Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

14 June 2009

WHO - Continued Incompetance at the U.N.

The World Health Organization (WHO), is an agency of the United Nations. It has a history of mistaken policies, such as its virtual ban on DDT for mosquito control, its exaggeration of the AIDS death toll, and its over-regulation of biotechnology for the development of agricultural products. Henry I. Miller, a physician, molecular biologist and former flu researcher, the past head of the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Biotechnology from 1989 to 1993, and now a fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, wrote A premature 'pandemic' call WHO swine flu policy different than on other outbreaks which was published in the 14 June 2009 Washington Times Sunday Opinion Section. He notes that WHO's reaction to the swine flu events has continued their tradition of seeking attention and control of situations which do not warrant it. The IPCC, which has done so much to mislead the world on catastrophic man-made global warming, is far from the only discredited U.N. agency.

For the first time in 41 years, WHO has declared a pandemic, which only means that the flu is widespread, not that it is spreading particularly rapidly or that it is particularly lethal. It is proving to be neither of these, but very much like ordinary seasonal flu. To be sure, the WHO definition of pandemic only considers how widespread a disease is, so every seasonal flu should be declared pandemic by that definition! The seasonal spread of this flu in Australia caused WHO to declare it at the highest level of a pandemic, Phase 5, in the week of 27 April 2009. Miller argues that this was very wrongheaded.

Miller writes about his experience in working with the U.N. Codex Alimentarius Commission under both the U.N. WHO and Food and Agriculture Organization that sets international food standards.
The group established standards that were unscientific and excessively stringent and ensure that new, innovative foods will be so expensive to develop that they will remain largely unavailable to the poorest of the poor, who need them most.
Miller says of WHO:
WHO's dubious decisions demonstrate that its officials are either too rigid or too incompetent to make needed adjustments in the warning system - perhaps both, because that's what we have come to expect from an organization that is scientifically challenged, self-important and unaccountable. WHO may be well-equipped to perform and report worldwide surveillance - i.e., count numbers of cases and fatalities - but its policy role should be limited drastically.
He concludes that the U.N.'s:
involvement in international public health policy is just one manifestation of the organization's even grander designs: The United Nations has become the regulator-wannabe for all manner of products and human activities, from desertification and biodiversity to the regulation of chemicals, uses of the ocean and new genetic varieties of plants.

The United Nations' regulatory policies, requirements and standards regularly defy scientific consensus and common sense: ...
To which I will add that the U.N. not only wants globally to become our government, but it will not do so with even a nod toward the Constitution, which is the greatest bulwark protecting the right of the individual to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness which man has ever produced.

No comments: