By Amy Goldstein and Sarah Cohen
First of three articles
Tuberculosis had sneaked up again, reappearing with
alarming frequency across the United States. The government
began writing rules to protect 5 million people whose jobs
put them in special danger. Hospitals and homeless shelters,
prisons and drug treatment centers -- all would be required
to test their employees for TB, hand out breathing masks and
quarantine those with the disease. These steps, the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration predicted,
could prevent 25,000 infections a year and 135 deaths.
By the time President Bush moved into the White House,
the tuberculosis rules, first envisioned in 1993, were
nearly complete. But the new administration did nothing on
the issue for the next three years.
Then, on the last day of 2003, in an action so obscure it
was not mentioned in any major newspaper in the country, the
administration canceled the rules. Voluntary measures,
federal officials said, were effective enough to make
regulation unnecessary.
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