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Tuberculosis Fighters Have a Posse

2023-07-18 · letter vlog · John · 5:48 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: Advocacy & fundraising · tags: timely hook, heavy topic, on location

John argues that diseases get solved when they have a global constituency that includes the rich and powerful, as COVID-19, HIV and malaria show, and that tuberculosis, a curable disease of poverty, needs the rich world to listen and give its fighters 'a posse'; he credits the community with a big step last week.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John admits that five years ago he did not know tuberculosis was the world's deadliest infectious disease

  • ★★ John says five years ago, at 40, he thought himself fairly well informed but did not know tuberculosis was the world's deadliest infectious disease, which is part of why he is now obsessed with it. — 00:00:00 · tuberculosis
  • ★ John says his tuberculosis obsession goes so far that even on vacation he is reading a book about Arthur Conan Doyle and his contributions to tuberculosis research. (playful) — 00:00:00 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John states that tuberculosis is the world's deadliest infectious disease. — 00:00:00 · tuberculosis

00:00:29 — Diseases need a global constituency: a health official's remark, and COVID-19, HIV and malaria as examples

  • ★ John says that whenever he brings up tuberculosis socially, which is every time, people say they thought it was a problem of the past, as he once believed it a 19th-century problem. (playful) — 00:00:29 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John recounts a global health official telling him tuberculosis lacks a global constituency: illnesses with one get far more attention, and the problems we pay attention to tend to be the ones we solve. — 00:00:58 · global health, tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says COVID-19 had a global constituency from day one: powerful people and countries saw their lives upended, so resources were spent immediately. — 00:00:58 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ John says HIV mainly affected marginalized people, making a global coalition harder, until 1980s groups like ACT UP used direct action and activism to get governments' attention. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ John thinks Ronald Reagan first mentioned HIV four or five years after it emerged in the United States. (hedged) — 00:01:27 · United States
  • ★★★ John says new HIV treatments still did not reach impoverished communities until activists in the US, Europe and the Global South worked together to build that constituency. — 00:01:56 · United States, Europe
  • ★★ John says that as a result HIV deaths have dropped by more than 50% over the last 20 years. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ John says organizations worked hard to put malaria at the center of health conversations, especially in the early 2000s, when the malaria death rate finally began to drop. — 00:02:26 · malaria
  • ★★★ John says a disease having a constituency really means one that includes people from rich and powerful communities with access to the megaphones of the social internet. — 00:02:26 · global health

00:02:55 — Tuberculosis has activists but needed rich-world attention; it is curable, and why it was neglected

  • ★★ John says tuberculosis does have a constituency: over 10 million people get sick every year, and many activists work hard to bring attention to the crisis. — 00:02:55 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says he still knew nothing about tuberculosis because he was not listening to those activists' voices and did not even know how to. — 00:02:55 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says young women activists eventually sued the Indian government so that generic bedaquiline could be produced, activism he knew nothing about five years ago. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ John argues that what tuberculosis needed was for people in the rich world to pay attention, and feels that is beginning to happen, not mainly because of him, though he will not shut up about it. — 00:03:24 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John says people are beginning to understand that the world's deadliest infectious disease in 2023 is curable, and that the cure is not just medicine. — 00:03:24 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says curing TB also means finding and quickly diagnosing cases, including drug resistance, giving household contacts one month of preventive treatment, and access to curative treatment for everyone with TB. — 00:03:53 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says people like him overlooked tuberculosis because it kills slowly rather than dramatically and is a much bigger problem in low- and middle-income countries than in rich ones. — 00:04:22 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John says tuberculosis is ultimately caused by crowded living conditions, malnutrition and other symptoms of poverty, which he calls the world's leading cause of death. — 00:04:22 · tuberculosis, extreme poverty
  • ★★ John says that for too long the fight against tuberculosis has lacked the global constituency it needs, but he hopes that is starting to change. (hedged) — 00:04:22 · tuberculosis, global health

00:04:52 — Andre the Giant has a posse: tuberculosis fighters should too; gratitude for last week's step; sign-off

  • ★★ John recalls that as a teenager the 'Andre the Giant has a posse' stickers brought him joy: he loved the idea that Andre had people with him and would no longer be marginalized for his size. — 00:04:52

  • ★★★ John wants people living with tuberculosis and the activists fighting it to have a posse: the world, especially the rich world, telling them they are not alone and will be stood and fought for. — 00:05:21 · tuberculosis

    “for tuberculosis fighters to have a posse”

  • ★★★ John thinks this community helped lead a big step in that direction last week (week of 10 July 2023) and is overwhelmed with gratitude, but says it is one step and more are needed. — 00:05:21 · Nerdfighteria

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: global health · tuberculosis

Also: People: André the Giant · Arthur Conan Doyle · Ronald Reagan

Works: Andre the Giant Has a Posse

Organizations: ACT UP · Government of India

Concepts: antimicrobial resistance · extreme poverty · generic drug · HIV/AIDS · infectious disease · malaria · malnutrition · preventive healthcare

Places: Europe · United States

Events: COVID-19 pandemic

Products: Bedaquiline

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