The Foreign Service Journal, December 2004

20 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 4 F O C U S O N M E D I C A L D I P L O M A C Y edical diplomacy is an idea whose time has come. Simply put, policy-makers have begun to realize that health is not just a domestic matter. Broadly speaking, of course, medical diplomacy has been practiced for many years. The International Red Cross was founded in 1863 to pro- vide relief to the wounded in war, and became a major force behind the development of international humani- tarian law. The World Health Organization was estab- lished in 1948, and has since spearheaded many interna- tional initiatives. During the height of the Cold War, from 1956 through 1976, a remarkable and largely unknown collaboration took place between U.S. and Soviet virologists that provided the tools for the eventual eradication of smallpox and polio. Following the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1962, the Kennedy administration sent millions of dollars worth of medical supplies to Cuba as a means to negotiate prisoner releases. In the post-Cold War world, “vaccine diplomacy,” as Peter Hotez —a George Washington University professor and principal investigator of the Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative — terms it, was an effective factor in the former republics of Yugoslavia: prior to the Dayton Accords, even after other channels had broken down, the health ministers of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia maintained a dialogue that cut across ethnic lines. And in sub-Saharan Africa during the 1990s, the U.N. and its partners suc- ceeded in imposing ceasefires in war-torn areas — the “Days of Tranquility” — to carry out mass immunization of children for polio and other infectious diseases. In 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright com- missioned the National Academies of Science to examine the role of science, technology and health in U.S. foreign policy. Their conclusion that science, technology and health were indeed diplomatic imperatives was reaf- firmed by Secretary of State Colin Powell four years later. Making health a key component of U.S. foreign policy is the top priority of the RAND Corporation’s Center for Domestic and International Health Security, established in 2002. RAND researchers are currently completing a survey of Foreign Service members on the subject (see Cybernotes, p. 12), and have worked closely with the Nuffield Trust, a British think-tank, to bring internation- al experts in health and foreign policy together. While health has to some extent always been an issue in foreign policy, most believe it now requires prioritiza- tion, high-level conceptualization and coordination. No one doubts that medical diplomacy’s potential is great. As John Wyn Owen, secretary of the Nuffield Trust and director of the U.K. Global Health Program, character- ized it at a 2003 symposium: “If weapons were a cur- rency of the Cold War, then health might be a currency of globalization and a bridge to peace.” A Broad New Horizon This month’s focus section, an introduction to this broad new horizon in foreign policy, was inspired by retired FSO John Harter. Harter’s personal involve- ment with the subject is itself a pointer to medical diplomacy’s many different facets. As AFSA Confer- ence Affairs Officer in 1991, Harter organized a sym- posium sponsored by AFSA and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association at the Department of State to explore the implications of globalization for the American pharmaceutical industry, which, it was appar- ent even then, would increasingly require the attention of American embassies. Then, in 1999, Harter’s wife was diagnosed with a rare and dreadful disease, M M EDICAL D IPLOMACY : E DITOR ’ S I NTRODUCTION B Y S USAN M AITRA Susan Maitra is the Journal ’s Senior Editor.