Nonfiction review: EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS

Title: Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green

(I do not have a physical copy of the book with me today so I grabbed two quotes  found on the internet. They are not from the first or the 56th pages...just good quotes!)

Quote 1:

I’m a novelist, not a historian of medicine. TB is rare where I live. It doesn’t affect me. And that’s all true. But I hear Shreya, and Henry, and so many others calling to me: 'Marco. Marco. Marco.'

Quote 2: 

We cannot address TB only with vaccines and medications. We cannot address it only with comprehensive STP programs. We must also address the root cause of tuberculosis, which is injustice. 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.

Summary: How did John Green, a YA novelist, get involved in a project writing about the deadliest infection of all-time? It all started when he and his wife were in Sierra Leone to learn about the country's maternal and neonatal healthcare system. On the way back to the airport, a doctor they were with needed to make a quick stop at Lakka, a government hospital dedicated to treating tuberculosis patients. While there Green met  Henry, a seventeen-year-old patient for his antibiotic-resistant TB. Because of Henry and other children with the deadly disease, John Green started doing research. Most of his research started with questions. There has been a cure for TB since the 1950s so why is it still the world's most deadly disease? With advances in medicine being found every year, why are there so few options for doctors to use with TB patients? Since the majority of people who contract TB are poor with poor nutrition how can we make the world care about them and the disease? This book is the first step.

Review: John Green is a very clever writer. Even writing about a dismal subject like tuberculosis, he makes the topic interesting and relevant. In the first quote he talks about the game we've likely all played in a swimming pool with our friends. One person is it. They close their eyes and yell "Marco." Everyone else has to yell "Polo" allowing the 'it' person to echolocate on the friends, trying to touch one of them before they swim off.  Using this game as an analogy, he says that Henry and Shreya, and others were calling out to him to do something to get the world to care about TB and their treatment. "Marco. Marco. Marco." This book is John Green answering back, "Polo."

Since TB is curable, why do people die from it today? The quote answers that -- injustice. Drug companies charge large sums for drugs to cure TB, making the drugs completely out of reach for people living in impoverished places like Sierra Leone, Haiti, and Peru. The problem Green says is that "the disease is where the cure is not, and the cure is where the disease is not." Think about it. If one of us, living in the US, Canada, Japan, or Australia got the disease, we would take the treatment, be cured and be done with it. Green says, “People who are treated as less than fully human by the social order are more susceptible to tuberculosis but it’s not because of their moral codes or choices or genetics, it’s because they are treated as less than fully human by the social order.” Ouch!

We can do better not just for these people but for all mankind. Here Green talks about how we need to find ways to start virtuous cycles concerning worldwide health, not just for TB but for other health issues. With money and attention we can conquer this scourge. Unfortunately just as this book was rolling off the presses, Trump and his minions decided to eliminate or scale back US AID to the most needy nations for help in fighting TB, malaria, and AIDS. It is as if they think, "we're fine -- sucks to be you." This kind of thinking makes me want to scream and shout, pull out my hair, and cry. We're all on this planet together. If one person does better, we all do better. How do we begin?

Reading Everything is Tuberculosis is a good place to start.

My rating: 5 stars. 

 

-Anne