Help an exasperated medical researcher fix her co-author's sloppy manuscript! Select ALL the sentences that correctly use (or omit) articles with organizational abbreviations and medical conditions.
The correct answers are NASA has been studying osteoporosis in astronauts for decades to better understand bone density loss. and The WHO recently issued new guidelines for the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis.
There are two distinct rules at play here:
- Abbreviations: Initialisms pronounced letter-by-letter usually take the definite article (the WHO, the FBI, the FDA). Acronyms pronounced as whole words take the zero article (NASA, NATO, UNICEF).
- Diseases: Medical conditions and diseases almost always take the zero article in English (osteoporosis, tuberculosis, cancer), unless you are referring to a specific, restricted instance (e.g., the tuberculosis that spread through the camp).