The NY Times on the treaty failure, with my comments

Repeating the vaccine equity mantra of course

It’s Sunday night and the media are hardly whispering about the failed IHR amendment negotiations.. suggesting the media have been instructed to keep quiet, while the WHO apparatchiks struggle to see if they can find even a single iron left in the fire with which to claim a victory, of sorts.

The NY Times’ Apoorva Mandavilli’s writing ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. She had a long piece published on Friday eve about the treaty negotiation failure, which tends more to the ridiculous, from which I will excerpt.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/health/pandemic-treaty-vaccines.html

This is all she could squeak about about the IHR negotiations after they ended:

The countries are also working on bolstering the W.H.O.’s International Health Regulations, which were last revised in 2005 and set detailed rules for countries to follow in the event of an outbreak that may breach borders.

Here she repeats the equity lie:

The deliberations, which were scheduled to be a central item at the weeklong meeting of the World Health Assembly beginning Monday in Geneva, aimed to correct the inequities in access to vaccines and treatments between wealthier nations and poorer ones that became glaringly apparent during the Covid pandemic.

Although much of the urgency around Covid has faded since the treaty negotiations began two years ago, public health experts are still acutely aware of the pandemic potential of emerging pathogens, familiar threats like bird flu and mpox, and once-vanquished diseases like smallpox.

Gotta throw in bird flu and monkeypox! Smallpox is still vanquished, Apoorva.

“Those of us in public health recognize that another pandemic really could be around the corner,” said Loyce Pace, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, who oversees the negotiations in her role as the United States liaison to the World Health Organization.

Loyce “those of us in public health” has a masters degree in public heath but she deserves a doctorate in bullshit and is the US’ chief IHR negotiator—although she knows nothing about pandemics. Best to let those ignorant about disease negotiate these two treaties, since if they actually understood what they were negotiating they might jump off a bridge.

Contrary to rhetoric from some politicians in the United States and Britain, it would not enable the W.H.O. to dictate national policies on masking, or use armed troops to enforce lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

Apoorva! Where did you hear about armed troops enforcing lockdowns? Your straw man arguments make you look bad. There is NOTHING in these documents that specifies any means of enforcement, for that is to be decided after everyone signs on.

“Donald Trump is in the room,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the W.H.O. Center on Global Health Law, who has helped to draft and negotiate the treaty.

“If Trump is elected, he will likely torpedo the negotiations and even withdraw from W.H.O.,” Mr. Gostin said.

NY Times reader: you are meant to respond with fear and loathing. The Trumpocalypse has been invoked.

Lawrence O. Gostin, professor of public (now global) health law at Georgetown U, wrote the 2001 Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (paid for by CDC) which gave the dictatorial powers to governors during declared health emergencies. He has been involved with plenty of mischief in the 25 years since he began the project to wrest our liberties from us under the guise of emergency response. Good to identify him as one of the main forces behind this WHO project. He may be the initiator.

In the United States, Republican senators have demanded that the Biden administration reject the treaty because it would “potentially weaken U.S. sovereignty.”

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, W.H.O.’s director general, has roundly criticized what he called the “the litany of lies and conspiracy theories,” noting that the organization does not have the authority to dictate national public health policies, nor does it seek such power.

Now he is calling 49 US Senators liars and conspiracy theorists. Tedros, you need a new speechwriter; you can call me that but you can’t get away with calling half the US Senate liars.

The secrecy surrounding the negotiations has made it difficult to counter misinformation, said James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, one of the few nonprofits with a window into the negotiations.

Let’s give the last word to the scheming Professor Gostin:

“In my view, this is the most important moment in global health since W.H.O. was founded in 1948,” Mr. Gostin said. “It would just be an unforgivable tragedy if we let this slip away after all the suffering of Covid.”

Sounds like he writes Tedros’ talking points between negotiations.

Addendum May 27: Gostin tries hard to resurrect the treaty. How much does WHO pay him? CDC gave him a million bucks for his model state Act 25 years ago. Does the world need it or does Gostin?