When WHO points out “errors” in a L'Impertinent article
- Amèle Debey
- 8 juin
- 10 min de lecture
Dernière mise à jour : 10 juin
Last Tuesday, a WHO communication officer contacted L'Impertinent to correct what he considered to be “errors” in the interview with Dr Jay Bhattacharya, current director of the NIH. Here's what came out of the exchange.
In his interview with L'Impertinent, published on May 25, one of the new strongmen of US health directly questioned WHO's handling of the Covid crisis. Here's what he said:
"I think WHO failed during the pandemic, and I think it needs to reform if it wants to regain the world's trust. I have seen no sign of WHO acknowledging its mistakes in managing the pandemic. It recommended lockdowns for developing countries (...) I've seen attempts to evade the idea that it was in favor of lockdowns, but it was. (...) And as far as I know, it has made no effort to reflect on its mistakes in managing the pandemic. Right now, this institution does not deserve the trust of the global public."
"Its job is to protect the entire global population, not just a small class of very wealthy people living in very wealthy countries. It failed to follow scientific recommendations during the pandemic. After we drafted the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, the WHO changed its definition of herd immunity to exclude, in the case of infections, acquired immunity. It manipulated science to promote its propaganda during the pandemic and failed in its responsibility to protect the world's population, especially the most disadvantaged."
This interview did not go unnoticed internationally, nor in scientific circles, until it reached the eyes of the WHO's Head of Communications, who contacted us from Geneva to point out the “errors” identified in Jay Bhattacharya's assertions.
Rather than issuing an official denial, he preferred direct contact. So, for almost an hour, we browsed the NIH director's interview concerning the World Health Organization. Several problematic points were raised by our interlocutor. Here they are:
WHO has admitted mistakes and initiated reforms
WHO has never recommended lockdown
WHO represents science and the interests of the weakest
The United States is no longer WHO's main financial backer
There is never been any change in WHO's position on herd immunity - no one has ever heard of it.
The assertion that WHO changed its definition of herd immunity after the publication of the Great Barrington Declaration is false.
It is wrong to say that public confidence in the WHO has been broken
Since it has been strongly suggested to us that we publish an appropriate correction to the fake news we let circulate in our media, we have taken the time to inspect each allegedly problematic element, conscientiously consulting the sources sent by the communicant. And by doing our own research. Here's what we found:
WHO reportedly acknowledges mistakes and initiates reforms
In 2017, WHO launched “an unprecedented transformation plan in its 76-year history”. This initiative aims to modernize the organization to enhance its efficiency, transparency and impact. Here are the main goals:
Make WHO more efficient and agile, by reducing bureaucracy and simplifying internal procedures, to speed up response to health emergencies and improve coordination between headquarters, regional and country offices.
Improve accountability and transparency, by strengthening internal and external monitoring and publishing results, audits and reports more regularly.
Better serve member countries, by implementing the “Country-focused approach”, which will serve to refocus WHO priorities on country needs.
Strengthen the scientific base, by clarifying the roles of headquarters, regional offices and country offices.
Stabilize and diversify funding to combat dependence on voluntary funding.
Strengthen global partnerships
Among the changes announced, transparency of funding is one of the major criticisms levelled by WHO's detractors. In response, the WHO Foundation is to be created in 2021 with the aim of “leveraging private funding and cultivating dynamic partnerships to advance WHO's mission”. But if the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's position as one of the organization's main contributors makes people cringe, the list of donors to this new entity isn't much more reassuring. It includes names such as Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi, Nestlé and - of course - the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But above all, donors who “wish to remain anonymous”. According to an Associated Press article, nearly 40% of the funds raised by the WHO Foundation in its first two years came from anonymous sources, making it difficult to identify potential conflicts of interest.
It should also be noted that the WHO had always prided itself on refusing money from the arms, tobacco and alcohol industries, among others, for ethical reasons. But in March 2021, the WHO Foundation changed its policy on accepting donations, particularly regarding contributions from the alcohol industry. This change has raised concerns about the transparency and integrity of funding received by the WHO Foundation.
Mistakes acknowledged?
To assess its handling of the Covid crisis, WHO called in an independent panel of experts co-chaired by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (former President of Liberia) and Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of New Zealand). The report, published in 2021, highlighted several areas for improvement in preparation for a future pandemic. Among its suggestions for improving the WHO's response in the future was the famous pandemic treaty, to be signed in 2025.
Efforts have been made to reform the organization, but this process began before the health crisis. Whether these transformations are enough for the Trump administration and Jay Bhattacharya is another matter. The U.S. withdrawal offers some idea of the response, as does the reaction of Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr, who felt that the treaty allowed the WHO to “institutionalize all the dysfunctions of the WHO's response to the pandemic.”
2. WHO has never recommended lockdown
Like most authority figures, the WHO issued contradictory recommendations during the crisis. As a result, it can now deny having taken any particular position. On its Twitter account, the organization insists that it has never instituted lockdown, as it has no power to influence the policies of sovereign states. At least for the time being.
However, WHO's stance on restrictions on freedom was far from neutral. At one of the first press conferences in March 2020, at the very start of the crisis, Executive Director Michael J. Ryan explained that lockdown alone would not be enough, but was currently “the only action governments can take to slow this virus”. The head of WHO's Emerging Diseases Unit, Maria Van Kerkhove, added: “Social distancing and people staying home measures have bought us some time.”
Although they did indeed refer to lockdown as a measure of last resort and for a limited time, WHO leaders, including Dr David Nabarro, the UK's special envoy on Covid-19, presented it as a necessary evil to give the authorities time to get organized. Even in poor countries.
Moreover, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has repeatedly warned governments of the risks of hasty lifting of lockdowns.
Moreover, the WHO's highly conciliatory, even submissive, stance towards China — one of the points raised by Donald Trump to justify his decision to withdraw — is in total contradiction with a strategy based on precaution. China first downplayed the importance of the virus by silencing its specialists. It then covered up the hypothesis of a laboratory leak and banned domestic flights while allowing international flights to continue, thus allowing the virus to circulate in the rest of the world.
Secondly, it confined its inhabitants and employed an extremely strict zero-Covid strategy. It put pressure on the WHO to exclude Taiwan from cooperation at the start of the pandemic, leaving the island state to organize on its own to protect its inhabitants. This served it rather well, as reported in the documentary China-USA, the battle of the WHO. In it, we see Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director General, simulate a connection problem when questioned about Taiwan. He even refuses to pronounce the name, referring to it as a Chinese territory. "The Taiwan paradox is cruel for the WHO. The country that is faring best in the pandemic is the one that has no connection with the organization, which is caught up in the geopolitical confrontation between China and the United States", says the journalist.
3. WHO represents science and the interests of the weakest
According to the spokesperson, Covax is proof that WHO is reaching out to the most vulnerable. Launched in 2020, this program was designed to ensure access to the Covid vaccine for the poorest countries. Switzerland contributed by donating 2 million doses from AstraZeneca. This controversial vaccine is not even authorized for use in Switzerland. However, it is above all people's mistrust rather than the vaccine's lack of availability that makes the African continent the world's least vaccinated against Covid (30-35% versus 70% in Europe).
In the 90s, the WHO was financed 80% by member states and 20% by voluntary contributions. Today, the trend has reversed, and states prefer to go through voluntary contributions, as they can decide on their allocations, according to the documentary L'OMS dans les griffes des lobbyistes, broadcast on Arte in 2017.
This movie is about the agenda of private companies who influence, even manipulate, the choices made by the World Health Organization. This is particularly illustrated by the swine flu (H1N1) fiasco involving Roche's Tamiflu. But that's not all:
In 1959, WHO signed a cooperation agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This agreement gave rise to controversy, particularly concerning the impact of nuclear technology on human health. Following the use of depleted uranium munitions by NATO in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999, many experts warned of the consequences for human health (cancers, malformations). In 2001, the WHO/IAEA report judged the data to be “inconclusive”, without ruling out environmental or health risks, while calling for more in-depth studies.
In 2014, the WHO was severely criticized for its slow, bureaucratic response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, claiming in particular that there was no cause for concern during the first six months and the initial 2,000 deaths. Its failure to provide early warning and effective coordination was blamed for the spread of the virus.
In the same year, the WHO launched an ambitious program to reduce tuberculosis in wealthy countries, with the idea that these would serve as a model for high-incidence countries. Critics point out that, in the face of the historic decline in tuberculosis in developed countries, targeted efforts have sometimes been deemed ill-adapted to local dynamics. The continent most affected by tuberculosis is South-East Asia (56% of global cases are concentrated in 5 countries: India (26%), Indonesia (10%), China (6.8%), Philippines (6.8%), Pakistan (6.3%). Other regions heavily affected include Africa and the Western Pacific.)
In 2015, the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2A), based on limited evidence in humans and sufficient evidence in animals. The influence of the agri-food industry on the WHO, via the Gates Foundation, is documented in the reports we have been able to consult.
In 2019, members of the US Congress (Katherine Clark & Hal Rogers) filed a bipartisan report accusing Purdue Pharma of “corrupting the WHO” by influencing its international pain guidelines. According to them, the WHO used unscientific recommendations mirroring those of Purdue to expand opioid prescribing worldwide.
Vaccines first
Almost all the diseases suffered by people in the world's poorest countries are rooted in social, economic and environmental conditions. People starve to death, but fortunately, they are vaccinated! This is thanks to the Gates Foundation, which allocates more than half of its funds to the fight against polio, thus influencing the WHO's priorities, as explained in the documentary L'OMS dans les griffes des lobbyistes. At the same time, people's living conditions remain precarious and health structures virtually non-existent. We focus too much on diseases for which drugs and vaccines are available. While 2,000 children die every day from lack of drinking water.
As for scientific excellence, WHO has created a Science Division in 2019, as part of its major transformation. As is well known, the effectiveness and probity of the scientific measures promulgated by the WHO during the Covid crisis are strongly contested, including by doctors and scientists.
4. The United States is no longer WHO's main donor
Here, he points out a problem of conjugation, as the USA is no longer WHO's main financial backer. To make up for the lack of US support, which he says represented 15-20% of the budget, member states agreed to a 20% increase in mandatory contributions. The budget originally planned at USD 5.3 billion was nevertheless reduced to USD 4.2 billion after taking into account the early withdrawal of US funding.
This 21% reduction means significant budget cuts across all regions, particularly in Africa and at the Geneva headquarters. At a fundraising event, at least 170 million USD were pledged, including 50 million USD from China, and new donors such as Mongolia and Cambodia. But despite the pledges, a shortfall of 1.5 billion USD persists, threatening programming and field operations.
5. There has simply never been any change in WHO's position on herd immunity. “No one has ever heard of a change,” says the spokesperson.
Until November 2020, the WHO posted this definition of herd immunity on its website: it is “the indirect protection against an infectious disease that occurs when a population is immunized either by vaccination or by immunity developed by a previous infection”.
Secondly, the definition was amended to state that “herd immunity”, also known as “population immunity”, is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected against a certain virus if a vaccination threshold is reached."
While it is now the updated December 2020 version that can be found online, screenshots of the previous definition exist:
California-based media outlet ABC10 put its fact-checkers on the case to come to the following conclusion: "So yes, WHO changed the definition of herd immunity on one of its Q&A pages. But no, it wasn't a secret. It explained why it had changed the definition and mentioned it at a press briefing. WHO says the answers and definitions on this page will evolve over time. And recently, it reinstated its original definition to better explain why it is now focusing on vaccination for herd immunity."
6. The assertion that WHO changed its definition of herd immunity after the publication of the Great Barrington Declaration is incorrect.
The Great Barrington Declaration, initiated by Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta, was signed on October 4, 2020. It advocated the acquisition of natural immunity, avoiding liberticidal measures while protecting those most at risk.
Asked about the acquired collective immunity strategy, Tedros described it as "unethical" at a press briefing on October 12, just over a week after the declaration was signed. He said: "Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it. Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a response strategy to an epidemic, let alone a pandemic."
According to the information we have found, as indicated in the previous point, the website was modified on November 13. This was after the Declaration had been published and Tedros was aware of its existence. While it is indeed not possible to establish a 100% causal link between the two events, the temporality is sufficiently questionable not to call Jay Bhattacharya a liar when he mentions this link.
7. It would be wrong to say that people's trust in the WHO is broken
In support of his assertion, our interviewee refers us to the Edelman Trust Barometer of 2023. A communications firm paid to defend the image of companies and governments. Digging a little deeper, we realize that the study focuses mainly on developed and emerging countries, with connected social classes. Poor and rural populations are under-represented.
It is interesting to note, however, that in the 2024 and 2025 reports, mention of the WHO has disappeared. In the 2025 health report, we observe an overall loss of confidence in health institutions (governments, media, NGOs, companies), but no specific data for the WHO.
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