It’s about time the U.S. stopped wasting taxpayer money on the World Health Organization 

In an ideal world, a coalition of scientists dedicated to studying the best way to improve public health would be a great idea. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. 

Experts, however much knowledge they have in a given field, are not policymakers. They do not always have the ability to parse through political incentives, which is why the WHO is composed of ideological bureaucrats rather than scientists.  

In effect, this means that the organization gets to monopolize the ability to interpret studies, benefitting from the appearance of “scientific objectivity” while acting merely as a mediator between scientists, the public, and lawmakers.  

When the WHO endorses a political agenda, its critics are labelled science deniers while advocates are welcomed to dismiss all contrary arguments, however well-reasoned, regardless of the evidence.   

This influence would be tolerable were the WHO actually interpreting the science, but this is obviously not the case. 

One only needs to turn to the WHO’s conception of “harm reduction” to see the flawed nature of their reasoning in real time. When it comes to drug policy, the organization consistently rejects the evidence in favor of its political agenda. 

There has yet to be a single study showing that e-cigarettes come anywhere near real cigarettes in terms of harm. Yet, the WHO consistently follows a controversial prohibitionist agenda, going so far as to misinterpret, stretch, and ignore existing evidence to promote this position.  

For one, the WHO misidentifies nicotine as the primary agent of harm, single-handedly dismissing an entire body of research showing that the compound can be highly beneficial. 

But, more importantly, prohibition has never been shown to work. Rather, it only decreases the incentive to turn away from the much more harmful alternative – cigarettes. People are going to smoke, whether one likes it or not. The policy question is not “how do we get them to stop”, it’s “What do we want them to smoke?” 

The WHO doesn’t even attempt to answer that question because it refuses to accept reality. 

Developing a truly accurate scientific consensus requires that one consider the quality as well as the quantity of studies, but scientific organizations like the WHO often fail to do so. 

Instead, they tend to pool together similarly designed studies and dismiss the rare dissenting opinion. This method can lead to decades of ill-conceived policy, because a plurality of studies with the same problem will usually outcompete the rare, quality outliers. 

Recently, the World Health Organization has decided to claim that “no level of alcohol is safe for our health”. This revelation comes after decades of scientific consensus that a glass or two of wine was not only fine but beneficial.  

This consensus came from a series of improperly designed studies comparing populations who consumed wine with those who didn’t. These studies ignored the multitude of other factors that could be caught up in such a generalized lens and made unsubstantiated claims. Unsurprisingly to those who actually read the studies, it came out later that people who drink a glass or two of wine with dinner tend to have healthier habits. 

This is the foundation of “scientific consensus”. 

What’s worse, however, is the WHO’s response. Rather than correcting the error and moving on, they took it a step further and proclaimed that any amount of alcohol is harmful. 

This is a tactic the WHO often employs: weaponizing semantics to further their propaganda. It’s technically true: any amount of alcohol is carcinogenic, but it’s true in the same spirit that driving is deadly. 

Imagine if the WHO announced “no amount of driving is safe.” After all, one’s risk of getting in an accident goes up even on a five-minute drive. However, the risk is so small we are willing to ignore it.  

Sure, one does not have to drink to make a living, while they do have to drive. How about sunlight, then? Any amount of sun exposure increases one’s risk of skin cancer, but we don’t have to put on sunscreen for a twenty-minute walk.  

The reasoning is specious and silly.  

According to the HHS, one’s risk of developing any “alcohol-related cancer” (which in and of itself is a misnomer) as a moderate drinker increases by one in a hundred. This is one of the more severe estimates, with some meta-analyses even concluding that there’s no significant difference between moderate and nondrinkers at all. 

All that the WHO’s proclamation, “no level of alcohol is safe for our health”, serves to do is stoke fear, and that was their goal. Why? Because the organization is a political institution first, and a scientific institution second.  

Until this state of affairs changes, it is a waste of money to contribute to the WHO. Neither taxpayers nor their representatives benefit from being propagandized into supporting bad policy, and the American people’s hard-earned money should not go to an organization designed to do so.