“We were deeply perturbed to learn that the negotiations for the Outcomes Document of the U.N. High Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), a mere month or so away, had stalled because member states failed to reach consensus,” Nalini Saligram, CEO of Arogya World, and Sandeep Kishore, an MD/PhD candidate at the Cornell/ Rockefeller/ Sloan-Kettering Institute, write in a Huffington Post opinion piece.

“We are serving notice to the U.S. – and the E.U. and Canada and Australia – that NCDs as a global health and development issue is here to stay because health is a basic human right. Let us not squander the incredible opportunity that the upcoming U.N. summit presents. Let’s not water this down to a mere World NCDs Day. We want real action and measurable outcomes,” they conclude (8/17).