[Originally published in Synapse on September 24, 1987.]
Once the obligations of an international agreement are broken for the first time, it's easier to continue breaking the agreement. Congress lives by this truism. In 1946 the United States joined the WHO and agreed to live by its constitution, which grants the World Health Assembly the power to raise funds.
The fiscal year 1987 World Health Organization (WHO) budget required the United States to contribute $61.7 million. In a misguided effort to trim a few million dollars off a trillion dollar budget, Congress thumbed its nose at the obligation.
Only $46 million was allotted by Congress, creating a financial crisis at the WHO. The Reagan administration compounded this cash-flow problem by paying only $10 million last January, deferring payment of the remaining $36 million until next month. WHO funding for fiscal year 1988 has been frozen at 1987 levels ($46 million) by the House of Representatives.
The Senate will soon vote on this issue and is unlikely to change the WHO's allotment unless a significant public outcry is generated. The WHO deserves full U.S. support. Founded in 1948 as a special agency of the United Nations, the WHO has had spectacular success in decreasing infant mortality rates and improving life expectancies around the world.
This organization led the successful crusade to eradicate smallpox, provided leadership in the treatment of diarrheal disease using oral rehydration therapy, and has taken the lead in worldwide AIDS surveillance, research, education and prevention. The WHO often provides innovative approaches to solving problems that save many lives. Its program to make immunizations available to every child in the world illustrates this well.
The program aims to institutionalize immunizations at the community level. This approach is superior to many nations' military-administrated immunization drives where soldiers arrive in villages bearing syringes and rifles while well-meaning parents hide their children to "protect" them.
A mere 1 percent of this year's United States Department of Defense budget could immunize every child in the world against many deadly diseases, including polio, tetanus and diphtheria —diseases rarely seen outside of textbooks in the United States, but tragically common in many developing nations. WHO money is well spent.
It attacks a key component in the cycle of poverty of developing nations: infant mortality. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)sponsored studies in Pakistan and Brazil have shown that coordinating family-planning educational efforts with measures reducing infant mortality successfully led to smaller families with less starvation and healthier children.
Though these worthy efforts alone justify full U.S. support of the WHO for humanitarian reasons, there are other reasons that are closer to home. Some WHO projects directly benefit U.S. citizens. WHO surveillance of many diseases — including influenza — is essential to vaccine development for U.S. citizens.
The standardization of biological products is invaluable to our researchers, consumers and manufacturers. U.S. citizens who travel abroad are immunized according to WHO guidelines. Congress is not merely cutting another health program when it guts the WHO.
A multilateral obligation is being ignored. Such obligations are the foundation of all international cooperation, including nuclear arms control and chemical warfare pacts.
Future negotiations are weakened each time our country unilaterally breaks its promises. The Senate should restore full WHO funding.
