Originally published June 26, 2023 8:00 pm PDT
The World Health Organization’s current agreements will result in significant surveillance and censorship capabilities.
QUICK FACTS:
- Former World Health Organization (WHO) medical officer Doctor David Bell and Chair in Global Health Policy at the University of Leeds, Director of the World Health Organization Collaborative Centre on Health Systems and Health Security Professor Garrett Wallace Brown spoke to members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (AAPG) regarding the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).
- The WHO’s proposals and amendments could result in unprecedented authority being given to the organization, jeopardizing medical freedom.
- “The WHO was established in 1946 with the best of intentions, to help coordinate responses to major health issues and advise governments accordingly,” Bell told the APPG. “Over the decades we have seen a significant change in direction as funding streams have shifted to private ‘specified funding,’ particularly from private donors.”
- “This has led to the WHO becoming a far more centralized and externally-directed body in which private and corporate funders shape and direct programs. What we have also seen shifting is the definition of a health emergency, making it extremely broad,” Bell continued.
- He voiced his concerns: “It is a worrying background against which the IHR amendments and the Treaty are being negotiated.”
- Bell noted that the proposals would “fundamentally change the relationship between the WHO and national governments and their citizens.”
- As part of the WHO’s proposal requires member nations to provide financial support to the organization, Professor Brown said to AAPG that he has advised the WHO on whether or not the $31.1 billion a year plan for pandemic preparedness is feasible.
- Brown explained that the “$31.1B a year is a huge opportunity cost, one that needs proper contextualization, reflection, debate, evidencing and justification. We’ve already seen the real world impact on people of misguided pandemic preparedness.”
RESPONSES FROM AAPG MEMBERS:
- “The Treaty and IHR amendments could cement a disastrous approach to future pandemics. It seems unwise to give an unelected and largely privately-funded supranational body, power over sovereignty and individual rights with seemingly no oversight,” Pandemic Response and Recovery APPG Co-Chair Esther McVey said.
- She added, “I question whether we want to hand such authority to the WHO, whose focus in recent decades has moved away from its laudable founding principles, to blunt instruments such as lockdowns and a one-size fits all approach to public health with the terrible consequences we are now seeing.”
- Co-Chair of AAPG Graham Stringer similarly stated, “I am opposed to these plans as they could represent a huge expansion of the WHO’s powers, to the detriment of public health.”
- “We saw the unaccountable and extreme influence of China on the WHO when it refused to investigate the Wuhan laboratory and the origin of SARS-CoV-2. It’s also worrying to see the increase in commercial interests within the WHO,” Stringer noted, adding that the political, rather than scientific, decisions of the WHO present may “erode democracy, civil liberties, and individual rights.”
BACKGROUND:
- A draft document from the WHO explicitly states that some of the organization’s policies may “restrict individual liberties, mandating and sharing of information, knowledge, and resources.”
- The document is part of the WHO’s “pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”
- In order to combat misinformation and instead promote “international cooperation,” the WHO may engage in “social listening” and use “media outlets to identify the prevalence and profiles” of so-called false information.
