I Went to Capitol Hill to Talk About Tuberculosis.

Also: a rage-fueled passion for untreated tuberculosis

That sentence alone feels strange to write—like something you’d say in a documentary about advocacy, or if you were someone who routinely uses “Capitol Hill” in conversation. I am not that person. But on April 9, I was.

This was my first time participating in any sort of political activism in DC, and I genuinely didn’t know what I was walking into. I’d heard all the prep talk—meetings, advocacy points, the polite exhaustion that comes from trying to make a human connection in a legislative setting—but you don’t really get it until you’re there, entirely lost in a maze of government buildings, trying not to accidentally say “tuberculosis” too many times in one breath.

Tuberculosis, by the way, is the deadliest infectious disease in the world. That’s not hyperbole. That’s just... a horrifying fact we’ve somehow accepted as normal. In 2023 alone, it killed over 1.25 million people. Which is wild, considering it’s been curable since the 1950s. And yet, here we are, decades later, still watching TB devastate communities that have the least access to care, funding, or political leverage. It’s not that we don’t have solutions. We do. We have treatments, we have tools, we have data. What we don’t have is the global will to actually deliver them—consistently, equitably, and at scale. TB isn’t winning because it’s clever. It’s winning because we're letting it.

I met with Senator Schumer’s office—which, as a New Yorker, felt meaningful. They listened. They took notes. They didn’t rush us. And in a place where every second is scheduled and stacked, that felt like a real win.

Later, I met with Congresswoman Haley Stevens’s office from Michigan. That meeting only happened because someone I knew knew someone she knew, and I asked for a favor. I don’t think that detail matters—but also, I kind of think it does. So much of advocacy is about relationships. Someone opens a door, and you walk through it, whether you're ready or not.

We were there to push for increased funding for both domestic and global TB programs. Not in a vague, “support health” kind of way—we asked for specific things: $1 billion for international TB efforts, $225 million for domestic programs through the Centers for Disease Control, and a strong U.S. contribution to the Global Fund, which helps fight TB, AIDS, and malaria worldwide. In short: keep people alive. Fund the tools that work. Stop the regression before it gets worse.

The thing that blew me away most, though, wasn’t the meetings—it was the community. People had made handmade stickers, bracelets and pins. Entire bags were filled with them, gifted to complete strangers because, in this space, we were all on the same team. And somehow, without really knowing each other, we did know each other. I didn’t feel like I had to pretend to be more professional or polished. I could just be me; I didn’t need a fake persona. Everyone here was here for the same reason, and everyone understood each other. People I’d never met before invited me to lunch and coffee. We were a network before we even started talking. That kind of connection, that instant community, was more than I expected.

There were no big speeches. No drama. No viral moments. Just a lot of very tired, very committed people doing the kind of slow, necessary work advocacy demands.

Would I Do It Again?

Would I do it again? Yes. With better shoes. More snacks. But yes.