Everything Is Tuberculosis

bedaquiline

 

Before writing the book, John posted:

Mar 28, 2023: My Tuberculosis Reading List. In which John shares three of his favorites from the dozens of books and articles he has recently read about the wild history and infuriating present of tuberculosis. BOOKS: Stigmatized by Handaa Enkh-Amgalan. Phantom Plague by Vidya Krishnan includes the story of Shreya Tripathi and so much fascinating history.  As for Paul Farmer’s “Social Scientists and the New Tuberculosis,”  it should be available in most libraries, and it’s really, really worth reading.

The intro of the book shares the stories of James Watt’s son and John’s great-uncle, both of whom succumbed to TB.

May 25, 2023: Did TB Cause World War I? Kinda? Maybe? In which John discusses the consumptive circumstances that led to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the start of World War I. The darkly comical story is outlined in the second chapter of the book. Conversely, hat creator John Stetson and specific geographies, such as New Mexico, thrived.

Henry Reider

In Chapter 1, John introduces us to Henry. He has the same first name as  John’s nine-year-old son. His story flows throughout the book.

Aug 15, 2023: Henry. In which John at last reveals why he is obsessed with tuberculosis. Dr Girum Tefera explained to me that Henry was among the first to receive bedaquiline and the first to receive a different med that allowed him to take it safely. Thanks so, so much to Henry for his openness, generosity, and friendship, and to Dr. Girum Tefera and his colleagues at Lakka for working so relentlessly, under challenging circumstances, to advocate for and treat people living with TB. Thanks also to everyone at Partners in Health for introducing me to Henry and to their incredibly important work with TB survivors.

John notes in a chapter titled That Wealth Never Warded Off: “It is an interesting observation of human history that we focus so little on disease… TB is one of the few infectious diseases present in both the Americas and Afroeurasia before the Columbian Exchange before 1492… Tuberculosis is listed in Guinness World Records as the oldest contagious disease.”

How the disease was perceived varied over time. In 18th and 19th-century Europe and the US, the “tuberculous personality” was a ‘divine compensation’; their lives are shortened physically but quickened psychically in a ratio inversely as the shortening.”

It was considered as “The White Man’s Plague,” with other races thought to have some other disease. But after the German doctor isolated the mycobacterium tuberculosis organism in 1882, suddenly, racialized medicine declared that a high rate of TB among black people was a sign of white superiority.

DOT

From the CDC, mentioned in the book: “The most effective strategy to ensure treatment adherence is directly observed therapy (DOT). DOT means that a health care worker or another designated person watches the TB patient swallow each dose of the prescribed drugs. During DOT encounters, the health care worker also asks the patient about any problems or side effects with the medication.”

John Green’s post of Jul 11, 2023: Barely Contained Rage. An Open Letter to Johnson & Johnson. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is a growing threat, and bedaquiline is essential to curing it. Generic bedaquiline will drive down the cost of the drug by over 60%, allowing far more communities to access and distribute treatment. Evergreening the patent will cost so many lives over the next four years, which Johnson & Johnson knows. They must drop their efforts to enforce the secondary patents.

Ju1 28, 2023: Tuberculosis Fighters Have a Posse. In which John makes an unscripted video about how diseases need ‘a constituency,’ and how activists working together across the globe really can dramatically lower the burden of an illness and increase the availability of treatment. This week, I’ve been reminded of an old adage: Never underestimate nerdfighteria.

TB Heroes

Sep 14, 2023: Talking Tuberculosis, GeneXpert, J&J, and more with MY HEROES: Join John Green as he moderates a discussion on tuberculosis diagnostics and treatment. We’re discussing Danaher’s price-gouging on tuberculosis tests, the importance of universal access to bedaquiline, and so much more with some of John’s heroes — including Nandita Venkatesan, Phumeza Tusile, and Dr. Animesh Sinha. Thanks to Doctors without Borders (http://msf.org) and Partners in Health (http://pih.org) for making this event possible. Learn more about our community’s fight for accessible diagnostics and treatment at https://tbfighters.org/.

Sep 19, 2023: So, um…. GOOD NEWS?!?!?! In which John is a bit surprised to have such good news to share–while also acknowledging this isn’t over. Learn more about the deal struck between Danaher and the Global Fund, the Stop TB Partnership, and USAID.  This is very good news for people living with tuberculosis and significantly expands testing capabilities. But it also isn’t the end. Further progress could be made, especially with extensively drug-resistant TB test cartridges–and we should advocate for that respectfully and compassionately.

UN?

Sep 27, 2023: John Goes … to the UNITED NATIONS? In which John attends the United Nations’ High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis and gives a speech arguing that, in the 21st century, the cure needs to be where the disease is.

Dec 5, 2023: MASSIVE Tuberculosis News. In which John talks about the recently ended TB trials and what they mean for the future of people living with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis–and also what it means that it took us so long to find a faster, less toxic, better, and less expensive cure for MDR-TB (multiple drug resistant).

Mar 12, 2024: How We End TB. In which John discusses how we ended tuberculosis once and can end it again. Of the 10 million people who get sick with tuberculosis every year, four million go undiagnosed.  Every year that an infection goes undiagnosed and untreated, the disease spreads to between 5 and 15 more people.  Every $1 invested in TB care and prevention generates $43 in economic benefit.

Mar 19, 2024: Our $80,000,000 Bet. In which John discusses the announcement of a new project to bring comprehensive tuberculosis care to parts of the Philippines as a blueprint to show what is possible.

Crash Course

Mar 25, 2024:The Deadliest Infectious Disease of All Time | Crash Course Lecture. Tuberculosis is often thought of as an old-timey disease, but in reality, it continues to kill over a million and a half people per year, despite its known cure. How did we get here, to a world where decades of work toward a cure stalled in its dissemination around the globe? And how can understanding the history of TB point us toward a different future? If you’ve been following author and TB-hater John Green in any way for the last year or so, this video is the deep dive you’ve been waiting for…

Feb 25, 2025: EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS: In which John reads the first chapter of Everything Is Tuberculosis, his seventh book. You can order EITB at http://everythingistb.com or wherever books are sold. Yes, there is an audiobook, and yes, it’s narrated by John!

The Daily Show

May 7, 2025: John Green – “Everything Is Tuberculosis” | The Daily Show. “This is the middle of the story, not the end of the story, and it falls on us to write a better end.” John Green, an award-winning author and global healthcare reform advocate, sits down with Desi Lydic to discuss his No. 1 New York Times bestseller, “Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection.” He explains how DOGE cuts are affecting global aid – The USAID cuts taking place after the book’s publication will almost certainly cause hundreds of thousands of additional deaths, and the need for political will, and the infection’s connection to everything, from the cowboy hat to weighted vests.

I’ve chosen to focus on the Vlogbrothers video and the Crash Course video because most of the narratives, save for the Philippines story, appear in some form in the book. This is based on my book review of Everything Is Tuberculosis, given at the Albany Public Library on Tuesday, November 25, 2025.

In conclusion

I liked the book quite a bit.  I do agree with David Burton’s 4-star (out of 5) review on Arts Hub. “Green covers a lot of ground in a relatively short volume. It’s a wonder the work never feels superficial. Instead, it is forensic, told with Green’s signature wit and compassion. The only flaw is a matter of structure. Green’s book has almost no signposting for the reader, and so they are thrust from page to page with breathless intensity. It dampens the full strength of his argument a little, which could do with an occasional pause and summary before plunging ever onward.” Even though it was a 200-page book, I could have used an index as well. 

The day of my presentation, a new video, Poverty Is Expensive, dropped, “in which John tells a story about Henry and Isatu Reider’s attempt to visit Denmark for a tuberculosis conference.”

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Fighting against Trumpism

uphold our civil rights and liberties

At the end of 2025, Public Citizen sent out a ridiculously long email detailing its efforts to fight Trumpism.

A subsequent post summarized their activities:

  • We filed 23 lawsuits against the administration’s illegal actions — on everything from the assault on the Treasury Department by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to the regime’s petty and heartless attempt to shut down the National Hunger Hotline. There will be more lawsuits to come.
  • We helped lead historic mass mobilizations against authoritarianism, including the largest day of protest in American history (so far).
  • We are leading a massive coalition of thousands of organizations to resist the regime’s efforts to clamp down on nonprofit groups.
  • We filed dozens of ethics complaints over administration conflicts of interest and wrongful behavior.
  • We issued numerous deep-dive investigative reports into matters ranging from the corporations sponsoring his “Billionaire Ballroom” monstrosity to the torrent of dropped investigations into flagrant lawbreaking by Big Business.

Here’s the thing: fighting is better than capitulation. When you give the schoolyard bully your lunch money, he doesn’t stop because he’s never satisfied. (See C BS, who was threatened with another lawsuit.)

Psalm 10

Someone online posted the entire Psalm 10 from the New International Version. 

In his arrogance, the wicked man hunts down the weak,
    who are caught in the schemes he devises.
3 He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
    He blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
4 In his pride, the wicked man does not seek him;
    In all his thoughts, there is no room for God.
5 His ways are always prosperous;
    Your laws are rejected by him.
    He sneers at all his enemies.
6 He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.”
    He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”

7 His mouth is full of lies and threats.

Push back

Here’s a list tracking the lawsuits against the FOTUS agenda.

I’m pleased that several musicians have refused to play at the Kennedy Center. Will they be sued, the usual FOTUS solution? Maybe. I hope they countersue, saying that the entity at which they had agreed to perform was illegally altered.  

The ACLU posted How to Push Back on Abuses of Power. Among the strategies: “It is the leadership of local and state leaders who uphold our civil rights and liberties. That’s why we have the mandate to meet this moment by standing with them and by partnering with them to pass responsive policies that protect all of our communities.” 

I was pleased to see that Democratic attorneys general are preparing for the return of court battles against FOTUS. Europeans are responding to his threat over Greenland.

But I’ve been most encouraged by the activities of the local Indivisible branch. It’s very much in the spirit of MLK Jr.

Understanding it

Gal Beckerman wrote in The Atlantic (Paywall likely) What Stephen Miller Gets Wrong About Human Nature. It’s an old poli sci lesson.

“The 17th-century philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes each offered a picture of human nature in its rawest form, and they came to different conclusions. Locke, whose ideas were central to the birth of modern democracy, thought that people were capable of reason and moral judgment. Hobbes, on the other hand, believed that we were vicious creatures who needed to be protected from ourselves by a powerful king. Whether a leader is Lockean or Hobbesian really does set the table for the kind of government they want…

“Miller might have been Hobbes in a skinny tie as he confidently articulated what he understood to be the ‘iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.’ His monologue was like something out of the English philosopher’s 1651 political treatise, Leviathan: ‘We live in a world, in the real world,’ he said, ‘that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.'”

We are living in a Dual State. “It’s the continued existence of the normative state” which gives him a 41% positive rating, rather than a much lower score.  “Meanwhile, the prerogative state grows. Maybe it hasn’t arrived in your city yet. Maybe the friends you know who are affected by it did something to draw its attention. But your life goes on normally, until it doesn’t.”

DHS Used Neo-Nazi Anthem for Recruitment After Fatal Minneapolis ICE Shooting

It is important to understand the enemy. Only three more years of FOTUS? We can survive it. (I hope.)

Psalm 10

12 Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
    Do not forget the helpless.
13 Why does the wicked man revile God?
    Why does he say to himself,
    “He won’t call me to account”?
14 But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
    You consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
    You are the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked man;
    Call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
    that would not otherwise be found out.

Net migration outcomes in 2025 and the US economy

Aging workforce

In the discussion of immigration in the United States, the Brookings Institution published an analysis of net migration outcomes. Unsurprisingly:

  • There was a significant drop-off in entries to the United States in 2025 relative to 2024 and an increase in enforcement activity leading to removals and voluntary departures. We estimate that net migration was between –10,000 and –295,000 in 2025, the first time in at least half a century it has been negative.
  • In our assessment, net migration is likely to be very low or negative in 2026 as well

“The downward population pressure stemming from negative net migration has important implications for the macroeconomy. In recent years, growth in the U.S.-born working-age population has been weak, and nearly all growth in the labor force has stemmed from immigration flows. The 2022–24 immigration surge was accompanied by robust job growth, with immigrants both supplying labor and generating demand for goods and services.”

The CDC noted in 2024: “The percentage of older workers employed has grown. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of workers aged 65 or older has grown by 117% within 20 years. Employment of individuals 75 years or older has increased by 117%.”

Weakening the economy

Brookings: “Conversely, the recent slowdown in population growth has affected the level of employment growth consistent with an unchanged unemployment rate, often called ‘breakeven employment growth.’ We estimate that, in the second half of 2025, breakeven employment growth of 20,000 to 50,000 jobs each month was consistent with immigration flows. That number could dip into negative territory over 2026. Reduced immigration also has modest dampening effects on GDP and will weaken consumer spending by an estimated $60–$110 billion combined over the two years. “

In other words, the severity of immigration limitations – and they are not even talking about the MANNER of the crackdowns – is detrimental to the US economy.

The frustration, however, is that there are no solid data.  “Though some refugees were likely admitted in early January 2025, the current administration has all but suspended the refugee program, with an exception for an unknown number of white South Africans. Data on the number of refugees is no longer publicly available.”

Guesstimates

As a librarian, I sympathize with statisticians who must rely on estimates. “Our estimate of net migration of –295,000 to –10,000 for 2025 differs from some other prominent estimates. The most recent version of the CBO demographic estimates, released in January 2026, indicates a net migration of approximately 400,000 for 2025.

“Other estimates are much more negative than our own, notably those using Current Population Survey (CPS) data to examine the foreign-born population. For example, the CPS has been used by the Center for Immigration Studies and the Pew Research Center to estimate a decline in the foreign-born population of around 2 million.”

There’s other info, such as how “the reduction in consumer spending by immigrants also further dampens GDP growth.” The Council on Foreign Relations notes, “Most economists say that immigration is good for the U.S. economy because it helps grow the size of the labor force, boost tax revenue, and increase consumer demand. However, there is some debate about the effect of immigration on wages.”

Sunday Stealing — 3×5

beige v eggshell

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Back in 2007, Donna from Just Me was tagged by her blog buddy, Shaz, to answer a long and lovely list of three things. We’ve pared it back to 5.

3 x 5

Three things I love (Remember, these are things, not people):

  1. Music reference books. Most of them are from Record Research and were compiled by the late Joel Whitburn.

2. My multitudinous photo albums from 1972 -2012, even though I seldom look at them. 

3. The streets of Albany, which are weird. 

Three things on my desk:

  1. Moisturizing lotion, which I don’t even use in the office.

2. A CD player I just bought. I got it from Best Buy, in part because, if it dies in the next two years, they’ll fix or replace it. 

3. An empty Diet Pepsi bottle that I occasionally fill with water.

Three things I can’t do:

  1. Hang a picture on the wall straight without trying it about five times.

2. Paint over something when the old and new colors are too similar, such as painting over beige with eggshell. I can’t see the difference. I’ll paint over yellow with blue, or green over orange.

3. Figuring out technology right out of the box. I have two bins of electronics stuff, most of which I can’t readily identify.

Good

Three things I’m good at:

  1. Paying attention. I seem to see things, especially people, that need tending more than most.

2. Anticipating the behavior of pedestrians and other cars when my wife is driving. And before you ask, she likes it.

3. Remembering scads of musical references based solely on hearing them.

Three things I want to accomplish:

Probably, I need to use lifehacking, or something. Ugh… Or cloning, which I can get behind.

  1. I still want to write that book.

2. I’m in the process of getting reimbursed for medical expenses, a task I didn’t complete at all in 2025. 

3. Get back to genealogy, which has fallen off the table. There are a whole bunch of 16th and 17th-century folks from England who end up in my Ancestry “hints.” I have north of 700 hints I should follow up on.

1981 #1 Top rock tracks

Start Me Up

These are the 1981 #1 Top Rock Tracks. I purchased the book Joel Whitburn Presents Rock Tracks last year. It is “compiled from Billboard’s alternative Rock and Mainstream Rock charts.” The mainstream rock chart was first published on March 21, 1981.

Not unlike Spotify today, it would compile the most-played tracks based on their popularity, “regardless of its mechanical configuration, meaning, regardless of whether it is a 45 RPM single, LP cut, or whatever.”

Start Me Up – the Rolling Stones,  13 weeks at #1, #2 pop for three weeks. I remember this song extraordinarily well. I went to my high school reunion, ten years later, at Binghamton Central High School in upstate New York. The reunion itself was so-so, but several of my friends and I ended up going over to my friend Cee’s house. One of my oldest friends, Karen, who was in the music industry, played “Start Me Up,” which had just come out, at least hourly, so about a half dozen times. (We were there for a very long time.) Ultimately, it became a song for Windows 95, by which point I had grown sick of it. But I liked it initially.

The Waiting – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 6 weeks at #1, #19 pop. The line, “the waiting is the hardest part,” is forever stuck in my vernacular.

Wagering?

You Better You Bet – the Who, 5 weeks at #1, #18 pop. This is the last Who song I really remember.

The Voice – the Moody Blues, 4 weeks at #1, #15 pop. Oh, THAT song; I’d heard it, but I didn’t recognize it from the title. 

Urgent – Foreigner, 4 weeks at #1, #4 pop. I was a sucker for the saxophone.

Harden My Heart – Quarterflash, 3 weeks at #1, #3 pop for two weeks

I Can’t Stand It– Eric Clapton and his band, 2 weeks at#1, #10 pop. It feels pretty generic. 

Burnin’ For You – Blue Oyster Cult, 2 weeks at #1, #40 pop. I’ve never seen this video; I like it.

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic – The Police, 2 weeks at #1, #3 pop for two weeks. Ghost In The Machine may have been my first Police album. 

A Life Of Illusion – Joe Walsh, 1 week at #1, #34 pop

Waiting For A Girl Like You – Foreigner, 1 week at #1, #2 pop for ten weeks. For nine of those weeks, which rolled into 1982, Physical by Olivia Newton-John was #1 pop; the final week, I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do) by Daryl Hall & John Oates was #1 pop

Ramblin' with Roger
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