Yesterday June 28th, 2011,  Sabin Vaccine Institute President  Dr. Peter J. Hotez published an article in PLoS Journal titled “Unleashing “Civilian Power”: A New American Diplomacy through Neglected Tropical Disease Control, Elimination, Research, and Development.” Last year, U.S Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton expressed  a new outlook for American diplomacy and development through strengthening “civilian power”. Civilian Power is described as:

[T]he new doctrine calls for the creation of a new cadre of civilian experts who could jointly pursue diplomacy and international development for purposes of solving global challenges related to health, agriculture and food insecurity, environmental degradation, drugs and organized crime, energy, and climate change .

Secretary Clinton’s intends to exercise this new doctrine by leveraging the distinct strengths of the State Department and USAID in carrying out U.S Foreign Policy.  In “the coming years the State Department and USAID would now work more closely to enhance global development in the context of diplomacy”

In this paper, Dr. Hotez delineates the reasons why NTDs should be a major part of Secretary Clinton’s forthcoming campaign to strengthen our diplomacy efforts abroad.  He writes that “there are a number of reasons why taking on the NTDs would be a worthy early first test for civilian power. It is now possible to control or in some cases eliminate one or more of the seven most common NTDs.” Putting more energy into NTD control efforts resonates with Secretary Clinton’s empowering and strengthening  fragile states

Because the NTDs destabilize these communities and also represent important impediments to human rights , , NTD control should comprise an essential element of civilian power for the reinvention of American diplomacy and development.