by Betsy McCaughey
Good riddance to the World Health Organization -- more aptly called the Woke Health Oligarchy.
On his first day, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from WHO, a necessary step in putting the health of Americans first. Immediately the left-wing media sounded the alarm, quoting globalist-minded scientists at American universities and think tanks falsely claiming that Trump's move will isolate the U.S. from worldwide efforts to detect and limit deadly diseases.
These claims willfully ignore WHO's disgraceful record. WHO was founded to create an international method of sharing data and fighting disease. But when it faced its biggest test -- the virus emanating from China in the winter of 2019-20 -- it proved to be a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party. WHO pandered to Beijing, colluding to keep the disease a secret and likely increasing the death toll by millions.
As Elise Stefanik, Trump's United Nations ambassador nominee, told Congress Tuesday, "we cannot tolerate entities that are taken over by CCP propaganda."
Roll the tape.
Lie No. 1 -- In December 2019 and January 2020, while Chinese officials were arresting locals for discussing the Wuhan virus and censoring information flowing out of the country, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus heaped praise on the Chinese for their "openness to sharing information" and falsely claimed that "China has bought the world time."
Lie No. 2 -- Ghebreyesus kowtowed to China and delayed declaring COVID-19 an international health emergency until February 2020, after it had spread to 18 countries.
Lie No. 3 -- The WHO promised an investigation into the virus's origins but allowed China to block the WHO investigators from talking to Chinese scientists or disease victims, or even examining patient data. WHO went along with the phony conclusion that a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was "extremely unlikely."
Despite these lies, the scientific establishment at most U.S. universities and scientists at the federal health agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paint a glowing false picture of WHO, claiming the U.S. will be less safe without it.
Many, including WHO's biggest advocate, Anthony Fauci, also back WHO's ongoing push for a global pandemic treaty.
That treaty proposal is a confiscatory piece of mischief that would have forced the U.S. to hand over a whopping 20% of medical supplies to WHO in the event of a global crisis. All for the sake of global equity. WHO -- meaning China -- would decide which countries get the supplies -- and prevent the U.S. from prioritizing Americans' needs.
Typical of the dangerous global thinking dominating academic science, Harvard health expert Jesse Bump says the treaty is designed to correct "the shameful and selfish actions of rich countries in the COVID pandemic."
Exiting WHO is a first step, but the Trump administration also needs to clean house at the federal health agencies, replacing the globalist bias that has caused these agencies to squander billions in other parts of the world while falling short protecting Americans.
You can thank former President Barack Obama and his CDC head Thomas Frieden for launching an America Last philosophy. When Frieden was asked about his top priority, he said it was eradicating polio, though there were only 74 cases in remote parts of the world and none in the U.S.
Obama committed billions to building labs and health infrastructure throughout Africa and Asia, while many health departments in the U.S. were hampered by a lack of these facilities, including disease surveillance systems.
When the mosquito-borne disease Zika struck in 2016, Frieden allocated staff and funding for mosquito control in South America but not to the 26 states in the U.S. threatened by the disease. Frieden insisted mosquito control was a local responsibility here. Tell that to a mother in Florida or Texas who gave birth to a brain-damaged baby.
During Trump's first term, little attention was paid to how globalism diverted health resources to far-off countries that are not even necessarily allies. Then COVID -19 shined a bright light on American public health inadequacies.
Currently the CDC has over 1,600 employees working on the payroll in 60 countries.
David Weldon, Trump's nominee to head the CDC, needs to assure the public that the CDC under his watch will look out for the American people first. Global loyalties be damned.
https://townhall.com/columnists/betsymccaughey/2025/01/23/trump-battles-globalism-in-public-health-n2650989
