For US President Donald Trump, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has become a target in the wake of the COVID-19 disaster unfolding in America — a disaster which has revealed a dysfunctional system and an administration reluctant to recognise the warning signs.
But how much of Trump’s attack on the WHO is true? And how much is a deflection from his own performance?
Inq compiled this compendium of the WHO’s transgressions — real or imagined.
Q: Did the WHO really appoint Robert Mugabe to be its goodwill ambassador?
A: Yes. It happened in October 2017. WHO’s newly-appointed director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made an early blunder when he announced the (now deceased) Zimbabwean dictator would be a WHO goodwill ambassador. He was forced to rescind the appointment four days later.
Dr Tedros, as he prefers to be known, is a former Ethiopian government minister with a PhD in community health from the UK’s Nottingham University. He is the first African leader of the WHO and the first to have no medical qualifications.
Q: Did the WHO endorse dubious Chinese claims on COVID-19?
A: Yes, to a degree. On January 14 the WHO tweeted that “early investigations” showed Chinese authorities had found “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the coronavirus.
Yet three days before — on January 11 — a CT scan of whistleblower doctor, Dr Li Wenliang, confirmed that both his lungs were infected with the new virus.
It was also known to Chinese officials that in the first days of January the number of infected Wuhan residents had jumped from 27 to 44.
The WHO tweet had the effect of amplifying to the world China’s own internal policy of restricting information and downplaying risk — a repeat of the SARS outbreak of 2003-04 when China was criticized by WHO members for downplaying the extent of the outbreak.
Q: What about Taiwan?
A: Tricky. Taiwan has been one of the world’s undisputed leaders in containing the spread of the coronavirus, but it’s shut out of the WHO because of China’s opposition.
WHO’s geopolitical problem reached farcical heights when WHO’s assistant director-general Bruce Aylward appeared to dodge a question on Taiwan from a Hong Kong interviewer last month. Asked if the WHO might consider allowing Taiwan to join, Aylward claimed, after a long pause, that he had been unable to hear the question, asked to move to a different topic, and then appeared to hang up when pressed on Taiwan.
Q: Did the WHO really endorse the Chinese government’s decision to allow wet markets to re-open?
A: Yes it did. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg slammed the move as “unbelievable, extraordinary”. Scott Morrison called it “unfathomable”, given that a market in Wuhan city is considered the source of the COVID-19 virus, possibly from an infected bat. The infectious disease SARS is also thought to have emerged from animals, present in the Guangdong province of southern China in 2002.
The term “wet” markets is often confused with a “wildlife” market. Both markets are common in Asia as places where locals can buy and sell fresh produce, including seafood, fruit and — in some cases — exotic species of animals, both live and slaughtered. They might add to the tapestry of life but they also created the conditions for infections to pass from animals to humans, especially when animals are stacked in cages on top of each other.
The WHO said in a statement that wet markets should not be allowed to sell illegal wildlife for food and that authorities should enforce food safety and hygiene regulations. But it said “wet markets and other food markets do not need to be closed down”.
How, though, can the WHO ensure China puts a halt to the trade in wildlife, especially given its lack of animal protection laws?
Q: Is China exporting traditional medicine remedies linked to exotic animals with the WHO’s support?
A: Yes. As China specialist and emeritus professor at Swinburne University of Technology John Fitgerald wrote in Crikey last week, China’s president Xi Jinping is a champion of traditional chinese medicine which uses ingredients drawn from exotic animals such as pangolins which are found in wet markets:
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a significant and growing source of revenue for China … A thriving and growing international consumer market for pangolin meat and scales, rhinoceros horns, leopard bones, tiger plasters, black bear bile, donkey hide, and kangaroo penises is a predictable outcome of the grandiose repackaging and political marketing of TCM as a global equivalent to evidence-based medicine in Xi Jinping’s New Era of global leadership.
According to Fitgerald, in May 2019, the WHO’s governing body, the World Health Assembly, duly agreed to include a chapter on traditional medicines in its guide to acceptable global health practice.
Seriously Crikey, in the middle of a pandemic this really is enough for me to consider cancelling my subscription.
I’d already reached that decision, lloydois.
This bit of ‘investigative’ reporting omits so many relevant pieces of information as to render it drivel.
‘Wet markets?’ The 2009 Swine flu outbreak was also (mostly) pinned on China, omitting the fact the strain was traced to industrial pig populations in the US, in 1999 (and, further back to human infection at Fort Dix in the mid-70’s.
There has also been very little mention, here, that a) the NY outbreak has been traced to European strains, b) Italian medicos are now admitting they were seeing ‘strange pneumonias’ back in Sept/Oct last year, that they now recognise as the same pneumonias now attributed to COVID – 19, c) Italy has documented science of coronaviruses being found it bats in Northern Italy, going back years (same in Spain), d) Italians actively hunt ‘game’, mostly in Northern Italy and, as with most game, it’s found nearby forests and woodlands where bats ‘hang out’, e) the best scientists in the world are saying they may never uncover the Patient Zero from the beginning of this pandemic, f) earlier this week, a Californian medico, and public official, openly stated this coronavirus has been “freewheeling” in California since December (and, if you do a timeline of one of the infected people he mentions, you’re back in November).
Nor does this piece mention the Chinamen contacting – officially – US ‘authorities’ on January 3rd, to give them a heads up about a cluster of infections they were having trouble indentifying.
As for the ‘whistleblower’ doctor, he blew his whistle about 2 days after a senior physician in Wuhan told the Chinese honchos something was up with an emerging bout of infections, but they weren’t able to identify what it was, but were getting busy trying to work it out.
The minute anyone in this country, be they SchloMo, or people at places like this, start suggesting there might be something in what Trump ‘says, they lose all credibility.
As I.F. Stone said;
“Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.”
He was also devoted to “forensic reading”, which I find a most admirable pursuit.
Bye bye, David. I, for one, won’t miss you.
I think that we are mostly agreed that Trump is irredeemably a shyster liar and after some of the briefings, I have seen, I began to wonder what was added to his morning drink?
Hallucinogenic ravings at the best of times.
Yes, there are no wildlife protections in China and I will say right now, that it is a toss up as to who is a bigger danger to the world’s health currently, Xi or the Trumpster.
Yes a little like a lot of things at the UN, staying off the nations with the right of veto big toes is a dance best done gracefully.
Obviously either Tedros didn’t initially take his briefings seriously, or there were competing agendas.
The Mugabe pie in face was really an own goal and Tedros has not sought to repeat the mistake.
On the whole WHO fulfilled its obligations faithfully, with the knowledge it could verify at the time. The retrospectoscope always works perfectly.
As soon as it called a “pandemic” they effectively cancel anyone’s travel insurance, and so, giving nations time to retrieve their citizens probably didn’t slow the pandemic.
Why, Oldie? In this comment specifically, do you have information that refutes anything David said? Not a rhetorical question, I thought it was a serious contribution.
Agreed David, but the issue here is WHO. It’s funding levels are astounding in comparison to it’s accomplishments. All it can do is issue decrees for vaccines along with all the other vaccine whor-s including it’s third biggest donor, Billy Goat G-tes. Prevention is better than cure is not in their mandate.
“…It’s funding levels are astounding in comparison to it’s accomplishments…” So leading the twenty year campaign to eradicate Small Pox is not a big accomplishment? Unlike all the diseases that non-WHO organisations have help eliminate like … ? It is not the WHO responsibility to take over the research and production of vaccines from the public and private organisation that have always done this work – to do this the WHO budget would have to be several billion more a year.
Hold the Horses Hoss. The success of the WHO is a point in question. I could start the ball rolling with Aids and sub-Sahara Africa. And then move down the East African coast and do the same with Ebola. Not enough time and space to list the rest of them. The WHO’s third biggest donor has a vested interest in vacci-es, and that is not an issue of concern? Nice allusion.
If the WHO does nothing but facilitate (more) open access to medical information between countries, then it’s 100% worth the price.
During this crisis we’ve seen the USA blockade medical supplies headed for their ideological enemies (ie. Cuba) – to think that countries wouldn’t withhold medical information from each other along ideological lines is absurd. The WHO is heavily politicised but still allows more neutral ground than it would in it’s absence.
And on the constant criticisms of China… they had about 3500 deaths due to Coronavirus.
Compare that to the USA with 1/5 the population and 10 times the deaths, not even close to it’s peak…
So ‘course Trump is looking to blame China, or the WHO, or anyone really. Because otherwise people start looking at the failed experiment of balls to the wall neoliberal capitalism and the privatised healthcare industry that it gave rise to.
That’s become central to their domestic politics… There’s a US election this year, remember?
And Venezuela, and Syria, and Iran, and Nicaragua, and others – all sanctioned and blockaded by the Yanks, thus preventing them from fighting virus outbreaks as well as they might.
Not just ideological enemies – as noted in last week’s Worm, the US confiscated a transshipment of German ventilators purchased by Bermuda.
They reimbursed Bermuda but kept the ventilators.
And tried to covertly buy a German vaccine maker’s research & output.
Amerikan exceptionalism bestrides the world, charging non citizens in other countries with treason, forcing down 2nd & 3rd nation commercial passenger jets to a 4th nation to search & threaten the citizen of a fifth.
The arrogance & mendacity of the Hegemon knows no bounds.
Currently led by a buffoon but imagine if Killary had won the (s)election – the world would be in an even worse situation.
Gasp! So you mean the WHO isn’t perfect? Who would have guessed?
Even if the criticisms are valid, what’s the point? That Trump has made a correct call for once, albeit for the wrong reasons?
Trump’s goal was purely his own political survival, by appealing to his racist, isolationist base. However; to criticise the WHO in order to score political points is one thing, but withdrawing funding in the middle of a global pandemic is another and, in my opinion, an unconscionable thing to do. For all its faults, it is the only resource that many of the world’s poorest nations will be able to call on for assistance when CoVid 19 finally crosses their borders. Trump’s decision may lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings. To me, that’s pure evil.
This article is little more than click bait. You can do better, Crikey.
Not really, Graeski. You are correct in saying that “withdrawing funding in the middle of a global pandemic is another and, in my opinion, an unconscionable thing to do” and that Trump is looking for a scapegoat to divert attention from his own stupidity, incompetence and criminal negligence.
Yet the fact remains that the CCP has used its well honed Leninist infiltration techniques to undermine and subvert WHO’s credibility to use it for its own advantages. The one benefit to come out of this pandemic may well be to make the world more aware of these tactics.
Many people are rightly critical of the WHO for many reasons, but they don’t use the blackmail of withdrawing funding in an obvious attempt to distract attention from their own inaction and
incompetence.
WHO does a zillion things and it has to suck up to Governments to both get access and funding. They even said Trump was doing a “great job”. What they say is of little relevance. It’s what they do which counts!
And plenty of what they do hasn’t gone away because of Covid-19. It’s a bit early to say, but at the end of 2020 when the WHO or anybody else sits down to rank the illnesses which caused the most death and suffering, will Covid-19 make the top 3? Probably not. I won’t come close to diarrhea which kills over 400,000 children < 5 years old … every year.
So sure, criticise WHO, but withdrawing funding? That shows what a stupid ignorant narcissistic man Trump is.
People try to put em down.
You got talking bout my generation on your mind Keith?!
Hope they don’t die before they get old.
No, they sang “Hope I die before I get old” – the usual malarkey of the ignorant, live fast, die young & leave a good looking corpse.
Capital band, the WHO. Long may they survive.
I know that Cuchu. Just sayin hope they, as in the rock band WHO don’t die before they get old.
You can keep that vax pushing other WHO mob.