The leader of the World Health Organization said the world needs to adopt its proposed Pandemic Preparedness Treaty or face the worst.
However, congressional Republicans say the WHO has not earned their trust and believe the deal is a back-door plan to support abortion while weakening national oversight of response to any future pandemic.
WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus recently called the treaty “mission critical for humanity,” adding that “the world is not prepared for a pandemic,” according to Fox News.
“The painful lessons we learned are in danger of being forgotten as attention turns to the many other crises confronting our world,” he said.
“History teaches us that the next pandemic is a matter of when, not if,” Tedros said. “It may be caused by an influenza virus, or a new coronavirus or a new pathogen we don’t even know about yet — what we call Disease X.”
Saying the world is “unprepared for the next Disease X, and the next pandemic,” he claimed that attacking the “litany of lies and conspiracy theories about the agreement” is a roadblock the WHO has to face.
He said accusations include, “That it’s a power grab by the World Health Organization. That it will cede sovereignty to WHO. That it will give WHO power to impose lockdowns or vaccine mandates on countries. That it’s an ‘attack on freedom.’ That WHO will not allow people to travel, and that WHO wants to control people’s lives.”
“These are some of the lies that are being spread. If they weren’t so dangerous, these lies would be funny. But they put the health of the world’s people at risk. And that is no laughing matter. These claims are utterly, completely, categorically false. … Anyone who says it will is either uninformed or lying,” he said.
“Let me be clear: WHO did not impose anything on anyone during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not lockdowns, not mask mandates, not vaccine mandates. We don’t have the power to do that. We don’t want it, and we’re not trying to get it,” he said.
Should the world be concerned about another outbreak?
Yes: 43% (55 Votes)
No: 57% (74 Votes)
But some Republican congressmen are not sold.
“The COVID-19 pandemic showed us that the WHO is not the preeminent global health institution that perhaps it once was,” said Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, who chairs the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, according to Roll Call. “Politics should never have a place in science.”
“If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s the need for serious systemic reform and how [the WHO] does business,” Wenstrup said.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said the treaty is “a global power grab” to push progressive pro-abortion policies.
Republican Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey said the treaty is rigged to support abortion.
“The Pandemic Agreement affirms the need to prioritize ‘equity and respect for human rights,’ yet on Nov. 25, 2021, the WHO made clear that it construes the killing of unborn children by abortion — dismemberment, child beheading, and starvation, and that’s how the abortion pill works — to be a human right,” said Smith, chairman of the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, according to the Washington Examiner.
Wenstrup said the WHO has not earned America’s trust.
“We witnessed firsthand that the WHO didn’t equally serve all of its members, or even all of mankind. Rather, it became beholden to and caved to political pressure,” he said. “When the WHO needed to step up and help the world navigate this unprecedented event of a novel coronavirus and a global pandemic, they instead ignored facts.”
“They parroted back some of the narrative the Chinese Communist Party told them, and that’s what we got. So, instead of conducting their own independent investigation into the origins of COVID and helping everyone keep safe as best we can, they listened to Chinese propaganda and produced a pandemic origins report with the CCP,” he said.
