TB's New Brother

When 2,500 of the nation's TB fighters gathered in Manhattan last week for the National Tuberculosis Association's annual convention, it turned out that one of their newest worries is a disease that looks and acts like tuberculosis, but is something else. More disturbing still is the fact that the germ responsible for at least one type of the illness, formerly believed harmless, is now shown to be immune to at least two of the drugs most widely used to combat TB.

The still unnamed disease causes symptoms virtually indistinguishable from tuberculosis. However, the germs are definitely not tubercle bacilli (Mycobacterium tuberculosis)--most are yellow or orange, whereas tubercle bacilli are colorless. And the unidentified germs show a different growth pattern.

"Alarming increases" of the disease were reported by Microbiologist Marie L. Koch of the Wood (Wis.) Veterans Administration Center. There she found 297 cases, 156 in patients who also had tuberculosis and 141 in those free of TB. There has been a startlingly rapid increase in numbers of cases from 1954 to 1955. From Georgia's Battey State Hospital, Dr. Horace E. Crow reported discovery of a similar (perhaps the same) mystery bacillus in 69 patients.

From Cook County Hospital, Dr. Daniel S. Kushner reported that a related germ, Mycobacterium fortuitum, can cause a disease like tuberculosis in mice. It is resistant to streptomycin and PAS (para-aminosalicylic acid) but it can be killed by isoniazid and also by the antibiotic tetracycline.

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