Everything is Tuberculosis

 Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green, 198 pages.

Tuberculosis is the world's deadliest disease, killing 1.5 million people every year. This is especially staggering, because it is also generally completely curable. Tuberculosis is a very old disease (maybe even older than humans), and it has gone through many name changes throughout the years as human conceptions of the disease evolved. The term Consumption, tragically beautiful disease of poets, changed to Tuberculosis, highly stigmatized disease of the poor. 

John Green weaves both scientific and social histories together with the story of tuberculosis in the modern day. What emerges is a strong call for healthcare reform, as the neglect of the richest nations denies life-saving medicine to residents of the poorest parts of the world, enabling the truly staggering death toll of TB today. It is often clear that Green started as a novelist, as he has a gift for reminding the reader that these collection of facts also have real, tangible effects on people alive today. One of these people is Henry, a young tuberculosis patient from Sierra Leone, who Green met when traveling with Partners in Health, and who's story is a narrative anchor through the book. This is a very accessible (if focused) introduction to global health and healthcare reform, and I would definitely recommend it.