John: Hello, I just wanted to do a quick live show in advance of Pizzamas. I'll delete this afterwards. You know, there's a little bit of- should I re-shave it? Because there is a little bit of injustice inside of this mustache.

But on the other hand, it's just a bad mustache because all bad mustaches are- all mu- [deep breath] Whatever, I'm going to leave it because it's late and I'm gonna go to bed soon. So listen, I wanted to, uh, before Pizzamas starts- [laughs] It's so weird to have to transition by the way from, "We are a very serious community that has worked together on a really, almost like an unprecedented level to raise attention and awareness for the places where TB is being used to price gouge the world's poorest people." Like it's hard to overstate the success we've had with that but now we are transitioning from that to Pizzamas. Like, in the minds of the Wall Street Journal or whatever we're a community that, like, raises awareness of injustice and fights large corporations to get them to lower their prices for lifesaving technologies and then, like, they don't know about Pizzamas.

So, it's a pretty hard left turn that we're all gonna have to make tonally over the next twelve hours. [Laughs] I don't really know how to make it. Like- I've just got back at one o'clock in the morning from being in New York to speak to the United Nations and other folks who are very very powerful about tuberculosis and I heard from world leaders the word "Nerdfighteria". Not from, like, presidents but from, like, health ministers and now we're going for a tonal shift to sometimes I have a mustache for reasons.

And we engage with a joke that's sixteen years old that none of us really get and yeah. So first off I want to encourage you to download the Pizzamas app. We have an app this year.

You can d- you can buy stuff two hours early if you download the Pizzamas app. I'm not keeping the mustache until tuberculosis is gone. [Laughing] I'm- It's hard enough to keep the mustache for the next twelve hours. Um, there is an app, it's available.

Somebody can link to it. It's available both on both the Apple store and the Google Play store. If you can link to it-  somebody can link to it the chat that would be super helpful but yeah.

So get the Pizzamas app. Hank sends you jokes through the app. We don't, like, collect any of your data or anything it's just a dumb app [laughs].

But you can si- you can buy Pizzamas stuff two hours early and I think some of the stuff might sell out, so, um... And- "Only five thousand downloads?", that's actually excellent, are you kidding? I can't believe there's five thousand downloads.

It was like in the top hundred most downloaded apps on the Apple store and I was like "what the hell?"

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about. Do get the app. I'm excited for Pizzamas.

Pizzamas starts tomorrow. We're going to have to like make a tonal transition, a hard left turn. All that stuff.

It gives you a pizza John on your icon on your phone, it's great. Jay says I can collect their data anytime I want but I don't want to, Jay. That's- that's not the vibe.

There we go, Moira's got the link to the app store. So listen, um... coming back from this thing in New York. So I spent the week in New York City with TB activists and other people who aren't yet TB activists kind of try to make the case to a variety of people that we need to be investing a lot more in tuberculosis, treatment, prevention, and case finding.

And it was a great week, I loved being there. On the last day, on Friday, I got to speak at the UN which was ridiculous, a ridiculous opportunity. Something that I will remember for the rest of my life and be really grateful for for the rest of my life.

But I was also conscious of the fact that I wasn't speaking as myself I was speaking on behalf of all of y'all TB fighters. The mustache is not- it's- obviously I know the mustache doesn't look good. The mustache is for Pizzamas which is an annual holiday in Nerdfighteria where Hank and I make videos back and forth everyday for two weeks.

It's a little hard to explain, you just kind of have to- if you- if this is your first Pizzamas, and leave a comment if this is your first Pizzamas, I- what I think of it as is as an experience that you- you cannot understand until you go through it. You can't know what Pizzamas is until you've lived through Pizzamas. And then, once you've lived through Pizzamas, you're like "Oh well, now I know what Pizzamas is for the rest of my life.

I'll never forget it." It's a lot of people's first Pizzamas, that's encouraging. So, um... so if this is your first Pizzamas I'm not even going to try to explain it. All you need to know is that it's a celebration of this seven minutes when I had a mustache in 2008 or something. 

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that, um, you know, in um- I didn't feel like I was there as myself, at the United Nations, I felt like I was there on the behalf of all the TB fighters in this community, on behalf of my friend Henry in Sierra Leone, on behalf of Partners in Health most proximally since I was there as their representative.

It was just very very special and so this year we are going to be really focusing our fundraising- so all the money that's all Hank and I's like proceeds from Pizzamas goes to charity. Because it would be weird to keep money that comes from Pizzamas [laughs]. And this year we're going to have a special emphasis on tuberculosis, on tuberculosis preve- treatment and testing.

So, you know, over the last three months this community has achieved some really truly remarkable stuff. The price of Bedaquiline- and this is of course not something we did alone by any stretch of the imagination. So, you know, this is really a story of lots and lots of different TB activists coming together to make change.

But price of Bedaquiline, this really important drug for treating multi-drug resistant tuberculosis it's dropped by 55% just in the last three months thanks to generic competition. It's incredible, that means that hundreds of thousands or millions of more people are going to access it over the next few years. And then just in the last week our activism helped secure a 20% reduction in the cost of the GeneXpert machines that are so good at diagnosing tuberculosis and telling you whether you're likely to have one kind of resistance.

And so, those test cartridges are hugely important and it's great that we lowered the prices. But during Pizzamas we're going to focus on also like raising money to pay for this stuff, to like, pay for these interventions. Because there is still so much, so much need, there's so much underfunding.

In 2018, at the first high level meeting of the UN about tuberculosis there were all these commitments made to increase funding and make sure that everybody can access treatment and everybody can have their treatment paid for and whatever, whatever, whatever. But like, all that stuff was wildly underfunded, it was like less than 50% funded and so it didn't happen. Well this time, you know, it may be less than 50% funded again because even though we've again made all these declarations about how we're going to cure TB and we're going to address TB and we're going to make all these- we're going to raise all this money and shift all these resources, that's just a piece of paper, that does't mean the resources are actually going to- (audio cuts out 7:58-8:01) Right now the situation is actually very- (audio cuts out 8:04-8:06) there are drug stock-outs in many different communities which means that nobody with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in many places in India, the center of the global tuberculosis pandemic- (audio cuts out 8:18-8:19) because in India people cannot access any- (audio cuts out 8:22-8:25) drug like you are to develop further resistance and it's also a catastrophe because many of those people will (8:34) be developing strains of tuberculosis that could be a threat to all of us.

Many of those people will lose their lives (8:42) people who need it and seeing that, seeing these needless deaths that are caused by systemic failures is so frustrating to me. So that is what we're gonna be (8:54) this year's pizzamas, or at least, like, address a tiny part of it by making sure that we're raising money (9:02-9:03). So I'm pretty excited 'cause, you know, that's obviously something our community's been deeply involved in, and that's gonna be a focus for us moving forward as well, alongside maternal and child health and the Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone.

I know it's hard to take me seriously with a mustache. Believe me, I have to do it (video skips forward 9:18) -fing, as if I'm dead. But I'm not dead, I'm still a person. Oh well, I tried my best. Pixelmas? None video with left audio? Is it literally that it came back when I moved it back? Did I just have to- it's- "He's sorta back." Alright. I'm gonna wrap it up. My WiFi is actually very good, but something else is happening. So, um, obviously (9:50) wrong [laughs] with me sitting closer to the chair, so I'll just bear that in mind.

Um, just to go back to what I was saying, so I'll repeat myself briefly, this year's Pizzamas we're gonna focus on Tuberculosis- raising money for Tuberculosis treatment and diagnostics. So we've lowered the cost of these amazing TB treatment tools and these amazing TB test tools, but now we actually need to get those to people.

The other thing I wanted to say is that some many people came up to me over the last week and they were like "I'd never heard of Nerdfighteria before but it is the most impressive and amazing force I have ever seen on the internet," and I echo that sentiment.
 It is the most impressive and amazing force that I've ever seen on the internet. It's the best. You're the best, you are wonderful and also terrify me.

Okay, so, uh... that's the main thing that I wanted to say. We're doing it, we're making it happen. I'm sorry that the quality of this wasn't good, but Pizzamas is gonna be really good. It's gonna be two weeks of hardcore partying.

If you participated in Pizzamas you should- I mean, if you participated in these activism campaigns you should one hundred percent put it on your resume. Anybody who works in global health is very aware of Nerdfighteria. I had, like, super powerful people like the head of the CDC and the head of USAID pronouncing Nerdfighteria to me, it was surreal. I had a very surreal week.

But, we're gonna have a wonderful fourteen days together. It's gonna be magical. Videos every weekday, [laughing] lots of merch available, some of which is ridiculous. I haven't actually opened up my box yet, so I don't know what it is, but I- I heard some rumors just because there were a couple things I needed to know about for legal reasons. So, it's gonna be an amazing Pizzamas, we're gonna have an awesome time, and you're gonna see me three times this week and two times next week, and Hank will be here too.

You heard me, "legal reasons." There were legal- so there's a couple things that can only be bought in the United States for legal reasons [laughs]. I'm not getting out the box now, that's my whole video tomorrow! I gotta wake up early and open the box and find out what the Pizzamas stuff is this year, but there are a couple things that we can only sell in the United States for legal reasons [high-pitched]. It's not weed, Pizza. But yeah, "legal reasons" is just, like, the funniest- we've never had a legal reasons issue before. That's right, it's The Pizzamas Gun. No, it's not.

It's, uh... it'll be great. It'll- Pizzamas is gonna be great. Download the app so you can start shopping two hours early. It's at, um, Pizzamas- whatever, just search "Pizzamas." We're not making- we're not making guns, we're not making weed [laughs]. But we are making thinks that grow from seed, and if you're doing that, you can only it in the United States for legal reasons [high-pitched again, laughs].

So, yeah, we're just gonna have this weird tonal shift, guys, from "We have been pressuring Danaher-" and need to continue pressuring them, by the way, and will continuing pressuring them, "We've been pressuring Danaher to lower prices on life-saving TB diagnostics," to, "Also, sometimes we spent fourteen days selling merch around this seven-minute period where one guy had a mustache one time fifteen years ago." So, that's the deal. [Laughs] That's the deal. Okay.

You guys are the best. I can't wait for Pizzamas. Maybe I'll just do a livestream every day during Pizzamas, like a little livestream that gets deleted the moment it ends. I kinda like that idea. So, yeah, y'all are the best. I may see you tomorrow for a secret livestream. But in the meantime, download that Pizzamas app, DFTBA.