World Health Organization “Zero Draft” Treaty:

What should be India’s response?

                                 -        Dr. Veena Raghava

Before the last three years, the average Indian probably heard of the World Health Organization only once in a few years, and even then, sparingly. In the last three years of the CVOID-19 crisis, however, this organization has taken the central position on the world stage, and has been the source of numerous directives that flowed into every corner and shaped global behavior, whether it was lockdowns, social-distancing, masks, or vaccines. And now, this organization has taken it upon itself to draft a treaty called the “Zero Draft” that 194 member states, including India, can ratify. What does this all mean? What does it mean for the average Indian, doctor or patient?

First, let us look at a bit of history. The World Health Organization (WHO) was created in the aftermath of World War II as a part of the United Nations, to be in charge of supporting access to healthcare in all the countries. Over the decades, in addition to public health, the organization began to increasingly get involved with private players, and developed “public-private partnerships”, such as GAVI (the vaccine alliance) and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). And in the last three years, these activities went into over-drive during the deployment of the pandemic response. But – and here’s the critical part of an organization that says it stands for health – the WHO is primarily a bureaucracy, and not the collection of the best doctors in the world.

We can now look at what this evolution of WHO means. In the first place, we have the “one-size-fits-all” approach that we have seen in the last three years being an essential aspect of a structure like this, since the member states are national governments, and not health organizations. Now, in addition to that, the private motive in health begins to override other concerns, as this article from the American Journal of Public Health stated in 2016:

There are questions about WHO’s management and financial transparency. The organization’s dependence on earmarked funding (about 80% of it $4 billion biennial budget) puts it at the mercy of donors; WHO may toe the line of donors’ interests rather than following its own agenda.

And when we combine this with the current iteration of the global treaty, what do we get?

It is always assumed that the measures that the WHO comes up with, such as masks, vaccines or “pandemic related products”, are beyond question. The only question is how they get implemented. The “Zero Draft” treaty mandatorily states the following:

1.       The member states shall improve the logistics of supply. (Article 6)

2.       The member states shall increase production capacities, by removing patent protections if needed. (Article 7)

3.       The member states shall make sure that local rules are the same as international rules. (Article 8)

4.       The member states shall squash the manufacture of “falsified products”. (Article 8)

5.       The member states shall pay out for vaccine injuries. (Article 9)

6.       The member states commit to practice censorship. (Article 17)

7.       The member states shall pay 5% of their health budget for pandemics. (Article 19)

That’s a lot of “shalls” for all the governments. Paradoxically, the treaty also states that:

States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to determine and manage their approach to public health, notably pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and recovery of health systems, pursuant to their own policies and legislation, provided that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to their peoples and other countries.

In other words, this is a fancy way of saying “Once you sign this, you can do what you want, as long as you agree to do what we want!” This is the “choice” that is provided. In addition to that, the declaration of a pandemic has become extremely easy recently: the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared monkeypox a pandemic after just 5 deaths globally, against the advice of his committee (9 votes ‘against’, 6 votes ‘for’).

In total, the global pandemic treaty is creating the machinery to repeat more efficiently what took place during COVID-19. The first time around, global terror and panic made it easy for the most isolated corner of the country to align itself with the “recommendations” provided by the WHO. At times of crisis people yearn for and cling to authority, and even give over authority to organizations that previously did not have any. Forced medication became the norm and hostage situations where you have to get vaccinated “or else”, became common. And yet, the excuse for creating this treaty is that there was “inequity” in vaccine distribution and pandemic policies. That is the equivalent of stating that the hammer was not able to hit everyone equally this time, we need a bigger and more efficient hammer for the next time!

There will be no further need to re-create that level of terror and panic for the WHO’s policies to be relevant, since the treaty would make that forcing machinery permanent, on the public dole through taxes. In other words, we are paying to build our own medical prison, with 194 prison cells, where a lockdown can be initiated at any time when the warden (DG of the WHO) decides to do so. The pandemic treaty outlines the sizes of the cells, how quickly the jail doors can open and close, how the meal-times will be arranged, as all the guards (public health department heads and governments) now coordinate their activity. And all of this benevolent health dictatorship is installed to make sure we are “safe”.

The Modi government is well on its way to further strengthening ties to the WHO, while pandering to it outright, as seen with the recent political gimmick where Modi rechristened Tedros Ghebreyesus as “Tulsi bhai”.

It is therefore the duty of every free-thinking individual in India to call out this mechanism for what it is, and encourage medical professionals of all streams to coordinate themselves on a different basis than the WHO. Where there is no “one-size-fits-all” public health approach, nor are there private players with billion-dollar criminal fines calling the shots, but an organization dedicated solely for health, created by those in healthcare from the grassroots. A first attempt has been made through the Universal Health Organization (UHO), and I would encourage more such organizations to form and collaborate to offer solutions to the general populace.

 

 

About the author :

The author is Dr Veena Raghava. She passed MBBS from Madras Medical College and got her Diploma in Anaesthesia from Bangalore Medical College. She worked as Anaesthesiologist for about 20 years and also worked in Emergency Care till second wave of Covid. She Practises at Bangalore with doctor husband and believes in Clinical Nutrition and Anthroposophical medicine. She is the founder member of UHO.