Everything Is Tuberculosis

Felt like sinking into a long conversation with an old friend. John's voice (both authorial and aural) is consistently approachable and filled with pathos. He breaks down the multifaceted hurdles of addressing tuberculosis in a way that's easy to digest while never allowing the reader to forget, at all times, that these challenges are not just survivable but a crime they've been allowed to go on for so long. The anecdotes he shares are harrowing; at multiple points I had to stop and take a break because I was tearing up, but he manages to weave in enough hope that it doesn't become overwhelming.

The work left to be done feels endless, but it will have an end. It's work worth doing.

An engaging account of the history, epidemiology, and difficulties around the fight to cure TB patients and eradicate the disease. John Green introduces us to a young TB patient in a woefully underfunded West African hospital with the local reputation of being where people go to die. This patient serves as a touchstone that the author repeatedly returns to, to put a name and a “face” to the fight to cure TB patients in poor countries, while educating us on the history, biology, and treatment (or non-treatment) of the disease. Mr. Green leaves the reader with hope in the fight, and with a cautionary warning about what the pursuit of ungodly profit over making eradication a goal may mean to the world as a whole. Mr. Green makes this account personal, but whether it resolves in a happy or sad way is up to you to discover by reading the book; there will be no spoilers here.

This is an eye opening introduction to the deadliest disease our species has ever known. Before reading this, I hardly thought about tuberculosis at all. Now, I'm wondering what I can do in my own life to help push progress against this disease forward.