Good morning, Hank. It's Wednesday.
Come with me to speak at the United Nations? So Sarah and I first visited a picnic
for TB survivors and activists and then attended a pre meeting,
and then the next day went to another pre meeting, which you would think I'd find unbearable,
but actually I loved it because I love hating tuberculosis so much.
Plus, I got to see one of my heroes, dr. Lucika Ditu,
and another one of my heroes, the writer and surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande,
and another one of my heroes, Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee.
For me, being able to see these folks in real life is a little bit like how
my daughter would feel about seeing both Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift
in the same night.
And then afterwards they were like, hey, do you want to go out to dinner?
And I was like, uhhh yes? And I got to hang out with them
even more and tried to keep my cool. So I didn't film that
because I'm cool and I'm relaxed and I'm a normal person,
just like the world's leading TB fighters.
The next morning, it was time for the meeting itself,
which of course meant that it was also time for a fit check.
Now I have a 40 minutes walk to the United Nations,
which I'm going to spend just luxuriating in my anxiety.
As I walked, I thought about whether I'd have a chance to speak
and what I would say and what an honor it is to represent
not just Nerdfighteria and Partners in Health,
but also people who survived TB and those who didn't.
So I made it to the grounds of the UN, where there's this phenomenally
beautiful landscaping that some of the richest people in the world
get to look down upon, which in my business is known as a metaphor.
And then I got inside where everything was, f
or lack of a better term, extraordinarily United Nations-y.
This is cool. I got to wear the
earpiece that does live translating and look at all the representatives
from around the world and celebrate with other TB activists
when the political declaration on Tuberculosis was formally approved.
Now the declaration includes big targets for reducing TB in the next few years,
which, if honored, will save millions of lives.
But of course, it's only a piece of paper unless nations and their leaders fund
and implement all the initiatives outlined in it.
This was the second high level meeting on tuberculosis and I was thinking about
how at the last one in 2018, Shreya Tripathi was still alive.
Shreya was a teenager who sued her own government India
to secure access to the life saving medication bedaquiline
for herself and others. And she was also a fan of my book,
The Fault in Our Stars.
Her fight took her to India's highest court,
where she eventually won, but by then it was too late for her.
Her lungs were simply too damaged for her to survive.
And so in the end,
her death was caused not just by tuberculosis,
but also by government bureaucracy and international indifference to TB.
And so I was thinking about Shreya, as the UN people told me that actually
I would have a chance to speak as long as I kept it under two minutes.
I wish I'd said more, that this is a problem of resource allocation,
that disease does not treat people equally unless society treats people equally,
that we cannot go on promising to address this crisis
without making the choices and sacrifices necessary to enact those promises.
But here's what I did say:
I want to begin by saying that 23 years ago,
Dr. Peter Mugeni, in a room very much like this one,
said of HIV medications-- "Where are the drugs? The drugs
are where the disease is not. And where is the disease? The disease is where the drugs are not."
And that is the situation that we are in today with tuberculosis.
The cure is where the disease is not and the disease is where the cure is not.
We have had a disease that is curable for 75 years that continues to kill 1.6 million people.
And maybe it was possible to say in the 19th century
that death from tuberculosis was caused by a bacterium called M. Tuberculosis.
But we can really no longer say that. Today we have to accept the reality that
since we know how to kill that bacteria, we know how to cure this disease.
Today we have to accept the reality that death from tuberculosis
is caused by human built systems, by human choice.
We have chosen the world that we share today, and we can choose a better world.
We are currently choosing a world where 1.6 million people
die of tuberculosis. And I believe that with your help,
together working over the next decade,
we will choose a world where no one dies of tuberculosis.
Thank you.
Co-chair: "Muchas gracias delegados de Partners in Health."
John: I hope I did okay.
And I hope that Shreya somehow knows that we are still fighting for her
and will continue to do so until the fight is finished.
Hank, I'll see you tomorrow.