UN meeting on Pandemic Preparedness--digging into the meaning

I guess the rapid forward motion of the BioSecurity Agenda is too important to leave entirely in the hands of Geneva

Hat tip to the Geneva health files substack for calling my attention to the UN meeting and its discussions.

Need for Accountability, Equity & Cooperation Dominate UNGA hearings on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response

Below I quote from the article above and add comments.

The meetings took place on May 8th and 9th in New York City. On May 9th, the UN held a half-day, interactive hearing on PPPR strategies and financing. After opening remarks, Precious Matsoso, one of the co-chairs of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) moderated the first panel. The second panel was moderated by Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein of the International Peace Institute.

So, this is bringing some of the important issues of the IHR amendments and the draft pandemic treaty to New York and the UN for discussion—the most important being 1) strategies (the actual meat of what these documents can do for the world to prevent and manage pandemics better than before, which so far is a big nothing) and 2) how to design the financial instruments to pay for the massive biosecurity build-out, and who will be the winners and losers in the world of financial instruments, where huge fees can be made by banks and other entitities who bring the borrowers and lenders together.

Ricardo Bautista Leyte, representing the UNITE Parliamentarians’ Network for Global Health as a Portuguese parliamentarian himself, called for the INB process to include parliamentarians during negotiations as they will ultimately be responsible for ratifying the instrument in their home countries. Bautista said that in a recent meeting of over 300 parliamentarians, none had even heard of the WHO CA+. [The CA+ is the current name of the draft Pandemic Treaty.]

This lack of knowledge about what the WHO is proposing is important: the secrecy around the BioSecurity Agenda and its projects (especially the IHR Amendments and Pandemic Treaty) has been so well maintained that members of Parliaments and Congress know virtually nothing about them, even though these proposed documents could usher in a new world order. They have no idea of the sovereignty issues they raise and the huge powers that would accrue to the WHO Director-General if/when the amendments and treaty are adopted. [ base this on their most recent revisions, but they will go through additional revisions.]

Speakers connected PPPR capacities to broader health systems strengthening. A representative from the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance suggested that the current draft of the WHO CA+ does not adequately refer to primary health care. Investing in universal health care through primary health services supports disease surveillance, treatment, and many other activities that are essential to PPPR (Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response).

Another (deliberate) confusion in the documents is medical care, access to medical care, and medical care coverage. While everyone wants doctors and health workers to be everywhere and accessible to all, that is not what the documents actually provide.

There is no attempt to specify more medical and nursing schools or other increased training of health workers. There is no expansion of the Essential Medicines list or assistance with countries obtaining the medicines recommended for their populations by the WHO. There is no support offered for traditional healers either. There is no designation of clinics to be built.

So what is there? COVERAGE. Countries will be required to require their populations to obtain some type of health insurance. And the term ACCESS is interpreted as access to insurance, not access to doctors, nurses, clinics or medications. Perhaps access also includes access to the web of biosurveillance activities that are being rolled out, and access to vaccine passports, quarantine facilities, etc.

In other words, this is another means of centralizing and perhaps reorienting what kind of health care will be offered. Insurance companies in the US issue ‘formularies’ which tell doctors and patients which drugs they will allow them to use and which drugs will not be covered by the insurance plan. In some cases, patients are even prohibited from buying the non-covered drugs with cash, via insurer-pharmacy agreements that prohibit such purchases. I suspect that WHO’s ‘coverage’ will be, in part or whole, the means of enforcing what drugs and vaccines people are required to use, and which are to be forbidden in the event of a designated public health emergency of international concern, as specified in the IHR’s proposed amendments.

Perhaps the emphasis on coverage, and not healthcare workers and facilities, reflects a plan for the near future to offer computerized, artificial intelligence diagnoses and treatments. Over decades, this has never worked, because people express their symptoms and needs so differently from each other. You needed a medical intermediary to read their body language, know the patient and take a history—and even then we don’t necessarily get it right. But we doctors do get it right more than the computer programs have been able to do.

Thus one’s ‘coverage’ could cover access to a computer system and meds delivered by mail or drone, without requiring expensive items like clinics and doctors. ‘Coverage’ is also a way of preventing access to alternative types of healthcare, which is likely of utmost important to Pharma, BMGF, GAVI, CEPI, NIH, CDC, FDA, EMA etc.

Stakeholders representing human resources for health expressed their concerns about needing better support for the health workforce. They called for Member States to make financial investments to address the current workforce shortages.

It is extremely curious that the workforce is never addressed in any of the documents proposed.

Following recommendations from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), countries are considering the creation of a Global Health Threats Council as an independent body that can monitor and coordinate between the UN, WHO, financial institutions, and other high-level stakeholders.

Are the global elites who are rolling out this program fearful that leaving things in the hands of the WHO and its Secretariat may not manage to secure them all they want?

The word ‘Accountability’ had different meanings for different speakers. Some thought it meant being accountable for (bad) decisions made during the pandemic. Others thought it meant holding governments responsible to carry out the directives of the WHO. This hugely important distinction will need to be watched as the documents’ final forms are revealed.

The Pooh-Bahs continued to express the false notion that vaccines withheld from poor countries due to inadequate payment schemes caused their people to die unnecessarily. These claims have to be expunged from pandemic discussions.

According to Carlos María Correa, Executive Director of the South Centre, an intergovernmental organization representing 55 developing countries…

Developing countries lost lives that could have been saved. Developing countries lost years in terms of the gains they have made to reduce poverty and in terms of achieving the SDGs.

The primary manifestation of inequality was the inequitable distribution of vaccines…

Certainly, we need to have a benefit sharing system, that is, for the sharing of benefits from genetic information and the sharing of information on pathogens, and that needs to be in line with international biodiversity systems and benefit sharing. We also need to ensure equity when it comes to financial capacities to ensure all countries can afford technological capacities. These capacities today are unequal as a result of unequal financial distribution, and the focus of any future work needs to be about achieving better balance in terms of financial capacities, technical capacities, so that we can address future pandemics.

Carlos Maria sure knows how to use his buzzwords and support the nonsensical goals of the biosecurity agenda. Why do we need to share our personal genetic information? The only reasons I can think of are to target genetic weapons at us, or to identify financially important genes (for example, conferring resistance to COVID) for commercialization by private entities. Neither of these reasons benefits the individual nor public health, at least in the near term.

Tedros was beamed in from Geneva. Part of his message was this:

To enhance systems and tools, we are working on various initiatives across 5 core areas: collaborative surveillance. community protection, safe and scalable clinical care, access to counter measures, and emergency coordination…

To enhance governance, Member States are negotiating amendments to the International Health regulations to make them fit for purpose.

And to enhance international cooperation, Member States are negotiating a new Pandemic Accord, a generational commitment that we will not go back to the old cycle of panic and neglect that left our world vulnerable, but move forward with a shared commitment to meet shared threats with a shared response…

As we recover from the collective trauma of COVID-19, we must work together to build a new future that's equitable, inclusive, and coherent. The year’s high-level meeting is a valuable opportunity for leaders to charge a clear path forward towards the future and a safer world.

Coherent? I wish they would work to make their official documents and speeches coherent. But the point is they are speaking in code.

More from the Geneva substack:

CIVIL SOCIETY DISCONTENT:

Also see: Health Policy Watch - UN Multi-stakeholder Meetings Marred by Complaints About Lack of Consultation