The World Health Organization (WHO) has been downplaying and covering up the dangers of COVID-19. Patients’ lives are lost because the WHO failed to detect, warn, and implement a suitable global response early enough for public health threats. 

The overly politicized body has a history of failing patients. The shortcomings during the Ebola crisis six years ago did unfortunately not lead to an improvement of the WHO’s readiness. Our lives are too precious to be jeopardized by the behavior of apparatchiks cozying up with Communist China.

Already, many international leaders have begun to openly discuss the larger inefficiencies and issues of transparency and accountability that have plagued the World Health Organization in recent years.

But while the failures of the WHO have only recently gotten publicity, this has been a long time coming.

For years, the WHO has wielded its significant power and resources on misguided anti-vaping, obesity efforts while neglecting what should be its core priority: responding to global health crises and outbreaks.

It has been revealed that the WHO spends up to $200 million per year, or $28,500 per staffer, on travel costs alone, more than the budgets of combatting AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. Not to mention they've been known to host extravagant galas and conferences that do not further global public health.

We witnessed this during the Ebola epidemic in western Africa in 2013-14, where the WHO was too slow to respond and inadequate in health policies, and we're seeing it in realtime with COVID-19.

The WHO and its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus have cozied up to the Chinese Communist Party since the beginning of the outbreak and praised their failures. Even as late as January 19th, the WHO parroted the Chinese Communist Party’s narrative that human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus was very unlikely. Furthermore, best practice advice from Taiwan, which has been smart and quick containing COVID19, has been continuously ignored in order to appease the Communist leaders in Beijing. 

Now is the time to send a clear signal that the WHO needs to be transparent and accountable for its failures.

In 2017, Consumer Choice Center led the efforts in calling on the United States and member nations to cut funding to the WHO to realign their priorities toward health emergencies such as the very real pandemic we currently face.

The WHO has failed in its principal mission and it needs to be defunded. These funds should be used to establish a transparent and patient-centric global public health emergency response body.

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世界衛生組織（世衛）一直以來刻意隱瞞武漢肺炎（COVID-19）的潛在風險；各國政府因而未能及時作出防疫措施，代價是數以十萬計的無辜患者的性命，以及更多人的苦難。 世衛不但有負於病人，其實機構的本質就是政治團體。六年前的依波拉病毒危機，可惜並沒有令世衛撥亂反正。難道我們就此甘於將性命攸關的重大決議， 交託予這個中共的附庸、傀儡？ 近來世衛缺乏問責和透明度的根本問題，已經引起更多國際意見領袖的關注；世衛的決策失誤，亦因為今次疫症爆發表露無遺，但實情是冰封三呎非一日之寒。 多年來世衛自持龐大的人力物力，就電子煙、肥胖等議題大做文章，但防控傳染疾病這個最根本的職責，世衛偏偏乏善足陳。 每年世衛花費在旅遊出行的公費，高達兩億美元；平均每名世衛職員在公費出行的花費是 28500 美元。世衛在公費旅遊出行的經費預算，金額多過用在防控瘧疾、肺癆和愛滋病的總金額。世衛亦經常舉辦與公共衛生無關宏旨的奢華宴會和應酬。 世衛的遲緩與無能，讓依波拉病毒在 2013-14 年肆虐西非；今天我們都因為世衛的無能與偏頗，身受 COVID-19 之苦。 世衛和它的總書記譚德塞與中共關係密切；疫情爆發至今，對中共的失誤，避而不談，甚至顛倒是非。直到一月十九日，世衛仍然遵從中共的論點，否定新型冠狀病毒人傳人的可能性。 另一邊廂，台灣在抗疫有豐富經驗和成效，而台灣當局制定的標準，卻被北京所圍封抹殺。 現在我們要世衛面對全球七十億人，就失誤問責，還我們知情權。 世衛失職，所以要問責。Consumer Choice Center 自2017 年起向美國及其他世衛成員國請願，增加組織問責性以及重新定位專注疾控危機，包括我們目前面對的疫情，並削減世衛撥款；相應的資金可以用在設立一個真正向民眾負責的公共衛生應變組織。