John Green, widely known as a YouTube star and a young-adult novelist, has written a new, already best-selling nonfiction book on the seemingly unlikely topic of tuberculosis. It’s a hopeful book that asks a pointed question: Why does a fully curable disease still kill more than a million people a year?
Last month, when the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, American support for key health programs around the world abruptly ended. I invited Mr. Green to The New York Times for a conversation about where tuberculosis came from, why it hasn’t gone away and where it all goes from here.
The transcript below has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Stephanie Nolen: I really love talking about tuberculosis; I can talk about TB all day. But there aren’t a lot of people in my life who are super happy to sit and talk about TB with me. So this feels like a real luxury. I’m so glad that you’ve come to see us at The Times. Want to sit and talk about TB?
John Green: I do, so badly, not least because I am in the same boat. Like, every time I get three or four words into an observation, my kids will raise their hands and say, “Yeah, Dad, we know: It’s tuberculosis.”
Nolen: The Venn diagram of people that I encounter who also really like to talk about tuberculosis is fairly limited.
