Author and activist John Green discusses the global failure to distribute existing cures for tuberculosis.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Green: Chinese groups immediately hire workers laid off by USAID cuts
“The folks who have been laid off as a result of the USAID cuts, and I don't mean folks in the United States, I mean folks globally, they're being hired immediately, and they're being hired by Chinese aid organizations because that's, because China still does u…”
Insight
John Green: The Social Internet Shrinks Empathy Gaps by Scaling Proximity
“Well, I think the biggest solution I've seen to shrinking the empathy gap and look, I'm not going to say that it's perfect because I don't labor under the delusion that the social internet is good news, but is the social internet.
you know, people become prox…”
Opinion
Green: Governments must intervene to make TB treatments more profitable than cosmetics
“The only way to resolve that disconnect, in my opinion, is to have governments or other international authorities involved in reshaping the incentive structure so that it becomes profitable to treat tuberculosis, more profitable to treat tuberculosis than it i…”
Assertion Supported
Green: Eight TB drug classes developed 1945-1965, zero from 1965-2012
“Between 1945 and 19 65, we developed eight classes of drugs to treat tuberculosis because there was a real market incentive to do so. And then between 1965 and 2012, we developed none.”
Assertion Supported
Green: J&J abandoned secondary bedaquiline patents, cutting price over 55%
“Eventually J&J abandoned all of their secondary patents on bodacolin, and today the price of it has dropped by over 55%.”
Assertion Supported
John Green: Vast majority of USAID funding stays within the US
“The criticism of USAID for many years and other related organizations that are funded by the US government is that the vast majority of that money stays in the US one way or another. It pays farmers, it pays contractors, it pays, you know, very little of that …”