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No matter how you slice it, the pharmaceutical industry is the central engine of the global health establishment. The industry's larger corporations provide funding for the FDA, the CDC, the WHO; they do this both directly and through NGOs like the EPDA...The ties between the FDA and Big Pharma run deep, and their relationship has become so symbiotic that neither could exist without the other unless massive reforms were to take place. Big Pharma relies on the FDA to approve and rush its products to market, and the FDA relies on Big Pharma to receive its funding...READ MORE

One hundred and forty-three day since World Health Organization member-states passed a resolution calling for the WHO to work with other agencies to identify how the coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan was able to jump from animals to humans, China has yet to agree upon an international team of experts to visit China to carry out that crucial work...Resolution WHA73.1, passed at a WHO World Health Assembly on May 19, calls on WHO, the World Organization for Animal Health, and the Food and Agricultural Organization to work jointly to “identify the zoonotic source of the virus and the route of introduction to the human population,” and refers specifically to “scientific and collaborative field missions” as part of that effort...READ MORE

The World Health Organization, together with partner organizations, aims to secure 2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of 2021, unveiling...a creative plan to ensure high-risk groups around the world have access to any vaccine that's successfully developed... Through the WHO's plan, countries would be able to pool their resources to invest in the development a broad portfolio of experimental vaccines, obtaining in return a guaranteed share of the resulting supplies. The idea is to lessen the risk of betting on any one vaccine, while creating a mechanism by which doses are fairly allocated during the initial stages of a vaccine's availability...READ MORE

The World Health Organization’s head said on Tuesday he would keep leading the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut off funding and quit the body...WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus defended the agency’s role after the United States again withheld full support for a resolution on the pandemic...Washington allowed the resolution calling for a review into the global response to the pandemic to pass by consensus, but said it objected to language about reproductive health rights and permission for poor countries to waive patent rules...WHO officials running the meeting clapped and cheered after the resolution was passed without a vote hours after Trump tweeted his threat to pull the United States out of the body...It calls for a review into the WHO-led global response, something the United States has demanded...READ MORE

The World Health Organization has granted an emergency authorization to AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, a move that should allow the U.N. agency’s partners to ship millions of doses to countries worldwide as part of a U.N.-backed program to tame the pandemic...the WHO said it was clearing the AstraZeneca vaccines made by the Serum Institute of India and South Korea’s AstraZeneca-SKBio...“Countries with no access to vaccines to date will finally be able to start vaccinating their health workers and populations at risk,” said Dr Mariângela Simão, the WHO’s Assistant-Director General for Access to Medicines and Health Products....READ MORE

Since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic more than six months ago, we have passed many grim milestones...One of the glaring global inequities creating enormous quality-of-care challenges for doctors, nurses, and other health care providers, especially in countries with fragile health systems, is limited access to medical oxygen. In low-resource settings around the world, where many lack access even to electricity and clean water, oxygen availability is severely limited...The disparity in safe, reliable access to medical oxygen — which is needed to treat a range of diseases and health conditions, and is absolutely essential for treating Covid-19 — is further compounded as health systems are overwhelmed by surges of patients...READ MORE

Major health groups raised alarm following the announcement Friday by President Donald Trump that the U.S. is terminating its relationship with the World Health Organization...Trump previously said he would cut funding to WHO, a United Nations agency that helps promote global health initiatives including addressing disease outbreaks. He said WHO has not pushed for accountability over its handling of the virus that is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China. He has also previously said WHO was slow to act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic...But organizations such as the American Medical Association and the Infectious Diseases Society of America condemned the move, saying it will make the work of fighting the global pandemic "dramatically more challenging."...READ MORE

Last year, President Donald Trump decided to halt United States funding to the World Health Organization and withdraw from the organization based on its inept response to COVID-19 and its obsequious failure to confront China over its lack of transparency and cooperation during the outbreak...President Joe Biden, in one of his first actions, reversed those decisions in a letter to the United Nations secretary-general...Trump was correct in his criticism of the WHO. Had China been more transparent and cooperative, many lives could have been saved and economic damage avoided in the U.S. and around the world...READ MORE

The Trump administration has formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, although the pullout won’t take effect until next year, meaning it could be rescinded under a new administration or if circumstances change...The withdrawal notification makes good on President Donald Trump’s vow in late May to terminate U.S. participation in the WHO, which he has harshly criticized for its response to the coronavirus pandemic and accused of bowing to Chinese influence...The move was immediately assailed by health officials and critics of the administration, including numerous Democrats who said it would cost the U.S. influence in the global arena...READ MORE

The United States will end its relationship with the World Health Organization over the body’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday, accusing the U.N. agency of becoming a puppet of China...The move to quit the Geneva-based body, which the United States formally joined in 1948, comes amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the coronavirus outbreak...Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said Chinese officials “ignored their reporting obligations” to the WHO about the virus - that has killed hundreds of thousands of people globally - and pressured the agency to “mislead the world.”...READ MORE