Book Review: Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

In the postscript of Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green reflected how Shreya Tripathi was reading The Fault in Our Stars on her deathbed before he "knew that TB was still a thing" (186). And this is where I'd like to begin my review. That very book was my introduction to John Green, and I'm sorry, John, but I hated it. I was in high school, and the idea of love, romance, and relationships felt confusing and gross. At the same time, I was reading Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving, trying to understand why my high school friends were suddenly so interested in dating.

I now come to understand love as something deeper and more expansive than just romantic attraction. While I no longer find romance confusing or off-putting, it's still not a genre I'm drawn to as a reader. That said, after finishing Everything Is Tuberculosis, I can tell just how much love, compassion, and thoughtful care Green put into writing this book, and I genuinely enjoyed it. In fact, I plan to include it in a lecture I'm giving on medical anthropology. Thank you, John, for this book, and for the activism you do to draw attention to a disease that is both curable and still widely neglected. Green reminded me that love doesn't always take the form of romance. Sometimes, it looks like fighting for access to medicine and care. Sometimes, it looks like telling a story so that the world starts listening.

It's worth noting that tuberculosis is the oldest known contagious disease. Mummies from ancient Egypt, dating back five thousand years, show signs of TB infection, and researchers estimate that TB bacteria may have existed for as long as 3 million years. Despite major advances in medical science and technology, smallpox remains the only human disease we've successfully eradicated. Tuberculosis is curable, but curing it on a global scale requires political will, sustained investment, and equitable access to treatment, not just for those who can afford overpriced medications, but for everyone. As Adam Grant, one of my favorite thinkers, puts it, this book serves as "a timeless reminder to pay attention to your attention." And if we truly paid more attention to TB, not just as a distant, forgotten disease but as an urgent global health issue, maybe we could finally eliminate it.
As John Green writes in one of the book’s most striking passages (181):

I once asked a tuberculosis doctor, KJ Seung: Of the 1,300,000 people who will die of TB this year, how many would survive if they had access to the kind of healthcare I have? After all, while TB is often curable now, it remains a very difficult disease to treat, especially in cases of extensive drug resistance. And people in wealthy countries do continue to die of TB, albeit rarely — in the U.S., around five hundred people will die of TB this year. In Japan, over a thousand.
“How many would die if everyone could access good healthcare?” he asked me, as if he seemed confused by my question.
“Yes,” I said.
“None. Zero. Zero people should die of TB.”

It can difficult to imagine eliminating a disease that has been with us for millennia — but if we longer want to see people dying from TB, then we have a responsibility to make that future possible.

Green dedicated the book to "Shreya Tripathi, Henry Redier, and TB fighters everywhere." As readers will come to learn, Shreya Tripathi was an Indian TB activist who "sued the Indian government to get access to bedaquiline" (133). Tragically, Shreya passed away in 2018. By the time she finally gained access to the drug she needed, it was too late. But her activism, along with the efforts of many others, helped make it possible for people like Henry Redier to receive life-saving treatment for multi-drug-resistant TB. Henry, as readers will also come to know, was a young patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone, whom John Green met in 2019. It was Henry who first drew John into researching and understanding tuberculosis. Henry also has a Youtube channel that he's excited for readers to check out, please consider showing him some support.

Throughout the book, John Green draws powerful parallels between how we imagine tuberculosis (its discovery, the search for a cure, the development of vaccines, its stigmatization and romanticization, and the complex care regimens) and the broader histories of colonialism, racism, and poverty. He puts these narratives in conversation, showing how this ongoing, entangled history continues to shape the lives of people like Henry. Green urges readers to consider not just the medical facts of TB, but the social, political, and historical forces that determine who suffers from it and who gets to survive. His discussion touches on critical themes in medical anthropology: the social determinants of health, the double burden of illness, structural and racial violence, and the ethics of care.

I urge you to read this book yourself to fully grasp the deep entanglement between TB and humanity. You'll learn surprising connections, like how TB played a role in the recognition of New Mexico as a state, how it "sorta kinda but not really caused World War I," (14) or how it helped give us the cowboy hat and Adirondack chairs. And more than anything, I hope this book inspires you to join the effort to end TB because a different future is possible, if we choose to make it so.

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