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Stefan Grzybowski, MD, FRCP

JAMA. 1986;255(12):1615.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

The idea of isoniazid chemoprophylaxis was first conceived over 30 years ago by a group of workers in the Public Health Service led by the late Dr Carrol Palmer. A series of excellently conducted trials followed, directed by Drs Shirley Ferebee Wolpert and George Comstock, showing that isoniazid prophylaxis reduces morbidity from tuberculosis by some 50% to 80% in individuals who took the drug for a period of 12 months.¹

We realized at that time that in North America the stage had been reached where the majority (perhaps as many as 80%) of all the cases of active tuberculosis were arising as a result of remotely acquired infection in persons infected many years, often a number of decades, previously.² We estimated that if these previously infected tuberculin-positive individuals would take isoniazid for one year, we could reduce tuberculosis morbidity in North America by at least half.

Sporadic attempts . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
University of British Columbia Vancouver

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