“The group of 20 (G20) finance ministers meeting in Australia has just announced an ambitious initiative to boost the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) by at least $2 trillion over the next five years. … So far there has been no mention of health as a means to promote economic development among the G20 nations, even though we learned more than a decade ago from the World Health Organization’s Report of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health led by Jeffrey Sachs that diseases can actually cause poverty. Such findings provided the basis for which disease targets were added to the Millennium Development Goals,” Peter Hotez, co-editor in chief of PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, writes in the PLOS “Speaking of Medicine” blog. “…NTD control and elimination won’t be an easy sell to the G20 finance ministers, but it is an important message to send ‘down under’ sometime before November of this year,” he concludes (3/4).