#tbfighters

[clarejgold]

Stuff

Here are the Tests

I don’t want this to sound like a complaint, but people could not stop telling us about their stuff. Every lab tech and pharmacist. Every community and social worker. I am not a medical professional and half of these things were just words that I didn’t understand, but my goodness were they happy about the stuff they’ve got. 

One way to look at that is to assume it’s because people wanted to let me know that donor money is well spent. There are probably donors out there who need and want that reassurance, perhaps because they’ve had bad experiences in the past or their unconscious bias is telling them they need to check up on any resources shared with poor people.

There is however one form of stuff that I was and remain interested in and that’s the multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) tests and the machine that uses them. Some readers of this will be well aware of the #TimeFor5 campaign to get the cost of these tests reduced to $5 per test from $15 per test, which is, depending on whom you ask, somewhere between a 300%-500% profit . 

These tests are the difference between following a treatment plan that will cure your TB and one that can ravage your body while the TB you have is still killing you. Over a million and half people needlessly die from TB every year solely because of lack of access to the right tests and medication. By ‘access’ I don’t mean transportation or the ability of a medical facility to handle the tests nor do I mean that not enough tests exist. The resources physically exist. They simply aren’t available to everyone who needs them because a pharmaceutical company decided that the poor people of the world were the right folks to squeeze knowing they don't have many voices to fight for them.

If you don’t know about it, it’s because most of your exposure, no pun intended, to TB as an illness probably comes from historical fiction and you, like many, think of TB as a disease of the past and/or something that affects only a small handful of people in tiny, isolated places. Let me point out that a ‘population’ of 1.6 million dead is far from small and that the vast majority of cases occur within a day’s transport of an international airport. 

The most recent successes in getting test and drug prices reduced have come from social pressure in the form of tweets, letters to representatives, and direct contact with the companies themselves to let them know that gross profiteering off the lives of vulnerable people is unacceptable. See the TBFighters for more information or look to Doctors without Borders or PIH .

[audible-smiles]

So: starting tomorrow, there's a coordinated pressure campaign to get Danaher, the giant company that makes diagnostic test cartridges for tuberculosis and other diseases of poverty, to lower their prices. This would increase access to testing and help prevent a great deal of suffering and death around the world. The campaign has already seen some success (Danaher agreed to lower the price of one particular TB cartridge, just not far enough, and not all of them), so we are ramping things up over the next few weeks. Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to be as annoying as possible (without being abusive to the staff you directly interface with, who don't have any decision-making power). The goal is for the bad publicity and criticism to become an overwhelming liability for the company.

Above is a list of various actions you can take over the next 3 days.

Here is a link to the social media accounts of all Danaher-owned companies and another page with the company's e-mail, e-mail templates, phone number, and more

Here is a library of social media graphics you can use

Here is a petition for you to sign

And here is a goofy-ass meme template featuring Pantone (a Danaher subsidiary) and their "color of the year" thing

[milune-vox]

Share the word

[laprimanerda]

From Partners in Health

[bassproshopspyramid]

image ID: the destiel breaking news meme, but after cas says "i love you", dean replies:

cas, danaher corporation and it’s subsidiary company cepheid are still charging tuberculosis (TB) patients in low- and middle-income countries $10–$20 to access quick and accurate testing despite the fact that cepheid’s genexpert machine tests were developed with at least $252 million in taxpayer money and doctors without borders found out that the tests only cost $3–$4.50 to produce. TB is a major cause of death and disability, not to mention that the inaccessibility of these tests leads to the spread of drug resistant TB around the globe.

it’s #timefor5. find out how you can help at tbfighters.org

[nerdfighternichole]

Hey TBFighters! @StopTB Partnership shared a Call-A-Thon call-to-action with us for March 14th, while John is in DC! If you're a U.S. resident, join us in calling your senators and representatives asking them to sponsor the End TB Now Act. Keep in mind: US citizens living abroad can also call the representatives for the place they last lived! Let's all show them our voices WILL be heard!! #YesWeCanEndTB #PeopleOverProfits #StopTB #TB

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Eye Contact. Auto-generated captions.

Summary: John Green explains how the med tech company Danaher and its subsidiary, Cepheid, have come up with a machine and test cartridges that can accurately diagnose T.B., and figure out which drugs will cure that person's specific strain, within an hour.

But --

Danaher is making an obscene profit by using the printer ink (and disposable razor blade) model, by charging $10 and $15 per test cartridge. So the hospitals in countries most effected by TB can't afford to use the technology.

Activists from many different organizations have been calling for Danaher to lower the price of their cartridges to $5, and gotten no response. So this video is a call to action for a public pressure campaign against Danaher (202-828-0850) and Cepheid (888.838.3222).

Email and phone templates, here:

[just-a-turtleduck]

it occurs to me that these campaigns were in fact the most important thing i've been a part of in my life.

which is very strange; it feels weird to matter in a way,

anyway y'all should join! tuberculosis fighters have a posse!!

[delileaf]

so i fr work in a research building and everytime someone looks me in the eye and tells me they’re working on tuberculosis i gotta try real hard not to fall to my knees and start screaming

#yes it is surprisingly a very active area of research #it shocks me everytime #literally posters i walk past everyday abt tuberculosis and all i can think of is him…..

hi stranger!!! this post came up while i was searching abt TB and i didnt see that you were a red dead redemption(??? that cowboy game that i wish i could play where the main character gets TB) and i was at first very confused that you were like. kind of hostile to the idea of tuberculosis treatment? i saw a post with the name arthur and i was like ohh that makes so much more sense lol

but yeah tuberculosis is still a very big problem, just not one that gets acknowledged much in wealthy or majority white nations. due to several reasons (most notably corporate greed in the pharmaceutical industry), TB treatments are very inaccessible to a lot of people — this has changed very recently, but in some parts global south, just a diagnostic test could cost an entire week’s worth of wages

if you know who john green is, he actually started going in on tuberculosis activism like last year and leveraged his fanbase against johnson & johnson and a biotech company called cepheid in order to get them to reduce the pricing of their treatment & testing equipment in low- and middle-income countries! cepheid & their parent company danaher are still dragging their feet (only the first test for TB is reduced, but if someone tests positive they’re supposed to get a second test that will check what drugs will be effective against their strain. this is a major deal and is still unaffordable to a lot of people).

i’ll restrain myself from infodumping too much about my (very unsettling) special interest, but i have some recommendations in case you’re curious:

phantom plague by vidya krishnan is an incredible resource that is very approachable for someone not familiar with TB history and so full of interesting information. krishnan covers both history and the modern day, and goes into not only some germ science but also the social, political, and financial aspects. this is a massive recommendation to anyone, it’s just really really good

tbfighters . org is a website created by TB activists that’s a great jumping off point for anyone wanting to know what’s up with TB activism right now — includes basic details about TB in the modern day, some very easy calls to action (mostly focused on pressuring cepheid out of their price gouging, with some political information for the US and UK also!), and at the end a bunch of links to learn more!

(also i mentioned john green jumping into the fray earlier, so i have to talk about how he has a bunch of really great youtube videos and tiktoks about TB — history & also the modern day fight against it)

okay sorry this was a lot. please have a good day/night!!! :) <3

wow- this is super interesting !!!! I’ve actually just started my PhD in cell biology and I get so focused on the science I sometimes forget there’s a whole like political and economic landscape to biotech and pharmaceutical companies. doing research, it’s so easy to forget you’re not working in a vacuum!!

honestly as someone from the uk TB is just not on my radar and in my stupid science brain i was like - we can treat it? therefore we solved that problem? very privileged and sheltered of me I know, so I’m so glad you sent me that info!!

it’s crazy to me that i spend so much time getting sad over a fictional cowboy while real people are still going through very real situations with TB and suffering because they can’t afford tests or treatment - something i feel like more people and especially the rdr fandom should keep in mind when making jokes abt a ‘cowboy disease’

so thanks so much for all that!!!! (also …. you should definitely play the cowboy game, it’s amazing but will break you into a million pieces)

have a lovely day!!

[nerdfighternichole]

We are focusing on another campaign on Danaher Corp! Go to the TBFighters website to help us!!

what tumblr needs more of is memes about tuberculosis

Amazing. Now I've got unpaid interns to help me out with my unpaid internship.

[slightlyhowling]

Slightly Howling: John Green and TBfighters fight for equitable access to tuberculosis testing and treatment. Sign Petition! https://slightlyhowling.net/john-green-and-tbfighters/

(image legal info in the bottom of blog post)

[rocketsagan-blog]

The Time for $5 Coalition is calling on Danaher and Cepheid to drop the price of their GeneXpert medical tests supplied to low- and middle-income countries to US$5 each for all diseases so that millions more people around the world can be properly diagnosed and receive the treatment they need to stay alive and healthy.

Take five seconds today to sign and tell Danaher and Cepheid yourself that it is #Timefor5

Okay, RocketSagan here now - I'm borrowing the lovely text of TBFighters to big post, but here's my two cents. Let's get together and tell Danaher & Cepheid to actually get on board with improving health outcomes globally by making tests just a littttttle cheaper!! They will still make a profit, for goodness sake, just not as big of one, and it will be a huge boon for those who cannot afford expensive tests.