The World Health Organization, the most powerful health authority in the world, recently celebrated its 75th birthday. As I write this, the WHO is pushing a Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, a new initiative that would make the organization even more powerful. If signed into effect, the treaty would make the WHO’s proclamations legally binding for member nations like Ireland. Moreover, the treaty would likely usher in a new age of Digital Health Certificates and greater levels of global bureaucracy. By this time next year, the treaty may very well be a reality.
This is concerning on many levels. The world has 195 countries, and all but one of them is a member of the WHO. When it comes to setting the standards for various medical treatments, the WHO calls the shots. The erosion of national sovereignty is an essay in and of itself. But there is another, lesser-discussed issue that needs to be addressed. The WHO likes to portray itself as a rational, science-oriented organization. In reality, however, it is a major promoter of dangerous medical treatments. The WHO should have less power, not more. Here’s why.
The WHO oversees the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), a globally recognized diagnostic tool that’s used to classify and monitor causes of injury, disease, and death.
In recent years, the WHO has worked tirelessly to smuggle alternative medical practices into the ICD. In 2019, for example, the organization introduced traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) remedies for the very first time. As the neurologist Steven Novella previously noted, the specific TCM methods listed in the ICD are nothing less than “superstitious quackery.” He’s right. Methods of medical examination include tongue examinations and smelling. In the words of Novella, these “are not valid methods of medical examination, and do not relate to any actual disease or illness.” In short, the practice of TCM is about as scientific as phrenology and physiognomy. It has no place in modern day medicine. Yet, the WHO, an organization with more than 8,000 scientists and doctors, chose to dedicate a whole chapter to the supposed benefits of TCM.
Not only is TCM based on bad science (or no science at all), it also poses real health risks. As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has noted, stories of Chinese herbal products being contaminated with various toxic compounds and heavy metals are not unusual. To trust TCM is to gamble with your health.
In addition to promoting TCM, the WHO also promotes naturopathy, another pseudoscientific practice that has received a great deal of criticism throughout the years — and for good reason. For the uninitiated, naturopathy is a form of alternative medicine that promotes a whole host of “natural therapies,” including iridology, a reckless practice that has been referred to as “the most valuable diagnostic tool of the naturopath.” Developed more than 120 years ago, iridology involves analyzing patterns and colors on the iris to diagnose medical conditions. However, as Dr. Edzard Ernst has shown, not only is iridology a waste of time and money, it’s also dangerous.
As Ernst noted, in a peer-reviewed paper, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, with this pseudoscientific practice, there is the real possibility of a false-positive diagnosis occurring. This involves a test result indicating that a person has a specific illness, although no actual illness exists. The opposite, a false-negative diagnosis, is also possible. For example, wrote Ernst, “someone may feel unwell, go to an iridologist, and be given a clean bill of health. Subsequently, this person could be found to have a serious disease.”
If the individual has a serious illness that requires urgent treatment, valuable time may be lost interacting with a quack iridologist. The late, great Barry L Beyerstein, a legendary skeptic and professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, previously suggested that all practitioners of naturopathy are united by “a penchant for magical thinking” and “a weak grasp of basic science.” Yet, again, for some unfathomable reason, the WHO appears only too eager to promote this “world-wide medical cult.”
The health authority also sees fit to champion homeopathy, another pseudoscientific practice totally detached from scientific reality.
Does conventional medicine – or allopathic medicine, as homeopaths like to call it – have its flaws? Most definitely. Nevertheless, when it comes to matters of life and death, objective science will always trump pseudoscientific practices.
But try telling this to the WHO, the world’s most influential health organization.