Rat 🛸
I really got a lot out of this. Obviously learnt a lot about disease and healthcare, but consistently as I was listening I was really appreciative of the lengths Green goes to emphasising that economic inequality is the major barrier today for TB treatment worldwide. Made me think a lot about how healthcare and welfare are not separate, and have only artificially been separated in an attempt to organise our funding and priorities. At what point does food become healthcare? If someone is starving, then food is the cure - does that not then mean that food is an essential part of any treatment? Obviously someone having in-house treatment will be provided with food, but what if they need it at home? IDK these are just ramblings but Everything Is Interconnected So Much and this book does a good job of bringing this across.
While I was very taken with Henry and his writing and his story, I initially found myself bumping up against how often he was used by John as an example. It reminded me of the charity impact segments they do between skits on Red Nose Day - documenting a real and important story, but built for easy consumption for a western audience, not bringing across the real depth and detail of a person's life. But as it went on, my perspective changed; Green does a good job of trying to tell us about Henry's whole life, the complexities, his family and his drive. I started thinking 'Well why are you telling us John. This is Henry's story, I want to hear it from him.' But of course that is on me. I didn't pick up a book by Henry Reider. I probably wouldn't have, even if it existed. I chose to read a book by John Green, a well-known author who I trust to entertain as he educates, someone who is familiar to me. Thanks to this book, I have now checked out Henry's YouTube channel, and have enjoyed several of his videos so far (One that stands out to me is him celebrating the historical Dr Alan Hart, a trans man who was one of the first people in the US to receive gender affirming surgery and was very influential to TB healthcare in the States. I know that Sierra Leone has a very low rate of LGBT+ acceptance so I thought it was especially meaningful for Henry to share this with his largely Sierra Leonean audience.)
Anyway, appreciated this book. Funny that I'm now someone who has only read John Green's non-fiction.
I really got a lot out of this. Obviously learnt a lot about disease and healthcare, but consistently as I was listening I was really appreciative of the lengths Green goes to emphasising that economic inequality is the major barrier today for TB treatment worldwide. Made me think a lot about how healthcare and welfare are not separate, and have only artificially been separated in an attempt to organise our funding and priorities. At what point does food become healthcare? If someone is starving, then food is the cure - does that not then mean that food is an essential part of any treatment? Obviously someone having in-house treatment will be provided with food, but what if they need it at home? IDK these are just ramblings but Everything Is Interconnected So Much and this book does a good job of bringing this across.
While I was very taken with Henry and his writing and his story, I initially found myself bumping up against how often he was used by John as an example. It reminded me of the charity impact segments they do between skits on Red Nose Day - documenting a real and important story, but built for easy consumption for a western audience, not bringing across the real depth and detail of a person's life. But as it went on, my perspective changed; Green does a good job of trying to tell us about Henry's whole life, the complexities, his family and his drive. I started thinking 'Well why are you telling us John. This is Henry's story, I want to hear it from him.' But of course that is on me. I didn't pick up a book by Henry Reider. I probably wouldn't have, even if it existed. I chose to read a book by John Green, a well-known author who I trust to entertain as he educates, someone who is familiar to me. Thanks to this book, I have now checked out Henry's YouTube channel, and have enjoyed several of his videos so far (One that stands out to me is him celebrating the historical Dr Alan Hart, a trans man who was one of the first people in the US to receive gender affirming surgery and was very influential to TB healthcare in the States. I know that Sierra Leone has a very low rate of LGBT+ acceptance so I thought it was especially meaningful for Henry to share this with his largely Sierra Leonean audience.)
Anyway, appreciated this book. Funny that I'm now someone who has only read John Green's non-fiction.