I need a new book written by John Green.
I’m trying, but it’s so fucking hard.
notarealdrtom asked:
Hi John,
I work for rich people that invest in biotechnology and drug development. What would you tell them about TB if you could?
(Another Looking for Alaska line that is definitely not in Looking for Alaska. I’ve never said this or anything like that. I am accustomed, of course, to having things I never said be attributed to me on tumblr, but I find the two I’ve cited in the last couple days particularly annoying, because they make my books seem very different from how I hope they actually are.)
(This is not in Looking for Alaska, nor did I ever write or say it. I admire the symmetry and pith of the line, but I do not believe it is true. As far as I’m aware, people were not “created to be” anything. And there is nothing wrong with loving things? The world is not in chaos because I love Diet Dr Pepper. Also, I do not think the world is in chaos–at least not anymore than it has always been in chaos. I do not like the whole thing where we hearken back to some glorious past, because that glorious past never existed. Thirty years ago, children were twice as likely to die before the age of five as they are today. A hundred ten years ago, most people in the United States could not vote. The idea that life is merely worse today elides so much complexity and minimizes the hard and successful work of so many activists.)
I seriously think tumblr is the best social media app again, which is absolutely hilarious.
I would tell them that developing new drugs to treat tuberculosis will not make you nearly as rich as developing new drugs to treat health conditions that affect people in rich countries, which is the entire problem.
(That said, once you are rich, what is the point of becoming richer? Isn’t it much more interesting and fulfilling and also fun to work with people who are trying to solve the world’s most complex and difficult problems? Like, would you rather be a ludicrously wealthy person who funds a drug that makes human eyelashes longer, or a ludicrously wealthy person who funds a drug that treats TB, one of the world’s leading causes of death and disability?)
[But then I would also tell them that what we really need is not just new drug development but also broader access to existing drugs, which will require strengthening healthcare systems globally and dramatically lowering the price of drugs, and that we need to reform the system where intellectual property law is used as a weapon for denying the most vulnerable people access to basic lifesaving healthcare.]
But of course you cannot say any of this to your bosses, I suspect! So I would just tell them that tuberculosis has been the leading cause of infectious disease death globally for almost every year of the 21st century, and that better treatments would be very good news for our species.
Thanks for your question! I really believe that together we can turn the world’s attention more toward ending TB, and I deeply appreciate you joining in that fight!
It’s so fucking weird that there are hydrogen atoms in my body that were created two minutes after the Big Bang began, and now those atoms are stuck inside of an anxious, temporary, semi-sentient coffee company that donates its profit to charity.
Inside of you there are two wolves: one is John Green and the other is Hank Green.
Wolf 1: Work 70 hours a week. Make a million YouTube channels. Never stop.
Wolf 2: Do you think this eyelid twitch might be serious? Is there such a thing as knee ligament cancer? Is your microbiome shaping your thoughts?
maliciousindungeon asked:
hey john, whats your favorite taste? or smell? or activity to do? lot of misinformation on tumblr about this and i want the truth
Hi, pissbong. Thank you for your questions.
My favorite taste is coffee, especially coffee that donates 100% of its profits to battling the global maternal mortality crisis.
My favorite smell is freshly ground coffee beans sourced directly from small farmers’ collectives in Colombia.
My favorite activity is reading about the history of human responses to tuberculosis. The ways we symbolize illness have such a profound effect on the ways we understand and treat illness. Can we even REALLY say that the 100 million people who died of TB between 1951 and 2022 died as a result of tuberculosis?
For all that time, TB was usually curable and could also frequently be prevented through safe housing conditions and adequate nutrition. And so is TB *actually* caused by a bacteria, or is it actually caused by the injustice baked in to human-built systems that value some lives over others, and do not accept that universal access to healthcare, housing, and nutrition must be acknowledged as human rights?
What I learned this year during the project for awesome
Tired: Writing novels.
Wired: Learning about how in the late 19th century, people came to believe that women were dragging tuberculosis germs from the streets into their homes via their floor-length dresses, so hemlines were raised a few inches as a public health measure, which had the unintended consequence of increasing the significance of shoes in women’s fashion.