Thank you so much for your input! I have a difficult time understanding why my questioning funding in my home state would elicit negative comments but I agree with your assessment that people generally are not interested in research funding.
That’s very interesting that interest did surge in MAC with the AIDS epidemic. It is understandable that with compromised immunity, susceptibility goes up, but from what I’ve read, NTMs are on the rise and not only in the immune compromised. I agree that it takes a very astute doctor to even test for MAC-I wasn’t tested for over 2 years, but they certainly searched for every other possibility in my body. Perhaps if MAC/NTMs were better researched and publicized, especially in areas know to have an unusually high number of cases(again, something that would be common
knowledge of with research)doctors, who have been made aware of heightened risk, would be able to diagnosis the disease much faster. I have a lot of lung damage after going so long without treatment and I am a patient at a state university hospital(in 4 different “speciality”departments).
I truly believe there are many people walking around undiagnosed as the symptoms are so varied, in communities who don’t have access to good health care, among people lacking insurance coverage, and as you said, doctors who are blissfully unaware of these infections.
I am one more in the “secret society” of this debilitating disease. Yes, knowledge is power but sometimes I feel like we are living in an ignorance is bliss reality.
Thank you again for responding!