Global health: what's in it for us?

A new report, America's Vital Interest in Global Health, released in June by the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Board on International Health, calls for increased U.S. foreign health care spending to fund research and education about diseases of the developing world, a global surveillance system to spot environmental changes and emerging disease conditions, public and private sector partnerships to distribute vaccines and drugs overseas, and a new government body to help coordinate these efforts. The report argues that, in an increasingly global society, the United States can't afford to ignore its neighbors' problems, for economic as well as social reasons.