The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently developing two international legal instruments intended to increase its authority in managing health emergencies, including pandemics;
(1) Amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), and
(2) A pandemic treaty, termed ‘ÇA+’ by the WHO.
The draft IHR amendments would lay out new powers for the WHO during health emergencies, and broaden the context within which they can be used. The draft CA+ (‘treaty’) is intended to support the bureaucracy, financing and governance to underpin the expanded IHR.
These proposed instruments, as currently drafted, would fundamentally change the relationship between the WHO, its Member States and naturally their populations, promoting a fascist and neo-colonialist approach to healthcare and governance. The documents need to be viewed together, and in the far wider context of the global/globalist pandemic preparedness agenda.
Context
The threat of pandemics.
The current rapidly increasing funding for pandemics and health emergencies is based on several fallacies, frequently repeated in white papers and other documents as well as the mainstream media as if they were facts, in particular:
- Pandemics are increasing in frequency.
- Pandemics are causing an increasing health burden.
- Increased contact between humans and wildlife will promote more pandemics (as most are caused by zoonotic viruses).
The last pandemic to cause major mortality was the 1918-19 ’Spanish flu,’ estimated to have killed between 20 and 50 million people. As noted by the National Institutes of Health, most of these people died of secondary bacterial pneumonia, as the outbreak occurred in the pre-antibiotic era. Prior to this time, major pandemics were due to bubonic plague, cholera and typhus, all addressable with modern antibiotics and hygiene, and smallpox, which is now eliminated.
The WHO lists just 3 pandemics in the past century, prior to Covid-19; the influenza outbreaks of 1957-58 and 1968-69, and the 2009 Swine flu outbreak. The formers killed 1.1 million and 1 million people respectively, while the latter killed 150,000 or less. For context, 290,000 to 650,000 people die of influenza every year, and 1.6 million people die of tuberculosis (at a much younger average age).
In Western countries, Covid-19 was associated with deaths at an average age of about 80 years, and global estimates suggest an overall infection mortality rate of about 0.15 percent, which is similar to that for influenza.which is similar to that for influenza (0.3-0.4% with Covid in older Western populations).
Thus, pandemics in the past century have killed far fewer people and at an older age than most other major infectious diseases.
The Covid-19 event stands out from previous pandemics due to the aggressive and disproportionate responses employed, instituted contrary to existing WHO guidelines. The harms of this response have been discussed extensively elsewhere,, with little doubt that the resultant disruptions to health systems and increased poverty will cause far higher mortality, at a far younger age, than would have been expected from Covid-19 itself. Despite the historical rarity of pandemics, the WHO and partners are pushing forward with a rapid process that will ensure repetition of such responses, rather than first analyzing the costs and benefits of the recent example. This is clearly reckless and a bad way to develop policy.
The role of the WHO in public health.
The WHO, whilst having a role in coordinating cross-border health emergencies included in its Constitution, was founded on human rights principles and originally emphasized community and individual rights. These culminated in the Declaration of Alma Ata, emphasizing the importance of community participation and ‘horizontal’ approaches to care.
Apart from its basis in human rights, this approach has a…
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