Will Republican Lawmakers Cede Tuberculosis Policy to the WHO?

By | 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 4 (C-Fam) A bipartisan bill to fight tuberculosis globally would tie the U.S. government to international standards and programs developed by the World Health Organization that has been implicated in the promotion of abortion.

Congress is on pace to adopt a new global health initiative to fight tuberculosis that requires the U.S. to work with other governments and the World Health Organization to develop standards and programs. Pro-life advocates are concerned because of the World Health Organization’s aggressive lobbying for abortion, including, surprisingly, in tuberculosis programs.

The World Health Organization and wealthy progressive governments are actively working to integrate “sexual and reproductive health”, including abortion and homosexual/trans issues, in programming for tuberculosis.

In addition to concerns about the content of programs, the bill known as the End Tuberculosis Now Act also raises concerns about transparency and the integrity of U.S. foreign assistance. Once U.S. health assistance is commingled and confused with international initiatives it will be nearly impossible to track how U.S. funds are used.

It also makes it harder for the U.S. government to claim credit for any good programs and generate goodwill toward the American people. Beneficiaries of global partnership programs are more likely to be grateful to global bodies than the U.S. taxpayers whose generosity made the programs possible in the first place.

Sponsors of the bill say it is important to show the U.S. is committed to global health, especially after the Trump administration bucked the World Health Organization during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. government withheld funds from the global health body, accusing it of failing to investigate the pandemic and of pandering to China. The Biden administration restored funding to the organization without any caveats and promised unwavering support.

“By again introducing the End Tuberculosis Now Act, we not only signal our enduring commitment to affected communities everywhere, but to our international partners as we seek to eliminate tuberculosis in our lifetimes,” said Senator Menendez (D-NJ), who introduced the 2023 iteration in February.

The bill instructs the President and the Secretary of State to support and fund the World Health Organization and other international initiatives, and to gear U.S. programming to achieving those global standards and goals.

Most controversially, the bill would require the President and Secretary of State to support a collectively funded medical “facility” for tuberculosis vaccine and drug development, much like the Wuhan Institute of Virology made famous by the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill contains no requirements concerning what kind of facility this should be or how it is to be funded and sustained.

Conservatives will wonder how House Republicans can support the World Health Organization with U.S. funding when they maintain that the World Health Organization failed to adequately investigate the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak?

Moreover, the bill does not only contain goals directly tied to tuberculosis. It prescribes a broad set of indirect measures like public media campaigns, education, and advocacy, that have the appearances of social engineering of controversial issues.  For example, the bill calls for programs to “reduce stigma” related to homosexual/trans identity in the context of HIV/AIDS.

The fate of the bill rests with the Republican controlled House. With Republican support, the bill passed by voice vote out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week. It has yet to be taken up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but successfully moved out of the Committee in the previous 117th Congress.

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