Gordon Brown, former prime minister of the UK, writes in The Guardian newspaper
Memo to President Trump: you are wrong to leave the World Health Organization
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/22/donald-trump-leave...
'The official executive order says that “China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300% of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90% less to the WHO.” “World Health ripped us off,” Trump said in the Oval Office as he signed up to the one-year countdown to departure. They pay $39m, we pay $500m – you think that’s a good deal?, went his line of argument.
'But he got his facts wrong. In fact, the USA pays $130m in assessed contributions and China pays $88m...
'So we have to offer a way forward. Member states in each region of the world should step up and make sure WHO is sustainably financed. Australia can lead the search for funders in Asia, Brazil in Latin America, the UK and Switzerland in Europe, and Qatar in the Middle East. Already African and Asian low-income countries have donated to the new investment case produced by the World Health Organization. There lies hope. If the poorest countries can be persuaded to contribute, the world’s richest countries can be persuaded to do so too.'
COMMENT (NPW): Disinformation about national contributions to the World Health Organization is harmful to global health and completely unacceptable. Those who deliberately use disinformation to harm global health should be held accountable, as much if not more than those who deliberately harm the health of an individual.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org