John Green and Hank Green

Over the last year, philanthropist John Green and his legions of fans — known as “nerdfighters” — helped score two significant victories in the push to end tuberculosis, a cause to which Green has been dedicated since visiting Sierra Leone in 2019. In July, Green worked with public health advocates to post a YouTube vlog, viewed 1.4 million times, putting pressure on Johnson & Johnson to allow the production of less-expensive generic versions of its TB pill bedaquiline as the drug’s patent expired rather than trying to enforce a secondary patent. A few months later, Johnson & Johnson agreed not to enforce the patents for the pill in 134 low- and middle-income countries. And in September, Green pointed his followers at the diagnostics company Cepheid for selling tuberculosis tests at a $10 price point that makes them inaccessible to people in lower-income countries. That campaign also paid off, with Cepheid agreeing to sell the tests at cost to an international organization that would in turn distribute them to lower-income countries.

For years, Hank Green has served as both a philanthropist and a trusted science communicator for his millions of followers on YouTube and TikTok. In 2023, some of his videos took on the task of explaining a more personal health matter to fans: His diagnosis with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Green approached his treatment, which included chemotherapy, with optimism — “this is the best time so far in human history to get lymphoma,” he recalled telling his brother John Green in a video posted to their shared YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers. He used it as an opportunity to educate followers about topics like “natural” cancer treatments (“three out of the four chemo drugs I was on are natural,” he explained) and how to understand cancer survival rates. Green’s cancer is now in remission — and he’s launched a new product, Hank’s Cancer Socks, which funnels 100% of profits toward making cancer treatments more accessible.

Photo credits: Rio Chantel and Marina Waters