@Amity Island: Thanks for the link, I do in fact remember reading about this. Although I didn't put it together with the way you seem to have interpreted it.
I have to agree with
@Bruce Stephens on this: With 194 member states, many of whom are either: extremely secretive; paranoid dictatorships or both, there is absolutely zero chance of what you suggest coming to pass.
In general, my initial reaction to the proposal, which hasn't changed, was:
"It's about bloody time!"
For over thirty years, since before
Gulf War 1, I have been concerned about the twin threats of emerging disease and
bio-terrorism. Having an ex-girlfriend who was involved with CND during the 1980's, I did a review of bio-weapons. There was very little public information available. but what I did find was alarming. Though not for the reasons you might think.
At the time, the prevailing western military thinking was on
area denial with bio-weapons you could control:
botulism toxin,
ricin,
anthrax and
smallpox. The problem, in my view, was that this is not the way dictators and terrorists think. People like Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden do not think in terms of controlling the result. Their ideal weapon is literally a chicken egg full of a really nasty
hemorrhagic virus like
ebola, (or worse), which you can break in a crowded airport. Today, the threat is even more dangerous, with either Jihadists deliberately infecting themselves with something truly awful, or right wing extremists cooking up a nasty home-brew in a disused brewery. In both cases, there is a distinct possibility of the bio-weapon being genetically modified to evade vaccines and increase the infection and fatality rates.
Similarly, a few years ago I was doing a review of literature on environmentalism and
re-wilding. While not figuring prominently in the literature at the time, for anyone moderately familiar with the subject, emerging disease linked to climate change and habitat loss was obviously going to become a major issue. Which it now has, hence BoJo's support for the WHO initiative.
Like I say, if you want to get on your soap-box about national sovereignty, its a free country and I will support your right to do so to the hilt. However, make it about things that are a genuine threat to sovereignty, (like the CTTP or any future US trade deal,) not non-issues like this which if we do nothing, can only lead to a disaster of epic proportions.
Remember, it is estimated that the
Black Death killed somewhere between 45 and 55% of the population of Europe. It is not beyond the realms of possibility for history to repeat itself. In fact, while still in it's infancy,
mathematical-ecology [think particle physics] would say that increasing environmental pressure will make such an outbreak an inevitability.
@Bruce Stephens: Interesting analysis in the Guardian
today on why the UK has the highest inflation rate amongst any of the G7.
