“Seeing Change” in Washington: James Nachtwey’s photos on display for Congress
On October 3, the world first saw TED Prize winner James Nachtwey’s photos of XDR-TB. Now Washington is taking notice!
Our advocacy partner RESULTS, with support from Eli Lilly and BD, launched the exhibit with a congressional reception entitled “Seeing Change”. The stunning photographs remain on view at the Russell Rotunda in the Capitol Building for this week only.
Hosting the event, Representative Eliot Engel (NY-17) and Senator Sherrod Brown (OH) spoke with passion on the importance of James’s work and the need for other members of Congress to see his striking photos.
“You look at tuberculosis, and it’s 1.6 million people per year die of it. Just incredible. I think that most Members of Congress have no idea that it’s so many people all at once. [...]
These photographs just tell it all. I wish everybody could see them so people would understand that this is a disease that is not something that’s in the distant past, but something that we need to fight each and every day.” – Representative Eliot Engel (NY-17) [picture, right]
“They say 2 billion people in the world carry the TB bacteria. They say that 10-15 million Americans carry the TB bacteria. Nobody, nobody in this body knows that– almost nobody in this country knows the potential seriousness of this [...]
I hadn’t really thought much about TB [...] until Joanne [Carter] talked to me about it. And one of the beauties about the House or Senate is you can take an issue and if you really care about it, you can educate your colleagues about it [...] and move this issue forward.” – Senator Sherrod Brown (OH) [picture, left]
Next week, a House of Representatives committee will meet to make critical decisions about the amount of U.S. funding for global TB (the Senate make similar determinations next month). Rep. Payne (D-NJ), a leader on the fight against global TB, and Rep. Don Young (R-AK), have initiated a sign-on letter to the Chairwoman Lowey (D-NY) and ranking member Granger (R-TX) of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee requesting $650 million for global TB programs. $650 million would put the U.S. on track to meeting funding targets in the Lantos-Hyde Act passed in 2008 ($4 billion over five years) and achieving the Global Plan to Stop TB.
Take action today. Call your representative and ask him/her to sign-on to the letter. RESULTS has prepared a script to help you on the call. The deadline for signatures is Friday, June 12.
While the federal budget and appropriations process can seem impossibly esoteric, lives hang in balance. James’ photographs are a powerful and timely reminder of the human faces of the drug-resistant TB epidemic.
