Because of the small number of suicidal events reported in clinical trials, the agency could not detect any drug-specific effects and imposed the warning on all drugs in the class.

With that, we can track specific outbreaks of tuberculosis – particularly drug-resistant forms – and actively track down infected individuals and offer them free, supervised treatment.

If there are heroic figures in his story, they are the chemotherapists and the biomedical scientists whose researches seek ever more specific targets for drug action.