"Three-Headed Dog From Hell"

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

"Three-Headed Dog From Hell"

Washington Post (12/21/92), P. A21
Califano, Joseph A.

Abstract: The new president and Congress can take significant steps in preventing, treating, and researching AIDS, tuberculosis, and substance abuse, according to Joseph A. Califano Jr., president of the Center on Addiction and Substance abuse at Columbia University and former secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1977 to 1979. The combination of AIDS, substance abuse, and new drug-resistant strains of TB threatens every person and fetus in America--and brings the country to the brink of the most dangerous public health crisis in its history. Fueled by the AIDS crisis and by substance abuse, TB is reemerging in inner cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Miami, Philadelphia, and Washington. Among children, the rate of TB infections has risen 40 percent. And in indigent populations, TB rates are worse than those of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. What is most alarming of this public health crisis is that each of these killers and cripplers encourages others to be more detrimental and difficult to prevent, control, and treat. By sharing needles and trading sex for drugs, and through promiscuous and unprotected sex by children that are high, substance abuse has become the prime culprit in the spread of HIV infection. Moreover, people with weakened immune systems are more apt to contract TB, but harder to diagnose. The funding of AIDS, TB, and drug prevention is insufficient. Also, the small amounts the U.S. spends on psychological and social research explain why we know so little about how to prevent self-destructive behavior, concludes Califano.

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