John Green's new nonfiction book, "Everything is Tuberculosis," sheds light on the troubling reality behind the disease's persistent presence. Green intersperses the narrative of Henry, a young boy from Sierra Leone afflicted with MDR-TB, between the larger social and medical history of tuberculosis. In doing so, he reveals a deeper story of injustice that stretches well beyond bacterial infection. Even with the great improvements shown with antibiotics and vaccines, tuberculosis caused the death of more than 1 million people in 2023. Green insists that this constant battle is a consequence of our society’s shortcomings.
Henry’s story is illustrative of these growing challenges. At only 17 years of age, the young man appeared badly malnourished after a life spent fighting against multidrug-resistant strains of tuberculosis. For John Green, it was Henry’s care at Lakka Government Hospital that impressed him. Henry’s dwarfism and childhood health ailments were clear representations of the physical scars he had borne as a victim from his formative years. His illness had rendered him emaciated – a state worsened by lack of access to appropriate pharmaceutical therapy.
Additional economic barriers exacerbated the issue. High prices maintained by pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson have rendered these effective treatments inaccessible for Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health. John Green argues that if Henry had lived elsewhere, he might have accessed safer medications sooner.
"In a world where everyone can eat, and access healthcare, and be treated humanely, tuberculosis has no chance. Ultimately, we are the cause. We must also be the cure." – John Green
Henry was famous and very popular with the employees of the hospital. In checking further, this caused Green to wonder if he was the son of a health care worker. Even for someone like him who knew and understood tuberculosis, one could still succumb to the cruel and deadly stigma of the disease. Patients today report that this stigma is even harder to combat than the disease.
In was seen this way because historically, tuberculosis had been romanticized in 18th and 19th century Europe as a poet’s and artist’s disease. And society conjured up a punitive image that blamed the people in pain. They considered the deaths of such individuals as some kind of divine recompense for their artistic endeavors. Green argues that this romanticization affected work to tackle the true human toll of the disease.
John Green's book emphasizes that while medical solutions exist, they remain out of reach for many due to systemic inequities. The story he weaves invites each of us to look in the mirror and ask ourselves how we may be contributing to injustice.
"We know how to live in a world without tuberculosis," – John Green
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