COMIC RELIEF FROM THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
By Carey Roberts (01/04/06)
Feeling a little bored, maybe suffering from after-the-holiday blues? The World Health Organization never fails to provide a moment of levity in our otherwise hum-drum lives.
Take the AIDS epidemic. After all these years of seeing the epidemic spread unchecked, I’m beginning to wonder if the world health body views AIDS as its stealth population control strategy.
If that statement seems a bit harsh, consider the WHO’s “safe sex” campaign which pushes this Russian-roulette message: “Go ahead and enjoy no-fault sex with multiple partners, just so long as you use a condom.” As we know, condoms fail 15% of the time. [www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/1207roberts.html]
And if you want a real belly laugh, check out the WHO Sex Work Toolkit, designed to make prostitutes feel good about themselves as they service their AIDS-infected clientele. Just in case you were worried, the Toolkit comes with this disclaimer: “In no event shall the World Health Organization be liable for damages arising from its use.” [http://who.arvkit.net/sw/en/index.jsp]
Then there’s the malaria epidemic that claims the lives of millions each year. Spraying tiny amounts of DDT on the walls of houses is highly effective in killing malaria-infected mosquitoes. But the WHO won’t allow household spraying because – you guessed it -- that might offend the environmentalists.
And last July the WHO added two abortion-inducing drugs – RU-486 and Mifrepex – to its list of “essential medicines.” At least WHO won’t have to worry about providing so many vaccines and vitamin pills to little kids.
Here’s the most recent laugh-getter from the World Health Organization. Can you imagine the world body doing a study that cherry-picks its participants and relies on flawed methods in order to reach a pre-determined conclusion?
That’s exactly what the WHO did with its recent “Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women.” [www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/index.html]
Every study I’ve seen shows that domestic violence is an equal opportunity problem. Professor Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire interviewed over 8,000 men and women in 16 countries around the world. He found high rates of assault “perpetrated by both male and female students.” [http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID16.pdf]
And recent reports from Canada [http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/85-224-XIE/85-224-XIE2005000.pdf ] and Australia [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17051698%255E1702,00.html] likewise reveal that women are equally likely to assault their male partners.
But that rendition of gender equality didn’t sit too well with the lavender ladies at WHO’s department of Gender, Women, and Health. They solved that problem by designing a study that – you guessed right again – only interviewed females.
Then the WHO asked radical feminist organizations around the world to conduct the surveys. That’s like doing a study on persons’ opinions about wearing animal fur, and letting PETA run the show.
Since the interviewers knew nothing about how to do surveys, they were put through a 3-week indoctrination – er, training – program. The training was based on a manual called “Researching Violence Against Women” [www.path.org/files/GBV_rvaw_front.pdf], which, not surprisingly, had very little to say about domestic violence against men.
Of course they ensured the survey not ask any questions whether the woman had ever injured her husband or boyfriend – that might get a little embarrassing. To top it off, they did a little definitional hocus-pocus, absurdly claiming that “abuse” is the same as “violence.
To no one’s great surprise, the survey found that there’s plenty domestic violence around the world, and of course it’s those brutish men who are at fault. Predictably the WHO apparatchiks blamed it on the all-powerful patriarchy: “Violence against women is both a consequence and a cause of gender inequality,” laments the report.
Then they got the boss to give a headline-grabbing endorsement. “This study shows that women are more at risk from violence at home than in the street and this has serious repercussions for women’s health,” according to WHO director Lee Jong-wook.
Of course Dr. Jong-wook never mentioned that men are twice as likely as women to die from violence-related causes. That fact didn’t quite fit into the punch-line.
As if that wasn’t enough, the WHO had the arrogance and chutzpah to bill the fraudulent survey as a “landmark study.” [www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr62/en]
It may be true that laughter is the best medicine, but this time the joke’s on us -- the U.S. taxpayer.
In order to support this misguided comedy routine, each year the United States sends the WHO $95 million for assessed dues, and another $45 million for so-called “extra-budgetary” contributions. That money is funneled through the Office for Global Health Affairs in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Eventually your hard-earned money winds up in the Swiss bank account of a UN bureaucracy that lacks fairness, accountability, or intellectual honesty.
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