Beholden to China . . . WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - Part 2

Caryn Lipson

June 19, 2023

Reprinted by permission from Rodef Shalom 613.

This is the second of a three-part series about the head of the World Health Organization.

Part 1 examined Tedros's longstanding ties with and indebtedness to China from the period when he was the Ethiopian health minister. China actively garnered support for Tedros to win the post of WHO director-general.

Part 2 examines his ties with Bill Gates whose influence with China and the WHO was also instrumental in his winning the coveted post.

Read part 1 here.

How Tedros Became Head of the World Health Organization

Tedros and the Gates Foundation

Tedros has also been supported for the position of director-general by Bill Gates, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the other WHO donors that he funds, controls the agenda of the WHO. [1] Vaccine Impact has the details:

Photo of Bill Gates shaking hands with Tedros

From 2009 to 2011 Tedros Ghebreyesus was also the Director of the Global Fund, a program to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as the head of the UNAIDS Program Coordinating Board …

In a profile published in April 2010, The Lancet reported that he was “a household name at the Global Fund Secretariat” and that his achievements led to naming Ethiopia as an exemplary high-performing country.

A surprising conclusion, when one finds out that during his leadership, the use of international aid funds he supervised was very questionable.In 2012, an audit of the Global Fund looked at the expenses of the aids, tuberculosis, and malaria program in several African countries, including Ethiopia who had received $1.3 billion in grants.

Inspector General John Parson, who was in charge of the audit, revealed a flagrant lack of transparency and numerous shortcomings in the accounting and management of the funds, to the point of suggesting a minimum payback of $7 million to the organization.

Above all, the investigation also showed a huge discrepancy between the results presented and the reality observed in Ethiopia during the field visits.

For example, 77% of the medical centers built did not have drinking water and 32% did not have sanitary facilities. Only 14% had a microscope or a delivery table, and only 12% had a pharmacy.

The report should have led to a series of measures ensuring more transparency and efficacy in the management of the program but, instead, the Inspector General and his findings were dismissed.

Obviously, good relationships with the leaders of African governments had a far greater importance.

It was also obvious to some of the WHO member states that Tedros did not have their best interests in mind, but the interests of the Gates Foundation.

When the candidates were interviewed before the votes, the Brazilian Ambassador asked Tedros how he intended to “represent the voice of developing countries by proposing a program that was much more aligned with the priorities of the countries of the North,” hereby referring to his approach of health through security (pandemic preparedness), and to treating ‘equality’ in terms of “coverage” (vaccines), rather than in the development of universal health systems (for example medical infrastructure and training or access to water).

He also remarked that Tedros had not proposed anything concrete in terms of sustainable development for vulnerable countries.

In fact, this “northern agenda” was very much aligned with the priorities of the Global Health Security Agenda, promoted by WHO’s four main funders and influencers: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (14%), the United States (24%), the U.K. (11%) and GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization which was again mainly funded by Gates (17%), the U.S. (11%) and the U.K. (31%). [2]

Tedros was also a Board Member of GAVI [3] of which the Gates Foundation was a founding partner and continues to heavily fund the organization. [4]

Bill Gates and the WHO

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is the largest contributor to the WHO and the Foundation supports many other WHO donors. This gives Gates the ability to control the WHO's activities, even if they are not consistent with the WHO mission since non-member donors are allowed to earmark their contributions.

Gate’s relationship with the WHO began with former WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. [5] Perhaps that is why she lamented,

[S]uch influence is the de facto determinant of priority setting of the WHO: . . . “(m)y budget [is] highly earmarked, so it is driven by what I call donor interests.”

Today,

. . . the BMGF together with GAVI contributed a collective 20.3%, including Rotary, a collective 23.6%, and even more when you include all the other earmarked voluntary contributions from organizations with which the Gates Foundation shares its financial largess. In this way, Gates has acquired enormous control over the WHO’s priority setting, more than any other member state including the US while still a member. [6]

Bill Gates and China

It is interesting to note, that Bill Gates is a huge supporter of China; he partners with the Chinese government in the areas of health, agriculture, computer technologies, and nuclear energy. In 2007, when the Foundation opened up an office in China; it declared:

Since the inauguration of our China office in 2007, we have been focused on unlocking that potential in a way that benefits China and the rest of the world. In working towards this goal, we continue to support China in overcoming domestic challenges, leverage China’s growing innovation capacity to supply high-quality, affordable health products to those in need, and assist China in becoming a stronger partner for global health and development. [7]

The Gates Foundation has helped to fund international cooperation projects of the Center for Global Public Health of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. [8] In 2015, the Gates signed a memorandum of agreement with CNNC [China National Nuclear Corporation] to build a miniature nuclear power plant.

Gates, chairmain [sic] of Bellevue-based TerraPower, signed an agreement Tuesday to partner with the company’s Chinese counterpart during a U.S.-China trade conference.

The nuclear power startup is trying to build a new type of nuclear reactor to harness the power of depleted uranium. Gates helped found the company in 2006. It’s [a] spin-off of Intellectual Ventures, headed by former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold.

The nuclear power startup is trying to build a new type of nuclear reactor to harness the power of depleted uranium …

“The world does need a lot more energy,” Gates said. “By being a form of clean energy, (TerraPower’s system) can make a huge contribution to the global goal of having low-cost clean energy.” TerraPower has been working with CNNC for years, but Gates said Tuesday’s agreement was a “milestone in our relationship.” [9]

Gates has been a frequent visitor to China and has continually visited Peking University over the past twenty years. In March 2017, he spoke to the students there. Regarding his talk at the University, completely ignoring China’s dictatorship and long history of human rights violations, he said this:

At a time when some countries seem to be turning inward and retreating from world affairs, China is primed to step up as a global leader. Building on its own successes—which include lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, dramatically improving health, and investing big in clean energy—China can share what it has learned with the rest of the world. [10]

In December of that year, he was one of ten “foreign experts” in engineering and technology who were elected as new members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE). The CAE is the People’s Republic of China’s elite society of technology professionals who have proven their service to the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Communist State. [11]

While defending China’s problematic response to the Coronavirus pandemic and attempting to curb discussion about it, he had no compunction about castigating President Trump for his response.

The tech tycoon had previously taken a swipe at the president for publicly castigating China for its cover-up of the coronavirus. During a Sunday interview on CNN, Gates not only argued that it is not time to be questioning the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPC) efforts in handling the COVID-19 outbreak, but went so far as to dispel any wrongdoing by the communist regime: “China did a lot of things right at the beginning, like any country where a virus first shows up. They can look back and say where they missed some things. You know, some countries did respond very quickly and get their testing in place, and they avoided the incredible economic pain. It’s sad that even the U.S. that you would have expected to do this well, did it particularly poorly. But it’s not time to talk about that." [12]

Gates’s TerraPower is one of the businesses that has been caught in the cross-hairs of and impeded by President Trump’s technology battle with China.” [13]

– End of part 2 of reprint –

Part 3, the final part, will examine Tedros's relationship with another global player with ties to China and the WHO. His friend had this to say about him:

The Health Minister of Ethiopia, now the Foreign Minister, is one of the ablest public servants I've ever worked with. You would all be very comfortable if he became the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the United States. He's a really able man.

This was quite an astounding statement considering that Tedros, as Ethiopia's health minister, was accused of helping cover up three cholera outbreaks and was the third most important person in the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) murder organization. However, when one's done the type of favors for others as Tedros has, such undeserved compliments are just a return of the favor. No truth intended.