Morning Briefing

The Washington Post examines the influence of commercial interests on the "political declaration" that emerged from this week's U.N. High-level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in New York. NCDs "are the globe's biggest health problem, responsible for 63 percent of all deaths each year, with incidence growing steeply in the low-income, rapidly urbanizing nations of the world," but they "are deeply entangled with important global industries, not only tobacco but also food, pharmaceuticals, advertising, transportation and construction," the newspaper writes, adding, "The bigger issue in preparing the document, however, was how much to invoke the ... World Trade Organization's agreement on intellectual property, known informally as TRIPS" (Brown, 9/20).