EDITORIAL - When the COVID-19 pandemic eventually passes ( and it will ), we will need to take a serious look at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) and its role in the crisis as well as the CDC’s relationship with the World Health Organization ( WHO )

In recent years, the credibility and reputation of the CDC has taken some major hits, most notably its slow response to the much more deadly Ebola panic of 2014. Despite the appallingly-high death rate associated with Ebola ( up to 90% in some cases ), the CDC dragged its feet in responding to the 2014 outbreak in West Africa. The agency’s initial guidelines were considered too lax and were rejected by 21 states which opted for more restrictive policies, like three-week mandatory quarantines on all health workers returning from West Africa.

Then Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina condemned the CDC’s failure to provide “accurate, timely, complete, thorough information to the public.”  Tom Friedan, CDC Director at the time, was widely criticized for opposing a travel ban to countries impacted by Ebola.

In addition, the CDC has been criticized by senior scientists and others for its cozy relationship with corporate interests like Coca-Cola and allowing its recommendations on public health issues like obesity to be influenced by companies producing sugar-laden beverages.

In the current situation with COVID-19, the CDC botched testing for the virus from the get-go. It developed the test on January 21 but it didn’t begin shipping out test kits to medical laboratories until February 5 and those kits proved to be largely faulty. As Robert Baird observed in the New Yorker:

Still, the three-week delay caused by the C.D.C.’s failure to get working test kits into the hands of the public-health labs came at a crucial time. In the early stages of an outbreak, contact tracing, isolation, and individual quarantines are regularly deployed to contain the spread of a disease. But these tools are useless if suspected cases of a disease cannot be tested. The void created by the C.D.C.’s faulty tests made it impossible for public-health authorities to get an accurate picture of how far and how fast the disease was spreading.

Engaging in scare tactics and pointless hypotheticals does not raise our level of confidence with the CDC either. Claiming that as many as 214 million Americans ( two-thirds of our population ) could be infected by COVID-19 over the course of the epidemic ( how long is that, weeks, months or years? ) was an irresponsible and unjustifiable conjecture. 214 million Americans could also have their homes robbed or their wallets stolen or be in an automobile accident. Could the CDC please explain the meaning of the world could? The CDC works closely with another organization that should pique the suspicion of all Americans, the so-called World Health Organization ( WHO ).

WHO, of course, is an organ of the United Nations, the globalist entity that sees itself as a model for a coming world government. It is dominated by nations that are violently anti-American and largely ruled by authoritarian despots.

In recent years, Communist China has been engaged in an ongoing campaign to assert greater and greater influence within the UN and its affiliated organizations. According to President Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, the Chinese Communists have a “broad strategy to gain control over the 15 specialized agencies of the UN. China already leads four of the UN specialized agencies while no other country leads more than one.”

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in which Communist China’s lies and deceptions aggravated and intensified the spread of the virus, WHO was acting as Beijing’s main cheerleader. It praised China’s handling of the outbreak, applauding its “transparency” and “leadership” and saying its actions were “making us safer.” WHO refused to declare COVID-19 a global pandemic until March 11 and didn’t even send an advance party to China until February 10. This despite the fact that experts believe that this virus likely started as long ago as last October!

Communist China’s control over the World Health Organization runs thro gh an individual named Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General. Tedros is a dedicated Marxist-Leninist who previously served in the Communist government of Ethiopia. While health minister of the violent and brutal Ethiopian regime, Tedros was accused of covering up three cholera outbreaks. Beijing has been a leading patron and financial angel of the despotic leaders of the so-called Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, with the Chinese Communists financing construction of massive infrastructure in that country, including highways, skyscrapers and a metro system. When the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway was built, the Export-Import Bank of China backed the project with $3.3 billion in loans and 400 Chinese investment projects assessed at more than $4 billion are currently operating there. In fact, Beijing is now funding an $80 million WHO “Center for Disease Control” in….Ethiopia.

Can Americans feel comfortable that the public health of their nation ( to the tune of $12 billion per year ) is being entrusted to an agency that coordinates so closely with an international body largely controlled by a puppet of Communist China? Why is the United States shipping a half billion dollars a year to the WHO? Wouldn’t it be better if that money were spent here at home to expand testing and hospital facilities to prepare ourselves in the event of another pandemic like we are now ex are, in many ways, two sides of the same coin. They are ossified governmental or quasi-governmental bureaucracies with huge budgets and leaders with inflated egos seeking to expand their authority over ordinary people in times of crisis. As public institutions that lack the spirit or drive of innovation that reigns in the private sector, they confront problems in a plodding, often politicized, manner,  clinging to old protocols and policies that don’t cut it in times of urgency. That’s why we again must look to the free market to help speed us toward a rapid conclusion to the current crisis.

Dr. James Veltmeyer is a prominent La Jolla physician voted “Top Doctor” in San Diego County in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2019.  Dr. Veltmeyer can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.