By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON/THE HAGUE (Worthy News) – Transatlantic political alarm bells are ringing over plans by world leaders to sign an international pandemics treaty that critics say will give the World Health Organization (WHO) unprecedented power over sovereign nations.
The United Nations’ primary health watchdog is rolling out its new Pandemic Treaty when the 194-member World Health Assembly, the WHO’s governing body, meets for the 75th time next month in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Pact, part of a discussion on amendments to the WHO International Health Regulations, would “help” the world avoid critical mistakes during the next catastrophe, supporters say.
Yet ahead of the global May 22-28 gathering, Conservatives in the United States and elsewhere warned that the accord would create a worldwide public health police.
Those concerns are shared by prominent Republicans, including in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republican Brad Wenstrup, chairman of the House Oversight subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, said, “The WHO wants to infringe upon our national sovereignty with their proposed ‘Pandemic Treaty.’”
Those worries were due to be raised during the campaign ahead of this year’s U.S. presidential elections as then President Donald J. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the WHO.
REELECTION CAMPAIGN
Critics say that U.S. President Joe Biden, who seeks re-election and likely faces Trump in the rerun for the White House, will hand over America’s sovereignty on health to the WHO.
Those concerns are shared thousands of miles away in the Netherlands, a close U.S. ally long known as one of Europe’s most liberal nations.
Following recent elections, the pro-Israel Party for Freedom (PVV) and others have questioned the outgoing government’s plans to sign the treaty.
At a parliamentary debate in the Dutch city of The Hague, observed by Worthy News, the PVV’s health expert Fleur Agema was among the most vocal Dutch politicians saying the WHO could take measures the Netherlands doesn’t want.
Agema referred to controversial vaccination cards during the COVID-19 pandemic and recalled that the “Netherlands was the only European nation with four lockdowns.”
She said she doesn’t want to live in a nation where the WHO could implement similar measures again.
Agema recalled that when the Netherlands, pressured by the WHO, introduced the coronavirus admission cards, “you needed that to be had allowed into the catering industry. Without proof that you had a corona vaccination or a negative test, entry was refused,” she recalled.
CHRISTIAN CONCERNS
Other potential partners in a coalition government with the PVV also expressed their reservations, as well as the conservative Calvinist Reformed Political Party (SGP)
Yet Dutch Health Minister Pia Dijkstra of the social liberal Democrats 66 (D66) party claimed the treaty “explicitly states” that the Netherlands doesn’t transfer any powers to the WHO.
“If the WHO recommends taking measures, it is up to the national government to implement them,” she argued.
However, the opposition said the new WHO pact would demand that nations “share information” with “rapid, systematic and timely access” to biological samples and genetic sequencing.
Sharing such personal information of citizens is a sensitive issue in democratic countries such as the Netherlands at a time of concern about Communist China’s growing global influence.
Supporters of the agreement say it could help prevent pandemic outbreaks such as COVID-19 when, in late 2019 and early 2020, China concealed vital facts about the virus.
The information China initially did not share included human-to-human transmission in Wuhan, helping to ignite the global spread.
‘NO GUARANTEES’
Supporters of the new agreement also stress that it does not override national prerogatives but caution that it “does not guarantee that what happened in Wuhan would not happen again.”
Despite the ongoing debate, the WHO still pushes for a pact to be signed in May.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Pandemic Pact is necessary as the COVID-19 pandemic showed “weak links at every point” in the global preparedness and response.
He added that the pandemic “exacerbated inequalities” and that “global political leadership was absent.”
All these combined into “a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis,” the WHO claimed in a recent assessment.
The official COVID-19 death toll is more than 7 million, though the actual loss is probably twice or three times as significant, experts say.
That would mean up to 21 million deaths in a world population of about 8 billion people, and critics say these figures are similar to severe previous flu pandemics.
SPANISH FLU
COVID-19 came about a century after the “Spanish flu,” a far more deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus.
Nearly a third of the then global population, about 500 million people, was impacted by the Spanish flu. The reported death toll of at least 17 million to 50 million, and possibly 100 million, made it one of the deadliest pandemics in recorded human history.
With the 21st century unfolding, officials backing a WHO Pandemic Treaty say it could help poorer nations with easier access to health measures and vaccines.
In return for sharing data, the WHO would sign contracts with manufacturers for diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics, giving all participating nations 10 percent free and 10 percent at cost.
The manufacturers would pay to support the system. This “science for science” trade would see the science of an upcoming disease swapped for the science of the remedies.
However, a group known as the Equity Bloc, mainly African nations, expressed concern that the proposed system’s promised benefits to participating countries are insufficient. The multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry has also balked at the “requirements” and costs firms would face.
Pact enthusiasts hope these objections can be overcome. They say disease does not respect national borders, and withholding information “puts everyone at risk.”
Yet, questions remain over how much sovereignty nations will have over deciding how to keep their populations healthy in an increasingly connected death-fearing world.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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