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The cover of Everything Is Tuberculosis

Everything Is Tuberculosis

John Green, 2025

TB has been curable for seventy years, yet it still kills more people than any other infection. John Green shows how injustice keeps it alive, and how to end it.

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13 parts, about 23 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Argues that tuberculosis still kills because of poverty, colonial history and unequal access, not because we lack a cure
  • Makes you see how stigma, romance and racism have shaped who gets sick and who gets treated
  • John Green tells the history through one young patient in Sierra Leone, joining personal story with medicine, pricing and activism

Who it is for

  • Readers who want global health made personal and concrete
  • Students of public health, medicine or development
  • Advocates interested in drug pricing and patient activism

What the summary covers

  1. A cure where the disease is not2 min
  2. Meeting Henry2 min
  3. How injustice shapes TB1 min
  4. A childhood with TB2 min
  5. Giving a disease a meaning2 min
  6. From consumption to tuberculosis2 min
  7. A cure that did not travel2 min
  8. The drugs that were not there2 min
  9. Dr. Girum1 min
  10. You have to keep trying2 min
  11. A new regimen1 min
  12. Virtuous cycles2 min
  13. The cause and the cure2 min

Recommended by

  • Rebecca YarrosAmerican author
    Absolutely fascinating and told masterfully

About the author

  • John GreenAmerican author and YouTuber
    • Born 24 August 1977 in Indianapolis, Indiana
    • Raised in Orlando, Florida; graduated from Kenyon College in 2000 with a double major in English and religious studies
    • Looking for Alaska won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award
    • Paper Towns won the 2009 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel
    • Named to Time magazine's 2014 Time 100 list of the most influential people
    • Trustee of Partners In Health and long time advocate against tuberculosis

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