Who Can Trust the WHO?
Joe Biden, for one, but the organization’s terrible pandemic record doesn’t inspire confidence.
The World Health Organization (WHO) “demonstrated an abysmal lack of competence throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote Republican Senators Steve Daines (MT) and Tom Cotton (AR) in a letter to the Biden administration, and that “has destroyed the organization’s credibility and undermined the public’s confidence in it.” Therefore, the two men conclude, the Biden administration must “withdraw the United States from this corrupt and inept international organization.”
Not only is Joe Biden not going to do that, but the impetus of the letter is that he’s seemingly planning to submit even more American sovereignty to the Chinese puppets at the WHO. Its 75th World Health Assembly began this past weekend.
Fortunately, we have the “fact-checkers” at the Associated Press to set us all straight:
CLAIM: The Biden administration is proposing amendments to the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations that would transfer U.S. sovereign authority over health care decisions to the WHO director-general.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The International Health Regulations, which are aimed at detecting disease outbreaks, allow the WHO director-general to declare a public health emergency of international concern. The proposed U.S. amendments seek to strengthen requirements for reporting such emergencies. Member countries agree to abide by the guidelines, but the WHO does not have the power to enforce them, nor can it interfere in other countries’ decision-making processes, according to experts.
This is one of those “well technically…” arguments meant to debunk something of real concern. The WHO isn’t literally going to be making healthcare decisions for American citizens, but American authorities, especially at the CDC, put a lot of stock into what the WHO says. A lot of COVID policy was influenced by WHO recommendations. The very nature of organizations like the WHO is to consolidate power.
Speaking of COVID, the pandemic is “most certainly not over,” says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He points to Africa, where deaths are rising and vaccination rates are low. “In all,” he said, “we see vaccine hesitancy driven by misinformation and disinformation.” Of the current dustup over WHO authority, Tedros sounded a similar refrain: “Unfortunately, there has been a small minority of groups making misleading statements and purposefully distorting facts.”
It’s certainly true that the Internet is full of misinformation and disinformation about vaccines. But it comes from both sides, and it includes bad information on lockdowns, masks, and other coronavirus protocols. Only one side has the power to censor the other side.
In fact, arguably the lion’s share of misinformation comes from government authorities and organizations like the WHO. For example, on January 14, 2020, Tedros issued a statement saying, “Preliminary investigations conducted by Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.”
Oops!
In January and February of 2020, before COVID officially reached our shores, it was Tom Cotton who warned about the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to cover it up, including the virus’s likely origins in a Wuhan bio lab.
The WHO, which gets an awful lot of money from the ChiComs, was complicit in that cover-up. China corrupted the WHO, which is why Donald Trump withdrew from the organization.
Of course, Biden promised to return to the WHO, and he made good soon after becoming president. He has, after all, likely benefited personally from ChiCom cash.
Then Tedros admitted there was a “premature push” to dismiss the lab leak theory before launching a half-hearted probe that the Chinese promptly thwarted.
But according to American Leftmedia, the misinformation we ought to be really worried about is arguably overstating what Biden and the WHO intend to do with American sovereignty. After the last two years, why on earth does anyone still believe these people?
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