Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and ableism.

The directly observed therapy (short-course) strategy, known by the acronym DOTS, is a strategy for treating tuberculosis (TB) and delivering antibiotics to middle- and low-income countries. It was developed in the 1970s by Karel Styblo, a Czech Dutch doctor. Though it has saved many lives, it remains the only strategy for treating TB in poor communities, which Green argues has exposed its many flaws. Chief among these flaws is the burden it places on the patient to complete treatment, taking time out of their day to report to the clinic for medication. This causes DOTS to become a control-based treatment for TB, rather than a care-based one.

In Chapter 6, romanticization is presented as a complementary strategy to stigmatization, even though it exaggerates idealized qualities in contrast to stigmatization. When one romanticizes illness, they imagine sick people in a category of otherness that reduces their suffering. This wrongly suggests that suffering is worthwhile in order to make a sick person appear more pleasing, beautiful, or creative. This mindset gave rise to beauty trends such as “consumptive chic.”