WHO pandemic treaty should be called the Gates Treaty

Public hearings discuss expansion to include climate change.

The audacity of the World Health Organisation never ceases to amaze me. By their own admission they haven’t had a great pandemic season. Seasons plural might be the more accurate statement of fact actually. The WHO response to their own ineptitude seems to be a flipping of that old break up line.

“ It’s really not me darlings …..the problem is all of you”

In the midst of global conflict and an inflation cycle that is just itching to go hyper, the WHO are currently drafting a set of proposals or “substantive elements”. These elements will then be submitted for inclusion into a legally binding treaty with any nation states daft enough to sign up to it.

The Inter-Governmental Negotiating Body is the group tasked by the WHO to tease out the substantive elements to be legally drafted into a proposed WHO pandemic preparedness and response treaty. Last week, the INB held their first public discussions on the topic. These were available to view online and I was one of about 500 people that tuned in. The reason I know that is one of the organizers relayed the live viewing numbers to the delegates and seemed to be delighted that so many were tuned in. Considering that the proposals under consideration might well effect 7.9 billion people I thought maybe one or two more ought to check out these deliberations as a matter of urgency.

Over 2 days the group held about 8 hours of public discussions. But it was the remarks by Dr. Alexandra Phelan from the Georgetown Centre for Global Health Science and Security that sharpened my focus and grabbed my attention. Rather than leave myself open to the accusation of mis-interpreting what she had to say - allow me instead to transcribe her words here, regarding the “substantive elements” that Georgetown University and its band of merry academics believe need addressing in any proposed WHO pandemic and preparedness treaty.

“ While it may be tempting to focus the treaty as narrowly as possible this would be a mistake. The pandemic treaty is an opportunity to actively breakdown the silos that left us so vulnerable to the risks and impacts of pandemics……

….We have identified 12 elements for a cohesive and evidence-based treaty for the pandemic era. Two of which I will flag today “

Now, let’s break in here for a laser-focused second. I think it is safe to assume from the above introductory extract that whatever two elements Phelan is about to focus her attention on during her time slot might fairly be described as priority items for Georgetown. Or else why flag them for special mention. Trust me you’re gonna love what follows.

“ The first is a planetary approach to health negotiations. In the next decade climate change will overtake land-use as the biggest driver of pandemics and is predicted to create hundreds of thousands of opportunities for viral cross species transmission. The treaty text must recognise the role climate change will play in outbreak emergence “

Wow. The first sentence seems to be a call for expending the remit of the treaty to incorporate all health negotiations. Dr Phelan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University. Your guess, is as good as mine, as to how a microbiologist can speak so authoritatively on climate change impacts over the next decade. And how they may or may not impact future pandemic outbreaks. The arrogance is breath-taking. Dr Phelan was the second Georgetown University delegate to speak in the afternoon session of Day 1. The influence of US institutions on this little get together is also pretty obvious. It seems clear what “ elements” the US academic sector want to focus on during the negotiating of this treaty. Namely, expansion of the elements.

Expansion to include global agreement on all health negotiations with a specific micro attention to climate change. Does our Health Minister know what is going on here?

By the way you can view all four sessions of these public discussions by clicking the link below.

INB Public hearings

Now, who do you suppose funds the Georgetown Centre for Global Health Science and Security? - Well now, sit back and allow me to introduce you to a few of their sponsors.

Bet you pretty much guessed that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation would be lurking in there somewhere right. However, the Open Philanthropy organization is a new kid on the world health block for me so I did a little digging there too.

Open Philanthropy is a research and grantmaking foundation that aims to share its findings openly. Its current co-chief executive officers are Holden Karnofsky and Alexander Berger, and its main funders are Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz.

Dustin Moskovitz made an $11 billion fortune through apparently co-founding Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, and then later Asana. He and his wife Cari Tuna were inspired by Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save, and became the youngest couple to sign Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, where they've promised to give away most of their money. ( info courtesy of Wikipedia)

It’s amazing how quickly Bill Gates manages to propagate his influence around the emerging billionaire class. You will see also from the above image that the National Institute for Health are funders of this particular Georgetown institute. Dr Anthony Fauci is the NIH Director of NIAID. The NIAID budget for fiscal year 2022 is approximately $6.3 billion. Again, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation have long worked with the NIH and NIAID. This relationship extends back almost 20 years to at least 2003 when Gates foundation announced an initial $200 million dollar investment in a public-private partnership with the NIH.

Extract from Gates Foundation 2003 Press Release.

Gates announced the initiative today at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where he participated in a panel discussion on "Science for the Global Good."

The new initiative will be administered by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). The NIH also has agreed to provide scientific advice, expertise, and support. 

"This groundbreaking public-private partnership between the National Institutes of Health, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is an ideal complement to the NIH's efforts to improve global health," said Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health. "With our respective partners, we will strive to create an unprecedented synergy, focused on engaging the best scientific minds of our time, maximizing the impact of our respective resources, and thus spurring creativity and innovation in this field for the ultimate benefit of all humankind."

I bring all this up today to illustrate a point. Already, in the first public sessions of the WHO pandemic treaty discussions, the influence and agendas of non-citizen and non government actors are to the fore. Most of you will not have the time to listen to the hours of discussions that took place over April 12th and 13th last but it is well worth the effort to invest a little of your time in doing so. Irish interests are certainly not in anyway to the fore of what I have heard in these discussions and it seems our Health minister isn’t too bothered by what they are talking about putting in the treaty text. It will be a case of “ Where do we sign?”

Bill Gates obviously thinks all of this is worth his time and money. And as a final bookmark on this piece let us not forget:

The Gates Foundation, along with all of its other influences, some of which I outlined above, is also the second-largest contributor to the WHO. As of September 2021, it had invested nearly $780 million in its programs last year. Germany, the biggest contributor, had contributed more than $1.2 billion, while the US donated $730 million. Gates funds the WHO more than the entire US Government.

Think about that.

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