My favorite stand-up comedy routine about tuberculosis (yes, I have a favorite stand-up comedy routine about tuberculosis) begins with Naomi Ekperigin saying that the U.S. has become so troubled that “if America was a character in a movie…this would be the part in the movie where America coughs into a rag and then pulls it away and sees blood.” The crowd erupts, because even now, when most Americans know very little about TB, they still know about the blood in the rag.
