Thanks to Trump making RFK Jr. Secretary of Health and Human Services, allowing Elon Musk’s DOGE minions to abolish AID and do God knows what to the CDC you can bet your bottom dollar we’re gonna see horrible resurgence in infectious disease both in America and around the world. Therefore, now is probably a good time to prepare for this onslaught by reading up on the many diseases that have plagued us throughout history, especially those we thought we’d previous beaten. With all that in mind I decided to start things off with a borrowed ebook edition of Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen’s 2021 book Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World’s Worst Diseases. I whipped through the readable and informative book with ease and finished it in no time.

As long as humans have walked the earth we’ve had to contend with infectious disease. Some, like smallpox polio and influenza are caused by incredibly small agents known as viruses, or in the case of AIDS a retrovirus. Tuberculosis, typhoid as well as sexual transmitted diseases syphilis and gonorrhea are bacterial infections. A parasite is responsible for malaria while mysterious rogue proteins dubbed prions are responsible for relatively rare transmissible spongiform encephalopathies like kuru and mad cow disease.

Insects and animals also play a role in disease transmission by serving as delivery vectors. While yellow fever and zika are viruses humans only get them through mosquito bites. (Similarly, to how we get malaria but that caused by a parasite.) Bubonic plague and typhus, both bacterial infections are spread by fleas and lice. The virus rabies is almost exclusively spread via the bit of an infected mammal. Other diseases such as HIV, Ebola, SARS and possibly smallpox originated in animals and later jumped to humans sometime in the past. Lastly, Nipah and many harmful influenza viruses migrate between multiple animal species before infecting humans.

After spending thousands of years believing diseases were caused by evil spirits, curses, out of whack bodily “humors” or foul smelling air over the last 150 odd years as science has progressed we’ve discovered a dizzying array of microorganisms that are instead responsible. After finding ways to halt their transmission eventually by the mid-20th century we found cures and more often than not even vaccines to prevent them. This work however has been ongoing since new diseases emerge from time to time and many older ones develop resistance to treatment.

Given our current state of the world this straightforward and well-written piece of nonfiction, like John Green’s Everything Is Tuberculosis is perfect reading for those who fear America’s leaders and their claque of propagandists are putting us at risk for future pandemics. A timely book to say the least.

After watching Trump, Elon, JFK Jr. and assorted idiots in Washington, DC absolutely destroy America’s ability to combat infectious disease at home and abroad I figured it was a good idea to read a few books about diseases. After all, it’s now just a matter of time before we’re all battling some horrible plague the likes we haven’t seen since the Black Death. Then, almost on cue I came across an article in The Atlantic by John Green warning us that our recent cuts to foreign aid and the like will inevitably result in not just a global resurgence of tuberculosis but a tuberculosis that’s completely untreatable. After reading his excellent piece I immediately borrowed an ebook of his recently published bestseller Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection. Short, well-written and informative, I whipped through it in no time. Easily Everything Is Tuberculosis is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Unbeknownst to me, according to Green roughly one third of humanity currently has tuberculosis albeit in its latent form. Under normal conditions it remains that way, held in check by ones heathy immune system. Should something however assault that healthy immune system, like malnutrition or disease tuberculosis becomes active, infecting the individual and becoming contagious to others. It’s been with us since at least neolithic times some 11,000 years ago, and might have made its way to South America via infected seals migrating from coastal Africa 1,000 years ago.

A disease exacerbated by poverty, malnutrition and confinement, tuberculosis reached its high-water mark in the crowded industrial cities of 19th and early 20th century Europe and America. Cutting down countless urbanites, many in the prime of life it had a widespread and lasting impact, especially culturally. With artists frequently impoverished and forced to reside indoors or in crowded cafes they were particularly at risk as tuberculosis became associated with gifted, artistic types. It would kill Franz Kafka and George Orwell and sicken a young Ringo Starr. (Byron once mused he’d been a better writer if only were stricken.) The mid to late 19th century feminine beauty ideal of the light complexioned, rosy-cheeked waif is clearly rooted in the disease. Pale skin comes from oxygen starvation, red checks from fever and thinness from lack of appetite.

Also during this time it was believed dry, pristine environments were the perfect places to construct sanitariums for the afflicted and medical professionals looked to the American West. Such outposts eventually grew into cities like Colorado Springs and Pasadena. New Mexico was only granted statehood after its white non-Hispanic population grew thanks to an influx of tuberculosis-afflicted Easterners. Adirondack chairs, found in backyards and porches across America can trace their origins to the tuberculosis treatments of that era, specifically the belief those stricken with the disease should spend time outside.

As science and medicine advanced beginning in the 19th century the search was on for a cure. Long thought to be an inherited disease due to its tendency to infect whole families under one roof the world rejoiced in the 1880s when Robert Koch announced it was caused by a bacterium. While his attempts at a cure were ultimately unsuccessful his efforts resulted in the first skin test to detect the disease. (Although it wasn’t highly reliable and prone to false negatives.) Advances in X ray technology allowed gave doctors a far more reliable method of detection, but by the mid 20th century a cure remained elusive. Eventually, scientists would develop a trio of highly effective antibiotics leading to the diseases being virtually eradicated from the Western world within a generation.

But in other parts of the world it’s been another story. Worldwide, the disease kills over a million people a year. In 2019 while visiting a hospital in Sierra Leone Green met Henry, a boy infected with a drug-resistant strain of the disease. Ravaged by tuberculosis and his growth stunted, Green guessed he was about nine years old and was shocked to learn he was really 16. Sick, impoverished and with nowhere really to go during Green’s visit he never leaves the hospital. Before long we see how Henry epitomizes tuberculosis’s current grip on the developing world, especially Africa. He’s completely reliant upon expensive, Western-manufactured drugs for his survival, not to mention a local, affordable health care system to administer them. Interruptions in his treatment lead to in him developing a drug-resistant form of the disease making his survival even more precarious. Lastly, his father would halt Henry’s treatment preferring to heal him with prayer, since many locals’ have nothing but disdain for their country’s broken healthcare system, easily succumbing to the siren call of religious-based magical thinking.

Like I said earlier, this is one of the best books I’ve read this year and should easily make my year-end list of Favorite Nonfiction. Given America’s current political leadership and what’s at stake in the world Everything Is Tuberculosis isn’t just highly recommended but also prescribed.