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As it tries to chart a path forward to avert future pandemics, the World Health Organization is facing a barrage of misinformation accusing it of plotting to take over health policy in sovereign nations. Despite being used to being targeted by conspiracy theorists, particularly over Covid-19, high-profile tries in countries across the world to discredit the WHO’s efforts are weighing down over talks in Geneva this week.
Country representatives are debating how to lay the groundwork for a global agreement that will eventually govern how nations prepare for potential to future pandemic threats.
“We may face more drastic pandemics in the future, and we need to be a lot better prepared than we are now,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan recently told reporters.
“That will necessitate international cooperation.”
It is unclear what any future agreement would include or whether countries would prefer it to be a pact or some other “legal instrument.”
The negotiations, which will involve member states rather than the WHO, are expected to last at least two years.
However, conspiracy theories contend that the UN healthier choices is seeking to consolidate power.
In a recent segment on the pandemic treaty, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson warned his millions of viewers that US President Joe Biden’s administration was on the verge of “handing the World Health Organization power over every aspect, the affectionate aspects of your life.”
‘Isolated from reality’
Christine Anderson, a German European Parliament member, has warned that the agreement would give “the WHO de facto ruling power over member states.”
Meanwhile, Russell Brand, a British comedian-turned-YouTuber, told his over 5.5 million users that the future treaty meant “your democracy is… finished.”
According to the WHO and experts, such theories, which have also surfaced in Germany, Australia, Russia, and other nations, have nothing to do with the topic under discussion.
“I am frankly baffled by the degree of lies and misinformation,” Suerie Moon, co-director of the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre, told AFP, emphasising that the agreement is “really in the embryonic stage.”
According to her, many of the claims are “totally separated from the reality of what is being posited and potentially negotiated.”
‘Facts are being distorted.’
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently lamented that “unfortunately, a small minority of groups have been making misleading statements and intentionally distorting facts.”
He emphasised that “WHO’s agenda is public, open, and transparent.”
According to Ryan, the pandemic agreement is only about establishing “the playbook for how we’re going to start preparing together” for future pandemic threats.
“This isn’t about sovereignty. That is about accountability.”
