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Taylor, Dr Pepper, and My Anxiety Strats: It's Question Tuesday

2025-03-25 · Q&A · John · 5:30 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing (also: Global development, History & curiosities, Health) · mode: Q&A & conversation · tags: recurring series, self promotion, on location, heavy topic, timely hook

On Question Tuesday during his Everything Is Tuberculosis tour, John links the Indy 500, a Taylor Swift song, Dr Pepper and Ringo Starr to TB, shares his anxiety strategy, tells of Ken in Philadelphia, criticizes NIH cuts to TB research, calls many diseases diseases of injustice, and says the tour is tiring but encouraging.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Question Tuesday from an Iowa City hotel floor: TB links to the Indy 500, Taylor Swift and the Lake District, and Dr Pepper

  • ★★ John says Louis Schneider, the 1931 Indy 500 winner, survived a very dangerous racing career but then died of tuberculosis at 40. — 00:00:00 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ Asked to connect Taylor Swift to TB, John cites a line of her song about the lakes as a reference to England's Lake District, where poets and others with tuberculosis were often sent to recover. — 00:00:00 · England, tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says Keats wrote 'I shall learn poetry here' while visiting the Lake District, and went on to die of tuberculosis at just 24. — 00:00:29 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says Dr Pepper was invented by pharmacist Charles Alderton, who wanted a soda that recreated the smell of his pharmacy's soda fountain in Waco, Texas. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — Favorite anxiety coping skill

  • ★★ Joking that inventing Dr Pepper was not his only job, John says Alderton was also a pharmacist dispensing medicines, many used, ineffectively, to treat consumption. (playful) — 00:00:58 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John's favorite anxiety coping skill: telling himself he is worried because life is quite worrisome, and that it is okay to be worried. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John notes his past worries have tended to be unfounded or exaggerated, so he can hopefully apply that experience to his present worry. (hedged) — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Favorite cut fact: Ringo Starr learned to drum in a TB sanatorium

  • ★★★ John's favorite fact cut from the book: Ringo Starr had TB as a young child, learned to drum out of boredom in a sanatorium, and survived thanks to newly available curative treatment. — 00:01:27 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says the Beatles only exist because of tuberculosis, provided one accepts his stipulation that Ringo is an essential Beatle, which he really believes. (playful) — 00:01:27

00:01:56 — Favorite person on tour: Ken, born in a TB sanatorium; 150 million deaths since TB became curable

  • ★★ John says he has met many wonderful people on tour, from people who worked at USAID to people working on tuberculosis at the CDC. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ John's favorite person on tour: Ken, a Philadelphia security guard born in a TB sanatorium in 1952, who survived TB as an infant because his mother crushed 90 pills a day into sugar water. — 00:01:56 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John says survival should have been the case for everyone with TB since it became curable in the 1950s, but tragically we have since allowed over 150 million people to die of it. — 00:01:56 · tuberculosis

00:02:26 — Tour gifts (letters, a Bembo bracelet) and Modern Health Crusader coins

  • ★ John says tour gifts include lovely letters and bracelets about TB or his book, one reading Bembo, the font the book is laid out in. — 00:02:26 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says Modern Health Crusader coins were minted by the US National Tuberculosis Association in the early twentieth century as a fundraiser against TB, like the Crash Course coin. — 00:02:26 · Crash Course coin

00:02:55 — NIH funding cuts: an abandoned tongue-swab TB test trial

  • ★★★ John says NIH funding cuts are severely affecting TB research: a planned trial of a cheap tongue-swab TB test, like a strep throat test, was abandoned along with others. — 00:02:55 · tuberculosis

00:03:24 — After TB: cancer, measles, cholera, HIV and diabetes as diseases of injustice

  • ★★★ John stresses that a lot of money was already spent developing the test; only the spending to confirm it works has been dropped. — 00:03:24 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ Asked what to focus on if TB were eliminated, John says TB is by no means the only disease of injustice: cancer is one too. — 00:03:24 · tuberculosis, cancer
  • ★★★ John recalls that when Hank got Hodgkin lymphoma he said it has a 93% cure rate for those who can access treatment and a 20-70% cure rate in low- and middle-income countries. — 00:03:24 · Hank Green, Hodgkin lymphoma
  • ★★ John says the estimate is so wide because we do not even do a good job of diagnosing, identifying or counting Hodgkin lymphoma patients in poor countries, let alone treating them. — 00:03:53 · Hodgkin lymphoma
  • ★★ John names measles, cholera, HIV and diabetes as diseases of injustice. — 00:03:53
  • ★★★ John says these diseases are cured not only by biomedical interventions but by reforming systems to include more people and reflect that all human lives have equal value. — 00:03:53 · health equity

00:04:23 — Holding up on tour: tired but energized, community, Nerdfighteria, thanks; sign-off

  • ★★ On his ambitious tour schedule, John says he is tired, a different city every day, exhausting and exhilarating, but less tired than expected because he is also extremely energized. — 00:04:23 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John says it is an incredibly difficult time for people who care about TB because we are taking steps away from better tuberculosis care, which is devastating. — 00:04:23 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says talking and strategizing about it in community is more encouraging than sitting at home, and he is glad to meet TB fighters and Partners In Health staff in every city. — 00:04:52 · Partners In Health
  • ★★★ John says being with Nerdfighteria in community is amazing, the greatest gift of his professional life. — 00:04:52 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John thanks everyone who has read Everything Is Tuberculosis: the response has been overwhelming and he is grateful it has been received so generously. — 00:04:52 · Everything Is Tuberculosis

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Everything Is Tuberculosis · tuberculosis

Also: People: Charles Alderton · John Keats · Ken · Louis Schneider · Ringo Starr · Taylor Swift

Works: Crash Course coin

Organizations: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · National Institutes of Health · National Tuberculosis Association · Partners In Health · United States Agency for International Development

Groups: The Beatles

Rituals: Question Tuesday

Concepts: cancer · cholera · diabetes · health equity · HIV/AIDS · Hodgkin lymphoma · measles · sanatorium · Streptococcal pharyngitis · Worry

Places: England · Iowa City · Lake District · Philadelphia · Waco, Texas

Events: Indianapolis 500

Products: Dr Pepper

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