In President Barack Obama’s speech today, announcing that he will accept the Nobel Peace Prize, he remarked that “We can’t accept a world in which more people are denied opportunity and dignity that all people yearn for — the ability to get an education and make a decent living; the security that you won’t have to live in fear of disease or violence without hope for the future.” At the Global Network, we are encouraged by this statement, because it reinforces that the Administration sees disease control as a critical global development strategy through which we can promote security and break the cycle of poverty and conflict.
President Obama delivers a speech acknowledging he will accept the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Photo courtesy of Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
A paper written by Sabin Vaccine Institute President Peter Hotez and Global Network Ambassador Governor Tommy Thompson titled “Waging Peace through Neglected Tropical Disease Control: A US Foreign Policy for the Bottom Billion” articulates this theme captured in President Obama’s statement today. The paper emphasizes that NTDs play a key role in destabilizing communities, which also exacerbates poverty. In order to heed President Obama’s “call to action” for a more peaceful world, then, we must work to control and eliminate NTDs and other global health problems around the world.
