Rep. may be prematurely sounding alarm

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - A local lawmaker's comments about the treatment of an infectious disease are raising eyebrows.

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter told an audience last week, "As of this week, the 16 treatments for tuberculosis have been declared ineffective. Tuberculosis right now is resistant to everything we have to throw against it."

On its face, that sounds pretty alarming. News 4 decided to check with some medical experts about that.

Dr. Peter Ostrow explained, "There is a case such is that in India that has just recently been reported. It's not something that threatens us here in the United States."

But as recently as Monday, Rep. Slaughter again raised the issued before an audience, stating, "I hate to give you the bad news that as of today, right now, it is likely that there is no treatment in the United States that will stamp out a case of tuberculosis because of the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed."

A spokesperson for Slaughter tells News 4 the Congresswoman was referring to a totally drug resistant strain of tuberculosis. However, Slaughter was not specific about that in her remarks.

Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Anthony Billittier said, "If it was said a little bit differently it might be true. Again, I don't know if she left some words out, and I don't know the context in which she was saying it. So it's hard for me to know whether I agree with what she said."

Ordinary tuberculosis is easily cured by taking antibiotics for six to nine months. Dr. Ostrow says the vast majority of tuberculosis cases in the US are susceptible to the first line of antibiotics and the remainder are susceptible to the second line.

"We should not panic. This is not something, really, this is not something that threatens us here and now. It does point out the potential that these organisms have to become drug resistant, and it does point out that we have to keep finding newer and better drugs," Dr. Ostrow said.

Slaughter released a statement, saying:

"There’s a specific strain of multidrug resistant tuberculosis that troubles me greatly and has caused great concern in the international community. The World Health Organization is calling this strain ‘Extensively Drug Resistant.’ Antibiotic resistance is an issue I’ve been working on for years and as the only microbiologist in Congress, I’m greatly concerned that if many of our current trends continue, drugs in the United States won’t be effective to cure TB and other illnesses like gonorrhea and Salmonella which have shown growing resistance to antibiotics. Drugs are being overused, most notably on farms where they’re given to animals that are completely healthy, and that is creating a very unnecessary risk to us all – a threat that I’m committed to defeating."

The Union of Concerned Scientists has a website about the totally drug resistant tuberculosis in the context of drug use in food-animals. Find that here.