Everything Is Tuberculosis

Anyone who listened to John Green at all in the past years knows a bit about tuberculosis. Because since he realised that it is everywhere in human history and present, he cannot shut up about it. Now he has beautifully summarised this story in this book. Many of us don't know that tuberculosis is not only currently the deadliest disease on our planet, but italso has been for basically all of human history. We (living in 1st world countries) have just forgotten about it because it stopped being a threat to us ca. 60 to 70 years ago, while poor people keep dying all over the world. John Green managed to make this book a historical as well as medical introduction to the disease, the story of a boy names Henry from Sierra Leone, and a story of inequity and poverty, but also hope and the power of human kindness.

This non-fiction book is by an author known better for his fiction and social media presence. He grew fascinated by the biggest killer disease around the world and researched how something so deadly today could have a treatment that is able to treat it successfully for the last half century. The book began when he met a young tuberculosis patient in Sierra Leone with a magnetic personality who suffered a series of challenges in his illness that each threatened to cost him his life. Along the way, the book delves into the history of researchers who worked on a cure including the big pharmaceutical firms which control the production and distribution of the drugs in the treatment. It explains the biology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in simple terms for non-experts.

I listened to this as an audiobook, read by the author. He has a talent for making a subject you had some preconceptions about new and interesting, and one that you would expect to be grim and depressing into something that says something illuminating about the human condition. I hope that the book advances the conversation on what society ought to be doing to safeguard the well-being of humanity as a whole.