The World Health Organization is facing a torrent of misinformation that it plans to dominate the world’s national health systems as it tries to chart a path to an agreement that will prevent future pandemics.
Health officials are meeting this week in Geneva to discuss draft text that could help countries better prepare for a future pandemic.
This is done in the hope that the mistakes of the fight against COVID-19, often with dire consequences, will not be repeated.
“In the future, we will have to face serious epidemics and we are interested in being better prepared than we are now,” said Michael Ryan, who is in charge of emergency management at the World Health Organization.
“For this, countries must work together,” he added.
At the moment, there is still a lot of uncertainty as to what form this agreement might take, and discussions are just beginning.
But despite this ambiguity—or perhaps because of it—and despite the fact that negotiations are led by Member States and not by the WHO secretariat, conspiracy theories circulate.
Most recently, renowned Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson warned that he was spreading conspiracy theories.
Millions of viewers say that US President Joe Biden is very close to “handing over control of all aspects, intimate aspects of your life, to the World Health Organization.”
More bluntly, British actor Russell Brand told his 5.5 million followers that the pact means “your democracy has screwed up.”
The World Health Organization and experts jointly emphasize that these theories, which somehow also appeared in Australia, Russia or elsewhere, have nothing to do with reality.
“Frankly, the level of misinformation is confusing to me,” said Suri Moon, associate director of the Center for Global Health at the Graduate Institute for International Research and Development, highlighting the fact that the discussion process “is actually still at a very preliminary stage. “
She added that a large number of conspiracy theorists “have nothing to do with the reality of what is being proposed and what will be negotiated.”
