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tuberculosis

concept · in 133 videos (2014–2026)

An almost always curable disease that John says still kills a million and a half people a year, more than war. It enters the brothers' talk through health work in Sierra Leone, and in 2024 P4A money went to the global fight against it. John calls the decline real but insufficient: about 1.25 million deaths a year now, and about 70 million deaths averted since 2000.

Videos by year: 2014: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2022: 7 · 2023: 35 · 2024: 34 · 2025: 35 · 2026: 16

Also known as: TB

Threads

Also named in the threads: Awesome Socks Club: monthly sock subscription (2016) · Nerdfighteria revenue (Pizzamas royalties, Life's Library proceeds) redirected to charity (2018) · Maternal Center of Excellence: the brothers' Partners In Health project in Sierra Leone (2019) · John asks viewers to donate to Partners In Health at pih.org/hankandjohn (2019) · Awesome Coffee Club: the brothers' coffee subscription for charity (2022) · John asks viewers to buy Sun Basin Soap, whose profit goes to charity (2023) · Good Store: the brothers' store and subscription box at good.store giving all profit to charity (2023) · Sun Basin Soap: the brothers' charity soap subscription made with Botanie (2023) · Hank's Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis and chemotherapy (2023) · John asks viewers to pressure Johnson & Johnson to drop its secondary bedaquiline patent (2023) · John and Henry Reider, a Sierra Leonean teenager with multidrug-resistant TB he met at Lakka hospital (2019) · John asks viewers to press Danaher and Cepheid to cut GeneXpert TB test cartridges to $5 (2023) · John attends and speaks at the UN High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis (2023) · Pizzamas 2023 edition · Everything Is Tuberculosis: John's nonfiction book about tuberculosis (2024) · Crash Course Lectures: launch of the long-form lecture series, starting with John's lecture on tuberculosis (2024) · Keats & Co.: the brothers' coffee and tea brand fighting tuberculosis (2024) · John asks viewers to pre-order and buy signed copies of Everything Is Tuberculosis (2024) · Everything Is Tuberculosis book tour (2025) · John: if the US foreign aid pause is not amended to exclude diagnostics and medication, many people will die (2025) · John: overall human health will get worse as the US and other countries cut health investment (2025) · EcoGeek relaunch: Hank and DFTBA's eco-conscious cleaning-supply subscription, profits to the Coral Reef Alliance (2025) · John: US spending cuts will probably bring a 30% rise in drug-resistant TB within a couple of years (2025) · Hank asks viewers to sign up for Hank's Tea Experience, a Keats & Co. tea subscription, before sign-ups close (2025) · John's 2026 visit to Koidu Government Hospital and the Maternal Center of Excellence (2026)

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

Everything Is Tuberculosis (49) · health equity (27) · global health (22) · Partners In Health (40) · Sierra Leone (36) · Keats & Co. (11) · malaria (16) · Crash Course Lectures (4) · maternal death (21) · cancer (20)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2014

  • 2014-01-21 · Are Poor Countries Doomed? — John says malaria, measles and TB have all declined dramatically, and healthier kids go to school more and later work more than if chronically ill or disabled. — 00:02:09

2018

  • 2018-01-23 · On Emergencies — John: Humans are deeply interconnected as a species: when drug shortages interrupt tuberculosis treatment, the multi-drug resistant TB that spreads is not only Sierra Leone's problem. — 00:01:53
    • In Sierra Leone in 2014 twice as many people died of tuberculosis as of Ebola, and almost all those TB deaths were preventable. — 00:02:22

2019

  • 2019-10-22 · Why We're Donating $6,500,000 — John: In Sierra Leone earlier this year (2019) John spent a day with Ruth, a PIH community health worker who makes house calls to people with serious illnesses like tuberculosis or HIV. — 00:00:09
    • John says it is unacceptable that thousands of women will die in childbirth in Sierra Leone this year (2019) and thousands more of treatable illnesses, and we don't have to accept it. — 00:07:13
  • 2019-12-03 · We Are Cats Now, I Guess? — John: Mabel now helps people with HIV and tuberculosis get care and reduce transmission, and her salary lets her send her kids to school: the generational change the P4A tries to support. — 00:03:15

2020

2022

  • 2022-01-04 · After 15 Years on YouTube, THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING — John: Emma, a 13-year-old in Kono and twin of Kadie, had a seizure; first treated for suspected malaria, she was driven five hours to a CT scanner, which revealed tuberculous meningitis. — 00:02:38
  • 2022-02-22 · On the Death of My Hero — Paul Farmer (quoted): In Infections and Inequalities, which John calls brilliant, Farmer wrote that opposing aggressive MDR-TB treatment in poor countries values lives differently: its advocates would never accept that death sentence. — 00:01:27
    • Farmer helped make the case that treating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is necessary even when expensive or logistically complicated. — 00:01:27
  • 2022-06-21 · On Disease — John says that over the last 2,000 years more people almost certainly died of tuberculosis than in all wars combined. (hedged) — 00:01:27
    • John says more people died of tuberculosis than in war last year (2021), and in every year back to World War II. — 00:01:27
  • 2022-09-13 · A Million Things at Once — John started the channel as an experiment in building an organic audience for shorter videos; it failed: a video on tuberculosis and Toulouse-Lautrec got 17 views in two months. — 00:00:47
  • 2022-10-11 · Most People Have Never Been 20 — John says 200 years ago about a quarter of all humans died of tuberculosis, most of them under 40. — 00:01:56
  • 2022-11-15 · 3 Years In: What Happened, Why, and What's Next — John says PIH has long fought for equity in health care: it proved multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatable in poor communities and helped lead the push for antiretroviral therapy for people with HIV. — 00:04:22
  • …and 1 statement more in 2022 — all statements of 2022

2023

  • 2023-01-31 · I'm Going Back to College? — John says that in 2022 more people died of tuberculosis than of homicide, war, malaria, typhoid and cholera combined. — 00:00:58
  • 2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John says strategies for limiting empathy are built into language, like 'invalid', the English word for people in the 19th century disabled by tuberculosis. — 00:00:58
  • 2023-07-11 · Barely Contained Rage: An Open Letter to Johnson & Johnson — John says tuberculosis is the world's deadliest infectious disease, killing about 30,000 people last week (week of 3 July 2023), although it is usually curable. — 00:00:29
  • 2023-08-08 · TAKE IT UP A NOTCH — John says Hank's experience is not typical: with HIV, cancer, tuberculosis or another highly stigmatized disease, the social response is part of what makes the illness so difficult. — 00:02:26
  • 2023-08-22 · The Panera Phenomenon — John says this was not ancient history but two human lifetimes ago: the idea that anyone is insulated from tuberculosis is very recent. — 00:01:27
  • 2023-09-14 · Talking Tuberculosis, GeneXpert, J&J, and more with MY HEROES — John says eight classes of TB drugs were developed between 1940 and 1965, then none between 1965 and 2013, which is why we are in this mess. — 00:10:16
  • 2023-09-19 · So, um.... GOOD NEWS?!?!?! — John calls the deal amazing news: important progress for people living with and fighting TB, and a big win for the community and its long-time partners. — 00:00:58
  • 2023-09-28 · What the Heck is the UN? — Hank finds it amazing that John was on the UN stage and said what needed saying: the continued burden of tuberculosis is a choice we are making. — 00:06:44
  • 2023-10-05 · America's Second Favorite Fourth Tier English Soccer Team — John says lessons from Wimbledon, its local anti-poverty action group and the AFC Wimbledon Foundation, went into many community projects, including pushing down TB diagnostic and treatment prices. — 00:04:05
  • 2023-11-03 · We Need to talk about Sarapocial Relationships — Hank: By capable Hank means the community can act for itself and the world, from TB access to Crash Course, SciShow and the clubs funding maternal health in Sierra Leone; membership should feel valuable. — 00:03:57
  • 2023-12-05 · MASSIVE Tuberculosis News — John thinks the study matters not only for TB treatment but for how to speed up innovation in treating other diseases, from malaria to cancer. — 00:00:00
  • 2023-12-19 · End of a Rough Year — John says that as TB fighters their only priority is lowering the global burden of tuberculosis, best achieved through cheaper and more abundant testing, though Danaher's choice may make sense from its perspective. — 00:03:00
  • …and 149 statements more in 2023 — all statements of 2023

Also named in: The P4A 2023 is The Hottest Club on the Internet

2024

  • 2024-01-16 · The Bank of Nerdfighteria — John: How we spend our money is not the only thing that matters; how we spend time and attention matters too, and Nerdfighteria's TB advocacy made possible changes that could never have been bought or sold. — 00:04:52
  • 2024-02-16 · How Much Does it Cost to be a Nerdfighter — announcement: Hank: For the first time in a long time, P4A money will not go to the Maternal Center of Excellence, now pretty well supported, but to the global fight against tuberculosis. — 00:05:05
  • 2024-03-19 · Our $80,000,000 Bet — announcement: John says he was also in Washington to announce his family's commitment to support comprehensive tuberculosis care. — 00:00:00
  • 2024-05-28 · A Midlife Crisis — announcement: John says he is writing a book about the history and presence of tuberculosis, which will come out next year (2025). — 00:02:26
  • 2024-06-18 · The Tea — John says tuberculosis is the world's deadliest infectious disease and kills over 100,000 people every month. — 00:02:55
  • 2024-09-10 · The world will change. — John: Partners In Health is working with Lesotho's government on a version of what happened in Alaska decades ago: search, treat, prevent. — 00:02:26
  • 2024-09-27 · Is It 2010? IT'S A PARTS VIDEO — announcement: John says that within the next week to 10 days he will make a large-ish tuberculosis announcement of his own, which will explain why he is signing 100,000 sheets of paper. — 00:01:24
  • 2024-10-25 · I Don't Want them to Get Away With It… — recommendation: Hank says he was lucky to read John's book Everything Is Tuberculosis early; it changed how he sees all illness, with fascinating histories and stories of present-day tragedies. — 00:04:05
  • 2024-10-30 · Sipping the Tea with Hank — John says all money Good Store makes goes either to stronger maternal and infant care in Sierra Leone or to better tuberculosis care in Lesotho. — 00:02:27
  • 2024-11-01 · Working Through a Crisis with My Brother — John says tuberculosis has been the great gift of his life for the last four years, giving him something to think about at night instead of his worries and fears. — 00:07:18
  • 2024-11-19 · Let's Talk about Money — John: Because the soap and socks now give the maternal health care project enough, the brothers decided Keats & Co. coffee and tea would fund a new project fighting tuberculosis in Lesotho. — 00:03:09
  • 2024-12-10 · On Writing — John says tuberculosis speaks to his recurring theme of how we imagine and misimagine each other: we see our own lives as complex and multitudinous but imagine others' lives simplistically. — 00:03:08
  • …and 132 statements more in 2024 — all statements of 2024

2025

  • 2025-01-07 · The Format but it hurts to stand up — John's first professional intention for the year is to support Everything Is Tuberculosis and his TB work without losing it; he has over 100 days of travel ahead. — 00:03:08
  • 2025-02-11 · What's at Stake — John sets out to explain what is likely to happen when TB medication and diagnostics that are already paid for rot in warehouses because of US government stop-work orders. — 00:00:29
  • 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says beyond the information battle we are losing the ability to help children elsewhere survive measles, malaria, tuberculosis and other preventable diseases, with no clear reason why. — 00:06:08
  • 2025-03-18 · ITS ALL HAPPENING — John wishes the book were less timely: he never imagined publishing it while we suddenly and chaotically do so much to worsen the global TB crisis. — 00:01:52
  • 2025-04-15 · Chatting with ... a U.S. Senator? — John says that because TB has been curable since the 1950s, its cause can no longer really be said to be Mycobacterium tuberculosis; on some level the cause is us. — 00:20:07
  • 2025-06-10 · 90,000,000 Lives for $20 — John says graphs of child mortality, TB and HIV deaths since 2000 all bring good news, but this progress will stop and reverse because of the US-led global pullback in health funding. — 00:00:00
  • 2025-07-29 · Dad and Daughter Play Dress to Impress — John says a big part of the pale beauty standard dates back to tuberculosis. — 00:08:52
  • 2025-09-23 · Why Can't I Take My Meds? — John says tuberculosis, the deadliest infectious disease, shows this: patients often feel fine within a month, but must take pills for four to six months or longer, sometimes over a thousand pills. — 00:01:56
  • 2025-10-28 · Elon Cancelled This...Let's Do it Anyway — John reports that this month (October 2025) about 5% of the island's people have been screened for TB, leading to over 750 diagnoses and much preventive care. — 00:01:27
  • 2025-11-10 · My Cancer Treatment was Not Cutting Edge — Hank: The second component is how justly or unjustly those tools are distributed, from tuberculosis to cancer treatment to new ways to unblock blocked blood vessels. — 00:04:50
  • 2025-11-13 · Fighting TB in Kids: A Discussion with Doctors without Borders — John: Citing the World TB Report released the day before, John says TB, the deadliest infectious disease, kills 1.2 million people a year, a slight reduction: progress, but slow. — 00:01:17
  • 2025-12-16 · John Green's Brother — John says he travelled over 130 days this year (2025) spreading the message that the world's deadliest infectious disease is curable and preventable: thrilling, terrifying and exhausting. — 00:03:53 · also in: Tuberculosis and Hank's Shingles
  • …and 161 statements more in 2025 — all statements of 2025

2026

  • 2026-02-13 · Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! — John says forces in power want people to forget they have a voice, but attention and money matter: TB and global health funding were preserved beyond anyone's expectations thanks to people standing up. — 01:34:47
    • John says it is a barometer of the ill health of our social orders that tuberculosis still thrives though curable for 70 years; it is a glaring injustice and a lens on other injustice, which is why he wrote about it. — 01:44:52
  • 2026-03-10 · Is Hank Green Running for Congress? — John says that since 2000 about 70 million tuberculosis deaths have been averted by lowering incidence and raising treatment and cure rates. — 00:04:33
  • 2026-03-17 · Tuberculosis and Hank's Shingles — John says GSK several years ago had two promising vaccine candidates, for shingles and for tuberculosis, that shared an adjuvant, so it could really pursue only one. — 00:01:27
    • John says GSK chose shingles though tuberculosis causes more death, because shingles is a bigger problem in rich countries and TB mostly in poor ones, so the shingles market was much bigger. — 00:01:56
  • 2026-03-24 · How Panda Express Is Tuberculosis — John says tuberculosis has been curable since the 1950s but still kills over a million people a year because of failures of human-built systems. — 00:00:00
    • Admitting it is a tiny bit tenuous, John argues that much had to happen for the French Revolution to go as it did, and at least one of those things is tuberculosis. — 00:03:58
  • 2026-04-24 · The AI Question that No AI Person Asks — Hank: On what he calls TB Bench, Hank says TB kills more than a million people a year and its deaths have been preventable for decades, so intelligence is not the problem. — 00:02:07
  • 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says tuberculosis has a huge latent human reservoir: even in the US, where TB is rare, something like 13 million people carry TB bacteria without symptoms. (hedged) — 00:01:56
  • 2026-10-08 · The Test of a First Rate Intelligence — John says that in the last 25 years tuberculosis deaths have fallen by over 30%, yet we failed every one of the 1.2 million people who died of TB last year (2025). — 00:03:54
  • 2026-10-20 · Correcting a Mistake in Everything Is Tuberculosis · 50 x 50 Science — John: Tuberculosis remains the world's deadliest infectious disease, sickening over 10 million people and killing over 1.2 million every year. — 00:01:56
    • John says the United States dramatically reduced its tuberculosis rate between 1890 and 1940 by making homes and factories less crowded and improving air circulation, which reduced airborne transmission. — 00:02:26
  • …and 62 statements more in 2026 — all statements of 2026