How to remove TAB character from start of XWPFRun text?

[John Turnbull]

I have an XWPFRun which looks like this:

<xml-fragment 
xmlns:ve="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"; 
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" 
xmlns:r="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships"; 
xmlns:m="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/math"; 
xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" 
xmlns:wp="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing";
 xmlns:w10="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" 
xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main"; 
xmlns:wne="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2006/wordml";>
  <w:tab/>
  <w:t>Tuberculosis</w:t>
</xml-fragment>

I am trying to remove the TAB character.  XWPF#getText(0) returns 
"Tuberculosis" without the TAB character and XWPF#setText("Tuberculosis", 0) 
doesn't remove it so how can I remove it?

Thanks,

-jt