos and signing the letters, and visiting action.org to learn more about TB. We had thousands of signers on the first day alone. Let’s see how much more we can do.

-Robyn Shepherd, Communications Officer, RESULTS Educational Fund

-Photo courtesy of Robyn Shepherd

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 12:58 pm and is filed under RESULTS, ONE, Tuberculosis (TB). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.