Oct 4 2011
In this Foreign Policy Association blog post, freelance writer Julia Robinson calls for individuals to start demanding more action on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), writing, "It is possible to have stronger responses to NCDs" than those presented in the political declaration that resulted from last month's U.N. High-level Meeting (HLM) on NCDs, such as the smoking bans, requirements for posting nutrition information in restaurants and trans fat restrictions enacted in New York City by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Robinson concludes, "The time to act is now -- before we reach a crisis point that we cannot reverse. Just as the HIV/AIDS epidemic required grassroots activism to force change, so does the NCD epidemic. It is time for individuals to act, since it is apparent that the U.N. and global leaders will not step up as needed now" (9/30).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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