This week, Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Don Young (R-AK) introduced the Comprehensive TB Elimination Act (CTEA), H.R. 3080, bipartisan legislation that, if enacted, would put the U.S. back on the path to tuberculosis (TB) elimination. The bill does the following:

• Authorizes increased funding for CDC’s domestic TB program to strengthen state TB control programs and implement the National Action Plan to Combat Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR)TB.
• Renews the US Strategy to Eliminate TB.
• Provides coordination between community health centers and state TB programs.
• Engages the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in the U.S. federal TB research and development agenda.

Although TB cases continue to decline in the U.S., the rate of decline has indicated that the limits of what can be accomplished towards TB elimination, with current strategies and tools, has been reached. Many states also struggle with the high costs of treating drug-resistant TB. But federal funding for TB control has been flat-funded for the past seven years, leaving CDC and states ill-equipped to combat drug resistant TB and pursue TB elimination.

“The American Thoracic Society (ATS) commends Reps. Engel and Young for their sponsorship of the Comprehensive TB Elimination Act (CTEA),” said ATS President James Beck, MD. “The ATS was founded as the American Sanitorium Association in 1905 to prevent and control tuberculosis (TB), which remains a public health issue in the U.S.  If enacted and funded, the CTEA will provide the resources needed to put the U.S. on the path to TB elimination.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), introduced the companion CTEA Senate bill, S. 834, in March 2019 and ATS members advocated for it at the March 19 ATS Hill Day. ATS members are asked to contact their House Representative and two senators and urge them to cosponsor the Comprehensive TB Elimination, S. 834/H.R. 3080