WHO’s “whole-of-society” approach – coming to a neighbourhood near you
If we let this treaty go through, we can forget any local approaches to managing disease.
The WHO’s pandemic treaty is a difficult document to read. In this article, I’ve extracted all the references to “whole-of-society approach” and attempted a summary of what the WHO means by this term.
If you’re a “just cut to the chase” kind of person, scroll down to the “So what?” heading.
What is a whole-of-society approach?
We don’t know exactly – because it’s not defined – but we can glean some clues from the context in which the phrase is used throughout the “conceptual zero draft” of the treaty.
A “whole-of-society approach” is said to be important:
“to ensure adequate political commitment, resourcing and attention across sectors” (Preamble para 9);
in order to achieve sustainable improvements in how everyone in the world is able to deal with pandemics (Preamble para 16); and
because pandemics affect the whole of society (Preamble para 17) (I’m not sure if this actually means anything – seems a bit circular.)
A whole-of-society approach involves all countries being obliged to:
Help other countries with technical know-how and funding - Article 12;
Engage with the whole community to enhance acceptance of public health and social measures - Article 15; and
Involve communities in surveillance of wildlife and farm animals to identify zoonotic outbreaks and anti-microbial resistance, for feeding into a global database - Article 17.
So what?
So what does this mean? It’s hard to say really, but one thing is clear: there is no intention to return to the days where most people are oblivious to the possibility of a pandemic. Potential pandemics must be front and centre in everyone’s mind. A key message seems to be: we must all be very intentional about cooperating with the WHO across the whole of society to ensure that we can all cope better next time round. Really? Why?
A local approach is a better alternative
How about we try something like “Think Global, Act Local”? Who says handing everything over to global governance is the best approach? Not me!
There are a bunch of other ways of making sure we can all cope much better next time round, and they include:
Promoting early treatment
…instead of suppressing the use of existing medications to pave the way for Emergency Use Authorisation of expensive and little-tested novel vaccines
Allowing doctors to treat the individual patient in front of them
…solely on the basis of what’s best for that patient, with genuine informed consent based on a clear explanation of risks and benefits of a proposed treatment
Funding independent research
…instead of selectively citing research conducted by conflicted scientists
Open access to all data
…instead of allowing BigPharma to keep it secret (patient-level data used in clinical trials by BigPharma is still not available for independent scrutiny!!!)
Encouraging rigorous debate
…instead of censoring anyone who has an opinion different from the WHO.
The boring details
[Or maybe not so boring - see bonus issue at end!]
If you’re keen to see the actual wording in the draft treaty for the above points, see below for screenshots of the relevant paragraphs. I’ve tried to pick out what I think the main point of the paragraph is in each case, and have highlighted it in green.
A whole-of-society approach is important:
“to ensure adequate political commitment, resourcing and attention across sectors” (Preamble para 9)
in order to achieve sustainable improvements in how everyone in the world is able to deal with pandemics (Preamble para 16)
because pandemics affect the whole of society (Preamble para 17) (I’m not sure if this actually means anything – seems a bit circular!)
A whole-of-society approach involves all countries being obliged to:
Help other countries with technical know-how and funding - Article 12
Engage with the whole community to enhance acceptance of public health and social measures - Article 15
Involve communities in surveillance of wildlife and farm animals to identify zoonotic outbreaks and anti-microbial resistance, for feeding into a global database - Article 17
….
Bonus issue for careful readers of Article 15: did you notice the bit in blue: “…and social measures”?
So….to deal with pandemics, the WHO reckons we’ll need to impose social measures as well as “public health measures”. Is this alarming? Hard to know, because of course the terms aren’t defined - but I sure don’t like the sound of it. Note that the phrase “public health and social measures” is also used in the “Principles section” under the heading of community engagement, revealing a clear intention to impose social measures as distinct from public health measures. Whatever that means.
“Community engagement – Full engagement by communities in prevention, preparedness, response and recovery of health systems is essential to mobilize social capital, resources, adherence to public health and social measures, and to gain trust in government.”
It's not merely difficult to read, it's also going to be difficult to live under.
Get out of the cities. Now. There's still time. Prepare accordingly. Network. Pray.
#ParallelEconomy
#FinancialRebellion
Thank you for the tough toothy extraction.
And enduring the rigor,
To Generate
Your Fine Summary.
I mean it !
Smiles.
**
"So what?"
Hay !
Oh wait... that's for Gift horses.
(Or something like that !)
Thanx again.
---
And on the Lighter Side,
During These Trying Times:
"It's difficult to say."
~ Ed Grimley
I'm pretty sure Mister Ed's proficient at the triangle.
Just fer laughs~
*
HAVE A GREAT LOCAL DAY !
Ms. Klein,
AND AN INVENTIVE & ENGAGING NEW YEAR.
Shalom.