I completely disagree with Stephen Booth’s letter (April 22) criticizing President’s Trump decision to suspend giving U.S. taxpayer money to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO has turned into an incompetent organization and has proved itself incredibly inept. Their mistakes around COVID-19 were overwhelming and include:
Ignoring Taiwan's early warnings about the fast-multiplying virus.
Their January statement that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel pathogen, even though they knew evidence existed that this was not true.
Not pushing China to immediately turn over genome sequencing of the virus so that test kits could be created abroad.
Encouraging countries not to close their borders despite the evident spread.
Waiting until March 11 to succumb to international pressure and label it a pandemic.
Mistakes are bad enough, but they acted fraudulently in helping China cover up the source and real danger of this virus that has now infected 185 nations. Scientists have stated that 95% of the sickness and death could have been avoided if China would have come clean and WHO had done their job instead of acting as the propaganda machine for the Chinese Communist government.
Why does the U.S., with about 4% of the world population, provide 20% of the funding for WHO. Any time U.S. tax dollars go to international organizations, you can count on fraud and mismanagement to follow. If some other countries disagree with our decision, why are they not stepping forward and contributing more? Many other nations believe the WHO should be funded more, but only with American tax dollars. China has now contributed an extra $30 million to WHO. Big deal, that is about 3% of the $893 million U.S. taxpayers paid in the last biennial. The U.S. contributes 10 times as much as China. We should only begin to fund WHO again if their top leaders, including Tedros Adhanom, resign, and the organization is restructured with American leadership. It is obvious the WHO’s current leadership cannot be trusted and their fraudulent actions have cost a great deal of pain and suffering throughout the world.
