A REPORT calling for reform of the World Health Organization argues that it is too heavily tied to pandemic threat response programmes such as vaccines and diagnostics. Released exclusively on GB News on Monday, it was quickly disparaged by the Telegraph‘s ‘Global Health Security desk’, partly funded by none other than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The report warns that the WHO’s proposed international health reforms risk creating a system that will trigger unnecessary, repetitive lockdowns and prioritise the interests of private funders. Co-author Dr David Bell, a former World WHO scientific officer, warns that this is the trajectory of WHO policies, including its proposed pandemic treaty and surveillance systems, putting countries on a path back to covid-era restrictions such as school closures, business disruptions, and mask mandates.
The WHO’s biggest donor since the US withdrew funding (it formally leaves on Thursday) is Bill Gates. The report, published by the International Health Reform Project, argues that WHO funding is increasingly earmarked by private or public-private donors, such as Gates, and specific government funders. This skews global health priorities towards vaccines and diagnostics, rather than broader and more effective health interventions.
Dr Bell argues that British taxpayers are funding a surveillance-heavy system that will ultimately limit the freedom of their own communities and potentially damage the economy. The report calls for a major overhaul of the WHO to make it better able to serve the needs of countries rather than the interests of powerful, focused stakeholders. Bell sees it as part of an ongoing debate regarding the balance of power between national sovereignty and global health governance in future pandemic planning.
That is not, unsurprisingly, how Maeve Cullinan, a reporter on the Telegraph’s Global Health Security desk, part-funded by Gates, sees it. Her headline? ‘Maga-backed researchers call for WHO to be “reformed or replaced” on eve of US withdrawal’, making sure of its negative labelling from the start. The report’s funders, the Brownstone Institute, she says are ‘Maga-aligned.’ Not MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) aligned which would have been correct. Deliberately misleading or just sloppy journalism? A quick check would have shown her that the Institute is public health, science, economics and social theory focused, offering critical perspectives on institutional failures, government interventions and threats to liberty – and independent. Unlike the Global Health Security desk at the Telegraph
Perhaps Ms Cullinan and the Telegraph should have mentioned the ‘philanthropist’ who funds her work and his multi-billion interest in the vaccine industry? Who decided the headline, I wonder? Who directed Miss Cullinan on to this angle on the story? If that question doesn’t bother Chris Evans, the Daily Telegraph‘s editor, it should.
And anyway, what is the paper doing taking the Gates shilling?
Dr Bell himself was director of technologies for global health at the Global Good Fund, a venture funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But in recent years he has become a prominent critic of the ‘pandemic treaty’ approach, advocating instead for more tailored and locally driven public health strategies.
