U.S. President Donald Trump is no friend to Canada, and his tariff threats are a menacing shadow as we approach his Feb. 1 deadline. Yet, while the president seems intent on shattering the foundations of the world’s most symbiotic trade relationship, causing both economic and political turmoil in Canada, some of his policies are worth looking at, particularly his departure from the World Health Organization (WHO).
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the WHO, pointing a spotlight on the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with its broader failures in global health crises, its refusal to undergo necessary reforms and its evident allegiance to the political inclinations of its member states.
And for anyone who thought he was bluffing, he doubled down by ordering the U.S. Centres for Disease Control to stop working with the WHO altogether.
Canada, with its reflexive opposition to anything Trump does — often for good reasons — should take a moment to consider that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. If Canada were to withdraw its hefty contribution to the WHO, $204 million in 2022-23, it might well be closing time for this broken and mismanaged institution.
Trump, in his bombastic fashion, is right when he accuses the WHO of botching its response to COVID-19. From the outset, the WHO has failed in its primary duties. It was late in declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and its own review of the response was nothing short of a condemnation.
In the early stages, WHO officials tweeted that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. The tweet, which is hilariously still online, was posted on the same day that the WHO’s technical lead on COVID gave a presentation in Geneva saying the exact opposite.
Why would the WHO tweet something its own staff disagreed with? Because it was placating China. The now infamous tweet was posted to provide “balance” based on the data coming from the Chinese Communist Party.
The problem is that the Chinese government already knew about human-to-human transmission, and delayed communicating that fact for another six days. The consequences of the WHO bending to the will of an authoritarian regime cannot be understated.
The WHO’s missteps are undeniably attributable to its suspicious relationship with China. The organization’s allegiance to China became embarrassingly clear when WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ senior advisor, Canadian epidemiologist Bruce Aylward, hung up during an interview rather than discuss Taiwan — a moment that spoke volumes about WHO’s integrity, or lack thereof.
While these tragic mistakes put the organization’s credibility in the crosshairs, it then flip-flopped on key health policies like the utility of masks, the value of travel bans and testing protocols.
In early 2020, the WHO suggested masks should only be worn by health-care workers and those experiencing symptoms. Come June, it flipped, recommending fabric masks for all, leading to confusing, politically charged mask policies around the world.
Anyone who flew during this time remembers the farce of requiring masks on the plane, only to have everyone remove them to eat, rendering the whole exercise useless. Or the miserable experience of entering a restaurant with a mask on, taking it off to eat, but being told to put it back on while heading to the washroom.
The COVID-19 fiasco should have been a wake-up call for the WHO’s reform, yet no such overhaul seems likely. Instead, the WHO marches on with its prohibitionist, anti-scientific stance on matters like alcohol and vaping.
On vaping, the WHO has advocated for draconian restrictions, ignoring the evidence from Public Health England that vaping is 95 per cent less harmful than smoking and aids in smoking cessation. Such policies, as Yale University research has shown, ironically serve to increase smoking rates — a contradiction of the WHO’s own mission.
And on alcohol, the WHO has peddled the myth that there’s “no safe” amount, a position that flies in the face of research from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, whose research found that moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers. Similar findings have been detailed in numerous peer-reviewed studies for decades.
Why does the WHO push bad science when good science is available? That’s unclear, but it may have to do with the fact that the researchers the WHO relies on for its work on alcohol have openly declared ties to neo-prohibitionist groups like Movendi.
The WHO’s narrative seems more influenced by neo-prohibitionist agendas than by science, and that should worry anyone who cares about public health. Not to mention that the organization, even prior to the pandemic, was spending upwards of $200 million per year on travel, which is about what we as Canadian taxpayers spend to fund this bloated monstrosity.
Instead of aligning with this compromised organization, Canada might consider spearheading a NATO-like health alliance with democratic nations, focusing on genuine public health, free from the puppet strings of authoritarian regimes like China’s. It’s high time we acknowledge that the WHO has become more a part of the problem than the solution.
National Post
David Clement is the North American affairs manager at the Consumer Choice Center.