President Joe Biden’s diplomats are negotiating a treaty with the World Health Organization to promote “global health equity.” The premise is that in a pandemic or other worldwide disease emergency, Americans should not get better or faster health care than inhabitants of third world countries.
If Biden rams this through, Americans will suffer and die needlessly.
The treaty is so outrageous that it would never get approved by two-thirds of the Senate, as the US Constitution requires.
But the administration is indicating it may try an end run around that requirement, deeming it an international agreement instead.
Per King Biden.
Under the draft treaty, presented Monday in Geneva, the United States will be obligated to hand over a whopping 20% of its medical supplies, including diagnostic tests, antiviral medications and vaccines, to WHO for global distribution.
Article 10 of the treaty specifies this will be done “in real time,” not after American needs are met.
The United States will no longer be able to rush treatments and vaccines to its own citizens, prioritizing them before sending aid to other countries.
Grandma will have to wait longer for her Paxlovid or other treatments because those items, now being stockpiled and paid for by American taxpayers, will be shipped to Nigeria, Uruguay, Afghanistan and other underdeveloped nations.
WHO will call the shots on which countries get what supplies.
Treaty supporters skewer the United States for using up most of the Paxlovid on Americans during the recent pandemic and monopolizing early access to vaccines.
They think Americans should make their own families’ health secondary to achieving global equity.
Harvard public-health expert Jesse Bump says the treaty is designed to correct “the shameful and selfish actions of rich countries in the COVID pandemic.”
Worse, the treaty suspends patent protection for new vaccines and treatments whenever WHO declares a pandemic.
Drug companies will put the brakes on investing billions developing future antivirals and vaccines under such a threat.
The treaty deplores “intellectual property” as a barrier to “scientific progress for all.” Just the opposite is true.
Where would the world have been in 2021 if Moderna and Pfizer hadn’t rushed to develop vaccines to reap profits?
Article 19 would require America and other wealthy countries to pay a fixed percentage of gross domestic product yearly into a WHO pandemic-preparedness fund.
WHO already collects sizable sums of money from the United States but unfortunately takes its orders from China.
WHO’s subservience to Beijing makes the treaty especially perilous.
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus kowtowed to China in January 2020 to cover up the initial coronavirus outbreak.
Then he bowed to China’s refusal to cooperate with investigations of the pandemic’s source.
He also barred Taiwan from observing COVID meetings on China’s orders.
Despite this, former White House top medical adviser Anthony Fauci calls the pro-China Ghebreyesus his friend.
Fauci’s fingerprints are all over this treaty.
More worrisome is Biden’s acquiescence.
When Ghebreyesus’ term as director-general expired, Biden supported his re-election instead of proposing a candidate who isn’t in China’s pocket. To hell with American interests.
The proposed WHO treaty poses a new danger.
It is a toxic brew of confiscatory demands for “global health equity” combined with behind-the-scenes dictates from China.
The treaty’s defenders claim nothing would allow WHO to meddle in how the United States responds domestically to a pandemic.
But the actual wording of Article 4 proves otherwise.
It states each country will manage its own domestic health policies provided these policies “do not cause damage to their peoples and other countries.”
You can drive a truck through that exception.
The draft treaty says it will go into effect “provisionally” before each country’s legislature considers it.
To block that end run around the US Constitution, 15 Republican senators introduced a bill Feb. 15 stating the treaty is not binding unless the US Senate ratifies it.
Biden, Fauci and other government big shots pushing this treaty don’t have to worry that their family members will be denied ventilators and medications when a pandemic strikes.
They always go to the front of the line.
But ordinary Americans need to speak up forcefully and reject the notion they should settle for a lower standard of care to promote global health equity.
America is a generous nation, but American resources need to be reserved to meet America’s needs first.
Biden’s America Last policies be damned.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.
Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey
