WHO moves to co-opt traditional medicine

The World Health Organization (WHO) this month held a summit on traditional medicine which is being seen as a move by the organization to co-opt or altogether confiscate effective, non-pharmaceutical medical practices from the public.

Many have turned to natural remedies and alternative medicine in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when unsafe and ineffective measures were mandated by public health authorities led by the WHO. Lockdowns, masks and experimental mRNA injections which are still taking their toll have left many disillusioned about modern medicine and more trusting in alternative remedies.

But the WHO appears to be moving to requisition those as well. 

On August 17th, the organization convened a two-day Traditional Medicine Global Summit in India attended by G20 health authorities and other high-level officials from around the world. According to the WHO, the purpose of the summit was to “explore ways to scale up scientific advances and realize the potential of evidence-based knowledge in the use of traditional medicine.”

This has raised concerns among those who recall the recent widespread suppression of scientific evidence and intimidation of medical practitioners who offered remedies different from what the WHO prescribed. Many fear that the freedom and independence of natural remedies will be snuffed out as traditional medicine is brought under official WHO control.

Indeed, the WHO made plain in a press release on the summit that it intends to commandeer the field and decide which remedies are “safe and effective” according to its own guidelines:

Natural doesn’t always mean safe, and centuries of use are not a guarantee of efficacy; therefore, scientific method and process must be applied to provide the rigorous evidence required for the recommendation of traditional medicines in WHO guidelines. 

“Advancing science on traditional medicine should be held to the same rigorous standards as in other fields of health,” said WHO Department of Health Research Director Dr John Reeder. 

But that would be missing the entire point of traditional medicine, according to acclaimed natural remedies expert and former USDA official James A. Duke, PhD.

“The reason herbs are not more popular in the United States is that drug companies can’t patent them,” Duke wrote in his book The Green Pharmacy: The Ultimate Compendium Of Natural Remedies From The World's Foremost Authority On Healing Herbs. “The drug companies make their money by pulling the medicinally active molecules out of herbs and then tinkering with them a little until they’re chemically unique. The companies can then patent their new molecules, give them brand names and sell them back to us for a lot more money than their original herb sources cost.”

In a tweet this month, the WHO said it intends to “validate” traditional medicine.

“Our work aims to bring evidence and scientific validation around traditional medicine so that millions of people around the world who use complementary and traditional medicine understand whether it’s safe and effective and are better protected,” the organization wrote. “When scientifically validated, traditional medicine has the potential to bridge access gaps for millions around the world.”

WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine Lead Shyama Kuruvilla says the WHO intends to “integrate [traditional medicines] into conventional healthcare” which would place them at the mercy of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and insurance companies. Kuruvilla also says “there needs to be global standards for the multi-billion-dollar industries in natural cosmetics and herbal medicines.” Other interventions like yoga will also be closely controlled by the WHO and “researchers will need to develop scientific methods to take into account culture and context.”

“It does not at all mean being soft on science," says Kuruvilla. “It actually means being hard on traditional medicine and hard on science, to say, do we have the right methods to understand more complex phenomena in the right way?”

The WHO's Global Centre for Traditional Medicine, which Kuruvilla leads, was set up last year with the support of India's government, which has invested $250 million in the project. India, where yoga originated, has a large population which uses Ayurveda, an alternative medicine system, to help meet their primary health care needs.

Another concerning element of the WHO's plan for traditional medicine is its intention to make it part of “the biodiversity and One Health workstream.”

The One Health approach dictates that “climate change” is the driving factor behind human health. For example, warmer climates can fuel tick infestations which can bring with them deadly diseases like Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF). Changing weather patterns can cause avian flu to spread.

Therefore, the WHO’s One Health agenda states that because pandemic diseases are zoonotic and spread from animals to humans, human health must be looked at in the context of animals and the environment or what is called the “human-animal-environment interface.” 

One Health, which has been highly endorsed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), would prioritize “climate change” over human health in some regard. No sacrifice would be too great to save the climate if it is the chief determinant of the health of all living things. A zoonotic outbreak, therefore, could open the door for climate mandates like lockdowns and forced vaccinations to stop the spread.

Indeed, the WHO recently paired with the Rockefeller Foundation to search for “climate pandemics.” It also partnered in June with the European Commission to develop international vaccine passports as drugmakers call for “climate vaccinations.”