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The world will change.

2024-09-10 · letter vlog · John · 5:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development (also: Projects) · mode: Explainer · tags: self promotion, heavy topic

John tells how a search-treat-prevent strategy cut tuberculosis among Native Alaskans after 1950, argues that Partners In Health's similar project in Lesotho can show TB can be beaten even in poor places, and officially launches Keats & Co., whose coffee and tea profits go to TB care; he calls ending TB deaths humanity's greatest possible achievement.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — TB in 1950 Alaska, the unseen coming cure, and how search, treat, prevent cut it (Bethel); the world will change

  • ★★ John relays a story first heard from Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee: in 1950, the year their dad was born, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in Alaska. — 00:00:00 · tuberculosis, Mike Green
  • ★★★ Up to 35% of Native Alaskans could expect to die of TB, John says, a rate higher than at the peak of Europe's 18th-century epidemic. — 00:00:00 · tuberculosis, Europe
  • ★★★ John recalls a 1941 history of TB saying the 'Eldorado of cure' seemed far off, when a cure was only about nine years away: we can't see the future coming. — 00:00:29 · tuberculosis

  • ★★★ John repeats that the world not only can but will change, and together we have some say in how it changes. — 00:00:29

    “it's not just that the world can change the world will change”

  • ★★ Drugs then proved effective against TB and, prescribed together, could cure it, though the antibiotic cocktail took 18 to 24 months. — 00:00:58 · tuberculosis

  • ★★ One of those drugs, isoniazid, could prevent active TB in people who lived or worked near the sick. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ With tools to cure and prevent TB in hand, John notes that tools you don't use are not tools. — 00:00:58 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ Public health officials set out to search for cases early, treat every patient found, and offer preventive therapy to close contacts: search, treat, prevent. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ In Bethel, Alaska, John says, this strategy cut tuberculosis incidence by 69% in one year. — 00:01:27 · tuberculosis

00:01:56 — Lesotho's TB burden and its causes; PIH's search-treat-prevent project there as a blueprint

  • ★★★ Statewide, TB among Native Alaskans fell by over 75% between 1952 and 1960, and Alaska's TB rate today is 99% lower than in 1950. — 00:01:56 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ Lesotho, a southern African nation of 2.2 million people, today has the highest rate of tuberculosis in the world. — 00:01:56 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John lists why TB flourishes in impoverished Lesotho: high malnutrition, HIV comorbidity, and lung damage from dust in its important mining industry. — 00:02:26 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ 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 · Partners In Health, tuberculosis
  • ★★ Chest x-rays and molecular tests cheaper than ever, thanks to Nerdfighteria's hard work, let them find cases much sooner, treat effectively and offer preventive therapy. — 00:02:55 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ Experts John spoke to believe the project is critical to ending TB, providing a blueprint that even impoverished communities with fragile health systems can dramatically cut TB. — 00:02:55 · tuberculosis

00:03:24 — Official launch of Keats & Co.: coffee rebrand, tea, Europe shipping, profits to TB care; John Keats and TB

  • ★★★ To support the project they officially launch Keats & Co. today: the Awesome Coffee Club rebrands as Keats & Co. Coffee, adds tea, and ships to Europe. — 00:03:24 · Keats & Co., Awesome Coffee Club, Europe
  • ★★ Keats & Co.'s coffee supports farmers working to reverse deforestation, and its tea is back in stock. — 00:03:24 · Keats & Co.
  • ★★★ All profits from Keats & Co. will support comprehensive tuberculosis care in Lesotho and beyond. — 00:03:53 · Keats & Co., tuberculosis
  • ★★ Since the soft launch to Nerdfighteria a few months ago, Keats & Co. and the Awesome Coffee Club have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for TB care, which they see as just the beginning. — 00:03:53 · Keats & Co., Awesome Coffee Club, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John asks viewers to check out Keats & Co., which covers coffee from K-cups to decaf and tea from Earl Grey to herbal. — 00:03:53 · Keats & Co.
  • ★★ Good Store's other brands, the Awesome Socks Club and Sun Basin, will keep supporting the Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone, which John says is really coming together. — 00:04:23 · Good Store, Awesome Socks Club, Sun Basin Soap, Maternal Center of Excellence, Sierra Leone · first in: 2023-10-17, My Next Book
  • ★★ The company is named after poet John Keats, who died of TB in 1821 aged just 25 and often referenced TB, famously writing in Ode to a Nightingale that youth grows pale and spectre-thin and dies. — 00:04:23 · Keats & Co., tuberculosis
  • ★★ Nothing could be done for Keats or the millions who died of consumption in 1821, but that is no longer the case. — 00:04:23 · tuberculosis, Keats & Co.

00:04:52 — TB now curable in months; ending TB deaths as the greatest human achievement

  • ★★ Most TB cases no longer need 18 to 24 months of treatment but can be cured within four or six months. — 00:04:52 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John thinks ending tuberculosis deaths would be the greatest achievement in human history, far harder and more impactful than ending smallpox. — 00:04:52 · tuberculosis

00:05:21 — Coffee and tea pitch, 'Let's make Lesotho Bethel', sign-off

  • ★★★ Ending TB deaths seems a distant dream, but it need not be: only will, attention and funding stand between us and a world without TB death. — 00:05:21 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ They want to be a tiny part of that by making absolutely incredible coffee and tea that also make the world better; John points to commenters' praise. — 00:05:21 · Keats & Co.

  • ★★ John closes: let's make Lesotho Bethel. — 00:05:50

    “Let's make Lesotho Bethel.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Alaska · Keats & Co. · Lesotho · tuberculosis

Also: People: John Keats · Mike Green

Projects: Awesome Coffee Club · Awesome Socks Club · Good Store · Sun Basin Soap

Works: Ode to a Nightingale

Organizations: Maternal Center of Excellence · Partners In Health

Groups: Alaska Natives

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: Antibiotic · deforestation · HIV/AIDS · isoniazid · malnutrition · preventive healthcare · smallpox · X-ray

Places: Bethel, Alaska · Europe · Sierra Leone

Only in the description or credits: Salmaan Keshavjee

Also centred on Alaska: Sarah Palin: An Introduction

Also centred on Lesotho: Let's Talk about Money

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