John Green, a novelist and high-profile YouTuber, is once again leveraging his star power in the global fight to end tuberculosis. His latest target? The diagnostics company Cepheid and the price of its tuberculosis test, GeneXpert.
Cepheid sells individual test cartridges for $9.98 each, which lab technicians can analyze in a speedy machine that is also sold by the company. But in a scathing YouTube video posted Tuesday, Green argued the price is prohibitive for patients in lower-income countries. Citing an analysis from Doctors without Borders, he noted the tests cost around $4.64 to make. Halve the $10 price tag, Green maintained, and the company can save lives by giving more people access to early detection of TB. Tuberculosis kills 1.5 million people each year, and is most prevalent in countries like India, Indonesia, China, and Nigeria.
The controversy isn’t new — Doctors without Borders and other groups have been advocating for a $5 Cepheid test since at least 2019. The organizations also sparred in 2020 over the price of Cepheid’s Covid-19 test. Last year, the advocacy group pushed for the $5 TB test price more strongly in the wake of Cepheid’s waning contract with the World Health Organization. Cepheid dismissed the group’s concerns, calling the cost analysis “flawed” and the demands “unreasonable.”
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