Flawed, but better than not having a WHO. IMO China’s influence is more because they did a great job at committing hard to diplomacy and working relationships at WHO at the exact same time the US pulled away. It turns out diplomacy and leadership matter.

In my limited experience, the WHO, like many NGOs/multi-lateral bodies, is full of intelligent, motivated people dedicated to their mission. Those people aren’t motivated by money, but are motivated by prestige and recognition. China pulled those levers well for the last several years, the US didn’t, but i don’t know of a fundamental reason why the US can’t return to its traditional place of influence if it tries.

Should the US (or China) sign a multi lateral treaty requiring it to deliver vaccines and other health resources to more vulnerable citizens of other countries ahead of some or all of its own citizens? I don’t know. Is the WHO worth having around, even in a flawed or even semi-hostile state? Yes.

>> An honest question, how do you feel about the WHO? I personally have severe distrust in them, at least the leadership. They have show they are heavily influenced by China, and that should be enough to remove them. They really botched early covid.

> Flawed, but better than not having a WHO. IMO China’s influence is more because they did a great job at committing hard to diplomacy and working relationships at WHO at the exact same time the US pulled away. It turns out diplomacy and leadership matter.

Yeah, exactly. It's weird, but for things like this it seems the complainers often actually cause the things they complain about (e.g. create a void, then complain when a competitor fills that void). It's understandable because this stuff is often hard to perceive at a general-interest level, but that doesn't excuse it.

> IMO China’s influence is more because they did a great job at committing hard to diplomacy and working relationships at WHO at the exact same time the US pulled away. It turns out diplomacy and leadership matter.

This seems completely revisionist to me. You really think China’s influence was justified in January and February 2020? This is before Trump first criticized the WHO (early April 2020). The US was funding 15% of the WHO’s overall budget, more than twice as much as the next nearest country (the UK), and more than 70x what China funded. What exact levers did China pull “for the last several years” that the US didn’t? It seems to me like the US did far more to support the WHO than anyone else.

The WHO did measurable damage throughout the pandemic, but particularly in the beginning. They played down covid, were against travel bans, was anti-mask, and have hindered investigation into the origins of covid.

They also did good, like getting PCR testing available worldwide on a compressed timescale. But let’s not pretend that the good didn’t come with a healthy helping of truly terrible decisions along the way. Enough to make some healthy skepticism seem prudent.

I agree we should be skeptical of the WHO, but they are valuable as a coordination mechanism. I don’t see a scenario where we can restart a truly global health agency from scratch, and I don’t think a series of bilateral or multi-lateral arrangements will work as well.

But counterpoint: TFA is about the WHO asking for more authority, the power through treaties to control what governments do or don’t do. However the countries which handled COVID correctly (Taiwan, New Zealand) did so by outright ignoring WHO and telling them to shove it.

There is no evidence that anything has changed. Moon et al. figure enough time has passed that they may resume the grift. Let's look at some of the top line items:

> They also point to conflicts over the lack of transparency and information sharing, particularly by China.

Right. The problem is not the actual lack of transparency but rather "conflicts over the lack of transparency." And no, I do not allow that NPR writers are somehow oblivious to the distinction; they mean exactly what is written.

> Some countries were accused of hoarding of medical supplies.

WHO shall decide how little medical supply the US is allowed to buy or keep.

> Then when vaccines were finally developed, poorer nations have complained that they weren't shared equitably.

WHO shall decide how long the US is made to wait for vaccine.

> A final concern, the experts say: The global response to the crisis is led by an underfunded World Health Organization that has no power to force any nation to do anything.

Give WHO more money. Give WHO more power. No assurances that performance will be any less abysmal are to be expected.

Should make a nice photo op when Biden signs it.

> WHO shall decide how long the US is made to wait for vaccine.

It seems to be that the intellectual property is more pertinent than the total export volume to "poorer nations."

A plain reading of the report doesn't convey this. IP law is not mentioned.

I'm always surprised that people ever trusted them to be honest. When have deeply political organizations been a benefit to the medical community?

On a whole, the world is better off with the FDA's and their equivalent per nation. They approve and oversee the distribution of health and food products and set out minimum guidelines that influence how said products are marketed, recalled or banned; which on balance is a positive for society in the absence of a better regulatory body.

By definition, these groups are political though. Almost none of them conduct their own studies, relying almost entirely on what the manufacturers provide them. And all of them have limited practical ability and experience to actually enforce their guidelines. What are they are exceptionally good at though is reviewing submitted trials and monitoring for adverse effects. Some people get hurt when dangerous products are given pre-approval / full-approval, but this is mitigated by quick recalls / banning.

So to your question, political bodies likes the FDA's are a benefit to the greater populace and by extension the medical community. Keeping the obvious scams and harmful products out of general reach from the population is a pretty clear positive.

Anyone who lived through the AIDS epidemic can tell you that having a regulatory body is not automatically better than none at all. FDA bureaucracy and inaction has killed more Americans than WW2. Dissolving the FDA, or at least the gatekeeping branches of it, is a third option that ought to be seriously considered.

I think the more straight forward upgrade to the status-quo would be funding it to a level where it actually does not have to rely on data that the manufacturers / creators supply.

Actually sample testing new and existing products against guidelines as well as being an active participant in trials would go a long way towards moving the FDA from being "paper-pushers" towards a more hands-on regulatory body.

They should also have enough expertise in-house to not rely on lobbists and industry experts for new regulations, when these outside forces by nature have competing interests.

Straight abolishing any part of it without proposing a substitute doesn't strike me as being in the best interests of society.

> Dissolving the FDA, or at least the gatekeeping branches of it, is a third option that ought to be seriously considered.

Yes, so that the supplements industry can run amok on an unsuspecting public. No really, that's just what we need, especially now.

Supplements are already not regulated by the FDA, at least not in the same way as food and pharmaceutical drugs. Basically, manufacturers are responsible for meeting a weak set of regulations for supplements (https://www.fda.gov/food/dietary-supplements) and the FDA only gets involved if they sell adulterated products. Nearly all supplements sold in the US have mandatory disclaimer statements (https://www.fda.gov/food/dietary-supplements-guidance-docume...) to make clear that the FDA has not evaluated their function.

I called out the gatekeeping job of the FDA specifically. The agency does two things: (1) blacklist food products with deceptive or harmful ingredients or advertising, and (2) whitelist the medications you’re allowed to put in your body, with or without the assistance of a doctor.

It’s (2) that is the problem. With informed consent, you should be allowed to put whatever you want in your body without going to jail. It’s your body.

(2) is not a problem, it is to prevent problems. If you think (2) is a problem you are probably doing something very stupid.

History says otherwise: https://www.cato.org/blog/challenging-moral-authority-fda-le...

Quoting libertarian think tanks in order to further libertarian bollocks viewpoints isn't going to move the needle.

It really is disheartening to see such willful political bias. The article in question spends much of its time talking about the "ACT UP" movement, which was a movement headed by LGBQT political activists marching against the FDA, yet here you are brushing it off as if this is some partisan issue because it's an article written by someone with different political bias than yourself.

I don't think anyone was trying to do anything other than "score points off the FDA" - which is to say, you apparently agree the article is a good source for showing the FDA has had obvious failures in the past.

> ...you should have a look to see who you're arguing with.

Am I supposed to recognize you somehow? Either way, I don't really know how to react to this - is your blog or the companies you're affiliated with supposed to make you immune to political bias somehow? You'll have to forgive me as my initial impression was that you're trying to flex on the internet, but I feel like that's a very uncharitable interpretation on my part so I'll default to assuming that's the wrong interpretation.

Whatever you may think of yourself, you have demonstrated severe political bias in this thread by outright dismissing articles without reading them based on the perceived politics of the hosting organization.

FWIW I didn’t know or care the source of the article I shared. I just literally picked the first result in google that covered the history of ACT UP and the FDA, after skimming to make sure it seemed accurate.

> I just literally picked the first result in google that covered the history of ACT UP and the FDA, after skimming to make sure it seemed accurate.

Ah, the good old 'argument by google search'. Yes, what could possibly go wrong with that. You are now arguing in bad faith, I hope you appreciate at least that much.

How am I arguing in bad faith?

I’m deeply familiar with the actions of the FDA during the AIDS crisis, having studied it in college, read books, watched documentaries, etc. But I can’t convey that info through a HN comment, so I sought out an internet article which I first skimmed to make sure it got the facts straight before linking to. Did I violate some convention of discourse on HN in doing so?

You're not arguing in bad faith. You're being gaslit by someone who has already devolved to name calling in this thread.

Cherry picking cases to prove that an entire institution should somehow be disbanded in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary is arguing in bad faith. That you disagree because you and the other commenter here agree on the basic premise that you both believe FDA is bad and should be disbanded doesn't change that.

Then google “fda aids drugs” and pick your favorite source. This is, at this point 30 years removed, a non-political historical issue with objective facts.

No, there is simply many years of progressive insight. The FDA, like any institution isn't perfect, they got stuff wrong in the past, they'll get stuff wrong in the future. But overall they are a very large net positive, and to argue the opposite is usually accompanied by a mindset that would love a world without all those pesky rules and regulations.

Very good point. It appears to many observers that it has been subverted by the Beijing regime, so any new initiatives are naturally going to be treated with suspicion by much of the free world.

What WHO needs to do is revisit their mistakes and acknowledge meddling with Chinese leadership, win public trust. It's not the same 80's World Health Organization that made profound impact in the health of many nations. Some of that work continues to happen, but as you said the leadership needs to come out clean or they're going to have a problem with people trusting the entire organization.

One potential outcome of the treaty would be a reformation or replacement of WHO. I don’t know if there is political will to do that, or if it’s even a good idea. But something needs to be done, because when times got tough every country chose to “defect” instead of “cooperate”, even with their closest allies.

The WHO has no credibility anymore. They parroted the CCPs words.

The first 6 months the WHO basically lied to everyone.

https://twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152?s=21

We knew it was transmissible in December of 2019.

i can't answer it because it made me ask more questions:

- what is their mission?

- how are they funded?

- how are they staffed?

- what is their scope?

- what happens if you don't comply?

- how do they measure success?

- what meaningful actions have they taken during the pandemic and in the past that has made the world a better place than if they didn't exist at all?

In general I understand the case for the "one world health" approach, but my anti-authoritarian instinct is wary of building global governing institutions that bypass democratic representation.

I also want to point out to the people that complain about the Chinese influence .. it's disingenuous to ignore that the WHO was conceived as an extension of USA global influence, and has operated that way for decades. No one sounds that alarm as long as its "their guy" in charge.

I can at least provide theoretical clarity on "what happens if you don't comply" for less powerful nations: The WHO has been working with the IMF throughout the pandemic, distributing loans to countries that follow the WHO's Covid policies. So, any nation state in economic trouble must implement the policies to receive loans/funding.

This was famously made public by the Belarusian president in September:

> In this news, Lukashenko did not state that the IMF offered him a bribe. He only explained that, as a condition of providing Covid-19 emergency funds, the IMF demanded the implementation of quarantine, isolation, and curfews.

That quote is from a fact check trying to debunk conspiracy theories about the IMF: https://cekfakta.tempo.co/fakta/1008/fakta-atau-hoaks-benark...

Wow, we reached the point where Lukashenkos word is used as an argument. I never imagined this on HN.

I believe it is entirely reasonable to condition pandemic funds on taking actions against the pandemic.

Also I believe there are many reasons to deny foreign funds to the Belarus of today.

The IMF didn't deny this happened. It's pretty clear that he was saying the truth about this, unless you think all bad people behave like Bond villains. Also, you'd have to assume that no other nation state has spoken about this.

You think it's okay for NGOs to create a catastrophic economic situation causing many nation's markets to become dependent on relief funding, then having said NGOs put agenda focused conditions on the relief they provide? You don't see this as a common strategy of extortion?

I feel like you'd rationalize business "security" provided by the mafia as something good if saying otherwise conflicted with your worldview in some way. Next you'll buy into a Ponzi scheme and start extolling the virtues of pyramidal finance structures.

Why do I even bother replying? I don't know.

Thank you for the mind reading, the fortune telling, the portrait you have drawn. Your clairvoyance knows no limmits. Should I expect a biography next?

WHO started recommending masks for everyone in June. Fucking June 2020.

They are incompetent.

I share that distrust for a few reasons:

1. They blindly repeated the CCP’s claims that SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t seem to exhibit human to human transmission, as late as mid-January 2020. Remember, there were widespread reports of a pneuomonia-like illness in Wuhan in December. We later learned that scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized as early as November. China’s own formal notice to WHO of the outbreak was done at the end of December. Around a week after the WHO provided broken guidance, China publicly announced that there is human to human transmission, and it still took the WHO a week past that to correct their guidance. I just don’t see how the WHO could possibly provide such broken guidance so late and for so long.

2. They allowed the CCP to escape accountability for over a year with their site visit in early 2021. I know they can’t force their way in and rely on UN member states for “power” but I feel like they were willing to happily ignore the possibility of a lab leak instead of pushing hard for a timely investigation on site (applying pressure publicly and seeking help from other nations). After their brief site visit in 2021, Tedros (head of WHO) seemed very ready to rule out a lab leak, and only a small set of brave scientists and investigative journalists have allowed this theory to return to legitimacy and receive the attention it deserves despite being shouted down by the “trust the science” crowd.

3. The WHO has not used their authority/weight as an institution in helpful ways. For example, they have pushed back against travel bans and other such measures that would at least buy countries time. At the end of January 2020, Tedros literally said there was no need for measures that “unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade”. More recently, the WHO has repeatedly claimed that countries seeking to protect their own people first are “hoarding” vaccines, which is absurd.

4. The WHO seems to be very deeply political. Whether it is about sparing the CCP from scrutiny or following “woke” protocol on how to name viruses and variants, they simply don’t feel like a neutral organization. The phrase “trust the science” is so overused that it is essentially meaningless, but the WHO is one of those very organizations that make me think that what we have come to call “science” is very prone to political corruption. They also seem to regularly put China’s interests ahead of the US, despite the US providing 15% of the WHO’s funding (China funds 0.21%).

5. There are other issues with WHO from before COVID. They were simply not as apparent since they didn’t affect Americans. Look at the 2014 Ebola outbreak and how the WHO handled it - by their own admission, they were completely incompetent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_African_Ebola_virus_ep...).

In the beginning of any outbreak of a new disease there is a scarcity of information and mistakes are always going to be made. You can already write part of the story here for the next pandemic in case you are so inclined.

That's pretty easy to criticize from the sidelines. At the same time: if the pandemic had been much milder you would be here ranting about how the WHO got it all wrong again and they cried wolf for no particular reason if only to grab more power, make money for big pharma with unused vaccines and managed to scare us all for nothing.

They can't do it right, it's always going to be too much or too little, and it's always the same groups complaining about this.

>They really botched early covid.

Except they didn't. Enough countries managed to largely contain covid pre-delta based on WHO information that was provide by PRC. Information that was timely relative to how slow many countres implemented basic epidemiologic containment strategies after the fact. Some despite having capability to implement such strategies, and many who unfortunately never had the capability but simply never had a chance considering covid spread before PRC detection. WHO didn't do perfectly, but they did enough considering circumstances. As for influence, PRC influence is commiserate relative to geopolitical power - there isn't a feasible global governance structure where PRC interests won't be accounted for. Otherwise PRC wouldn't have been incentivized to handle covid relatively responsibly compared to SARS.

A lot of asia did well in the beginning by ignoring the WHO. Even NZ ignored the WHO and managed to keep it under control for a long time.

If the CCP spent more time being open and honest and less time arresting people for talking about covid and documenting it this would probably have ended up better than they are now.

Even now the CCP propaganda is still trying to convince Twitter and Facebook users that covid started with deer in the US.

Countries that did well responsibly implemented WHOs basic epidemiologic principes of test, trace, isolate to contain spread - 101 epidemiological strategy WHO recommended. Including NZ. Import statistic numbers of covid cases oringated from PRC has demosntrated it was managable because PRC never allowed it to get bad in the first place via draconian lock downs. CCP quarantined entire province of Wuhan, they did more than enough to buy time for any country with capability to execute competent containment. Which BTW was also early CCP propaganda... literally telling countries to take covid19 seriously by locking down but was instead met with lockdown skepticism. CCP, like WHO, did enough.

>Even now the CCP propaganda is still trying to convince Twitter and Facebook users that covid started with deer in the US.

And? Of course CCP is going to tit-for-tat origin propaganda started by US. This treaty will no doubt attempt tackle the politicization of pandemics in the future, but likely to no avail.

> Countries that did well responsibly implemented WHOs basic epidemiologic principes of test, trace, isolate to contain spread - 101 epidemiological strategy WHO recommended. Including NZ.

NZ and Taiwan didn't follow WHO in the early days. Going against all the recommendations of the WHO of not using masks, not closing boarders, not locking down. And both countries did super well at controlling the pandemic.

> CCP quarantined entire province of Wuhan, they did more than enough to buy time for any country with capability to execute competent containment.

The CCP welded people into their apartments, boxed them up in metal boxes and shipped them off to quarentine, dragged them out of their homes. The whole time lying about the number of cases, and the seriousness. They shut down domestic travel and stopped incoming international flights. But allowed outgoing international flights while calling anyone who stopped flights from China racist.

> And? Of course CCP is going to tit-for-tat origin propaganda started by US.

There was no propaganda started by the US. The lab theory started in Asia in the Janurary. It wasn't until the US/Trump mentioned it that it got shutdown as a conspiracy by Trump.

>NZ and Taiwan didn't follow WHO in the early days

They followed the basic test/trace/isolate advocated by WHO seriously, mask was additional prevention layer from basic common sense that Asians including PRC already were doing. BTW PRC was also advocating mask wearing in their "propaganda". TW itself got a chance to act early due to warning by PRC doctors due to cross strait connections. Same info avail to west via backchannels. Again, import case statistics from TW/NZ demonstrated PRC exported less than a few hundred cases to these places TOTAL, which would have been completely managable with a competent isolation system. The entire time they had continous repatriation flights from PRC, as did many other countries that handled covid well directly as result of CCP handling covid well.

> The whole time lying about the number of cases, and the seriousness.

Yet you list actions of how CCP took covid MORE seriously then and now than basically anyone else. Again import case statistics from "transparent" nations demonstrated early covid numbers in Wuhan/Hubei were completely managable -TW,SK,Singapore,AU,NZ,CA all released import case stats daily, and PRC essentially stopped exporting cases a few cases after Hubei lockdown. There's a reason vast number of patient zero and import cases in most of the world came from western countries who didn't take epidemic prevention seriously. PRC did her part, include blocking outbound flight early, except repatriation flights, because you know, they can't keep foreign citizens trapped in country. And the countries that didn't take screening fucked themselves, i.e. countries that just took quarantine theatre temperature checks while letting folks go home with little followup. Their profound lack of seriousness turned a managable situation unmanagable.

> There was no propaganda started by the US.

Politicized by Tom Cotton and republican peers in early Feburary i.e. endorsed by US political establishment before PRC formally responded with Fort Detrick campaign. Doesn't matter how MSM treat it as conspiracy, it was formal propaganda position drive initiated by republicans, supported at the highest level of office, including campaigns by lying Pompeo.

> They followed the basic test/trace/isolate advocated by WHO seriously

No. TW started inspecting flights from Wuhan before the WHO even did anything. NZ blocked inbound flights while the WHO was figuring out what to do.

> TW itself got a chance to act early due to warning by PRC doctors due to cross strait connections.

No. Taiwan heard whispers of SARS/Unknown pneumonia and reacted accordingly.

> Again, import case statistics from TW/NZ demonstrated PRC exported less than a few hundred cases to these places TOTAL

No. NZ closed its border to China in Feb. TW closed its border for flights from Wuhan. China stopped domestic flights from Wuhan but continued to allow flights out of Wuhan. This has nothing to do with "they can't keep foreign citizens trapped in country", because 1) they can and 2) they do.

> Yet you list actions of how CCP took covid MORE seriously then and now than basically anyone else.

So you agree that welding people into their apartments is a good approach to controlling the virus?

> Politicized by Tom Cotton and republican peers in early Feburary

It was a valid theory, and still is. Was never a conspiracy theory to anyone but the left. While nothing from the PRC has been anything other than propaganda conspiracy theory. The lab leak theory should have been taken seriously in the beginning when it was theorized at the beginning of Jan.

NZ blocked flights to China in early Feb after Wuhan was already locked down. TW was informed about unknown pneumonia directly from PRC doctors around time when WHO was notified in Dec 2019. Both responded to completely salient signals provided by PRC.

>1) they can and 2) they do

For breaking PRC laws, not epidemic prevention. At end of day, countries wanted to repatriate and PRC obliged. It's asinine to suggest PRC can with hold foreign nationals, as if that won't spark a completely different kind of outrage. Obviously said criminals who broke PRC laws weren't repatriated. TW citizens from Wuhan was repatriated via rail to Shanghai. TW CDC had up to date release of repatriation flights and positives. Up till Aprial, TW repatraitaed about ~1000 out of Wuhan with 1 testing positive on an early Feburary flight. That's it. Because Hubei lock down was that effective.

> good approach to controlling the virus

Covid-0 strategy is probably the right one for PRC. More importantly it demonstrates containing covid was absolutely a viable. But other relatively milder intervention stratgies also possible as seen in other successful countries that adhered to basic WHO guidelines who didn't resort to PRC tier interventions. They were just slightly less successful. Even TW response barely ranks well when measured against other PRC provinces. Taking pandemic response seriously is correlated to serious results should not be shocking.

> was a valid theory

About as valid as Fort Detrick at the time (and now). Point is early lab leak propaganda was just that, propaganda designed to policized for Sino-US rivalry when origin tracing hasn't even begun and hampered subsequent efforts. PRC position has always been to let science handle origin tracing which in terms of propaganda is tame. Reality apart from delays around two-sessions in Jan PRC has provided more than enough info and signals for most serious actors to contain covid19 depite virus already spreading abroad prior to two-sessions or detection of market cluster. Or that there's still zero indication covid19 originated in PRC vs PRC discovering first cluster. Lot's of valid theories out there, but what gets pushed by whom and when and for what purpose is how things get politicized and what treaty is designed to mitigate.

At the end of the day CCP + WHO did fine, because those that took them seriously (like actually seriously) did Ok. Those that didn't, burned and have been looking for escape goats to their own failure.

Flamewar comments and personal attacks will get you banned here. We've had to warn you about this many times before. Please review the site guidelines and stick to the rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

There wouldn’t be flame wars if you stopped letting people spread propaganda and lies. You rate limit me but allow the others who are spreading misinformation to run wild.

By "propaganda and lies", people mostly mean "things said by the other side". The other side, of course, thinks you're the one spreading propaganda and lies. So unfortunately, what all arguments boil down to is "you should moderate this site to privilege my side and ban the other side". That's not a viable option if we want some sort of shared public space.

The HN guidelines are our attempt to have a set of rules that make some sort of decent shared space possible. We ban accounts that violate them, for what ought to be obvious reasons, so please stick to the rules from now on.

I don't know what to have to do to convince you to follow HN's rules, but if you keep flouting them we are going to have to ban you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26630148

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26569477

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21757636

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502455

Lol it was posted on social media in China. Which TW monitors. TW never asked China and China never told Taiwan.

Stop spreading false information on HN.