A couple of years ago, I went through a phase of my life where I watched innumerable documentaries over the course of a few months. One of the documentaries was PBS’ 2001 documentary series, Evolution. In one episode of that series, there was some mention of the threat by multi-drug-resistant (MDR) TB. In the documentary, it was made clear that each day that goes by, hundreds of Russian inmates are being released from Russian prisons, often suffering with MDR TB. It was also shown that this was taken seriously at the time by the U.S. authorities and that there was an organised effort by Russia and the U.S. to find cures for such bacteria. The documentary hinted at an impending TB epidemic in Europe or the States, after taking into account the number of former Russian inmates that emigrated to these regions.
PBS is an excellent station — perhaps the best I’ve seen in terms of educational and scientific content. Many of its productions are among the best I’ve seen in the field and can only be compared to — say — the BBC’s. But it is often the case that documentaries make concessions in presentation style and content in order to attract audiences. PBS is no exception to this, although it is not a universal phenomenon with its series and the ratio of sensationalised information vs. facts is relatively low. The series in question included dramatisation of historical fact, fancy informative computer graphics and illustrations and, last but not least, a hollywood-voice-talent narration, complete with the typical authoritative tone and text, often exceedingly dramatic and seemingly overstating facts, threats, conditions in an effort to make the documentary more appealing and keep the interest of the audience.
Let’s make one thing clear. The example of TB in the documentary was definitely of value; both as an example of how organisms evolve and as an example of how epidemics are created, spread and treated. But the cautionary tone was not as convincing; we’re used to being bombarded by dozens of such ‘warnings’ each year. SARS, bird flu, BSE to name a few. All those ‘potential epidemics’ incurred less deaths over the course of several years than cigarettes cause each day. In a world where threats are cheap and common, it is quite easy to dismiss the seemingly exaggerating view and selectively keep the ‘facts’ from the ‘show’.
Fast forward to September 2006 and the BBC has published a series [1][2][3] of articles on TB.
Why did the BBC decide to publish the cautionary words of some WTO officials? Aren’t the authorities aware of the problem, considering they’ve been working with Russia (at least) since 2001 towards a solution? The fact that TB is threatening the world is known for some time, as the PBS documentary shows. Were Bill Gates’ millions spent for nothing? The BBC itself has been publishing TB-related articles in one form or another with a frequency of more than one each month for the past three years, as a search of the online site for news indicates. So, and this is what bothers me, doesn’t the BBC reading public already know that TB is a threat? If it does, has it been doing anything about it? Are the authorities, social institutions and research organisations, both in Europe and the States, doing anything about it?
Do we need the BBC to realise that TB is a threat? Not as individuals, but as a European, if not global, community. I’d like to think that we don’t, but the BBC articles certainly does not agree with this view. If the authorities, both in Russia, the States and presumably the EU have been aware of this problem for (at least) five years, what have they been doing about it? And why do we need the Red Cross officials featured on the BBC and warning the EU to find out about it? Is TB really such a threat, or is this just a way for Red Cross and the like organisations to get additional funding (at least hopefully we won’t be calling it War on TB)?
