The Guardian: New tuberculosis treatment could help tackle global epidemic
“A new shorter and safer drug regime for latent tuberculosis could help curb the global epidemic by increasing the numbers successfully treated and reducing the pool of infection, researchers believe. Two groundbreaking studies, one in adults and the other in children, have trialled a less toxic drug than the one in current use worldwide for latent TB and cut the treatment time from nine months to four…” (Boseley, 8/1).

STAT: ‘It’s very gratifying’: Pair of studies raise hopes for safer treatment of latent tuberculosis
“…The research was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. [The study among adults] was led by Dr. Dick Menzies, a respirologist and professor of medicine at Montreal’s McGill University, who has been studying rifampin since 2001. … Menzies said for years doctors knew rifampin — which is also used to treat active tuberculosis — was safer to use [than isoniazid] when trying to clear latent disease. … Menzies said the study showed virtually everything the scientists hoped it would. ‘It was safer. It was completed better. And the incidence of active TB was the same or even slightly lower. We honestly couldn’t ask for better,’ he told STAT…” (Branswell, 8/1).