National Review Online
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Since its inception 112 years ago almost to the day, the
World Health Organization (WHO) has been
credited with the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of other
devastating illnesses, including leprosy and river blindness.
This record of success makes the current corruption of
the organization all the more shameful.
On December 30, Chinese doctor Li Wenliang warned
colleagues about the outbreak of an illness resembling severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS), which sparked a pandemic in 2003. Public-health officials rely
on the acuity of doctors like Li, whose early warnings prevent the spread of
deadly diseases. But Chinese authorities didn’t reward Li; they summoned him to
the Public Security Bureau in Wuhan on accusations that he had made false
statements and disrupted the public order.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) followed up with
numerous other arrests, and publicly warned that it would punish anyone
spreading “rumors” on social media. By mid January, Chinese doctors knew that
COVID-19 was spreading between humans, but on January 14, the WHO stated that
there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
coronavirus.” Two weeks later, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
flew to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, who so impressed
Tedros that he lauded Chinese authorities for “setting a new standard for
outbreak control,” praising their “openness for sharing information.”
Dr. Li might have disagreed with that sentiment. Alas, he
was never able to voice his objections: He died after contracting COVID-19.
When the WHO emergency committee discussed whether to
declare COVID-19 a public-health emergency on January 23, international
observers had definitively discredited Chinese health data. Yet Tedros relied
on those data in arguing against declaring an emergency — over the objections
of other committee members. That decision delayed the mobilization of
public-health resources around the world. John Mackenzie, a committee member,
attributed the delay to “very poor reporting” and “very poor communication”
from the CCP. After finally declaring an emergency on January 30, Tedros
continued to lavish praise on China. As late as February 20, he argued that
Chinese actions were “slowing the spread [of coronavirus] to the rest of the
world.”
Tedros isn’t afraid to take on world leaders as a general
matter. When President Trump limited travel from China to the U.S. on January
31 — a decision that bought the U.S. precious time — Tedros said it would “have
the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit.”
The record is clear: The WHO has lent its imprimatur to
Chinese disinformation and blessed China’s slow response to its domestic
outbreak, which likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases, according to a
University of Southampton study.
The Chinese government must believe they have invested
very wisely. They backed
Tedros’s bid to run the WHO in 2017, seeking to plant an ally in the U.N.
leadership. Who was better suited for the role than a leftist political
operative with a history of covering
up health emergencies? As one of his first actions at the helm, Tedros assured
the Chinese that he would adhere to the “One China” policy, barring Taiwanese
participation. The Trump administration opposed Tedros’s campaign to lead the
organization but couldn’t surmount China’s sway.
China’s influence over the WHO comes at a bargain price:
Beijing only contributes half as much as the U.S. does to the WHO’s budget.
Congress should investigate Chinese influence on the WHO,
and the U.S. should use its ample funding of the organization as leverage to
demand transparency about its dealings with China. Our continued participation
in the WHO should be in play. In its moment of testing, the organization
kowtowed to Beijing rather than serve the public interest, and the world paid
the price.
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