WHO Under Fire: Parliament Roundtable Questions Global Health Governance After COVID

This article is based on a video published by McKnight Tonight.

WHO Faces Scrutiny at Canberra Parliamentary Roundtable

Two former World Health Organization insiders told Australian parliamentarians that the global health body has strayed far from its founding mission, raising fundamental questions about whether it remains fit for purpose in 2026.

Professor Ramesh Thakur, former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Vice Rector of the United Nations University, and Dr. David Bell, a public health physician and former WHO medical officer and scientist, appeared at a parliamentary roundtable in Canberra on June 24, 2026.

The event examined international health reform and global governance in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which both speakers said exposed deep structural problems within WHO.

Private Funding Now Dominates WHO Decision-Making

Dr. Bell explained that when WHO was established in 1948, it operated on a pooled funding model where 194 member states contributed to a common budget. Technical experts then allocated resources based on disease burden, evidence, and population need.

"Now most of the funding of the WHO is called specified funding, which means it's about 75-80%, which means the funder gives money to the organization, tells them what to do with it, tells them where to spend it, on who, at what time," Bell said.

He described WHO as having become "a work for hire" rather than an independent collection of experts working for the greater good.

Gates Foundation Now Largest Single Funder

The largest single funder of WHO is now the Gates Foundation, a private entity controlled by American entrepreneur Bill Gates. The second-largest is Gavi, a public-private partnership heavily influenced by pharmaceutical industry interests that focuses exclusively on vaccines.

"It's moved from prioritizing population health to prioritizing profitable commodities for health," Bell explained. "There's some good in that, but it's not based on what populations need, it's based on what large pharmaceutical companies and their investors need."

From Self-Sufficiency to Dependency

Professor Thakur outlined how WHO's mission has drifted over nearly eight decades. Countries that emerged from colonial status after World War II initially needed technical and financial assistance with health challenges.

"Instead of self-sufficiency in the almost eight decades since then, we seem to have created a dependency," Thakur said. "The WHO remit and mandates and resources have grown."

He described a troubling trend: authority shifting from sovereign states to international organizations, creating what he called a "deficit in legitimacy."

Thakur also noted that WHO appears more interested in "growing its own resources, size, authority, and personnel" than in helping states achieve health independence or facilitating knowledge transfer between countries.

COVID Response Followed Funding, Not Evidence

Both speakers argued that WHO's funding structure directly influenced its COVID-19 response, which they characterized as inappropriate and contrary to WHO's own pre-pandemic guidance.

"This is essentially what led to the response to COVID, which was totally inappropriate," Bell said. "It caused massive poverty, big shift of wealth from low to high income. Malaria is now increasing, tuberculosis is increasing."

Bell, who began working at WHO in 2002 when private funding began flowing in significant volumes, described how the funding model corrupts decision-making over time.

"You find that your salary is dependent on that private donor, and you know that that private donor will stop giving money if you don't please them," he explained. "So inevitably, and that means that you'll lose your job, that your team, people working under you, will lose their jobs... So you end up pleasing the donor, and this creeps in over one or two decades."

The Sovereignty Argument

The International Health Reform Panel report, co-authored by Thakur and Bell, is titled "The Right to Health Sovereignty" and argues for a return to foundational principles.

Professor Thakur outlined a three-tier sovereignty model:

• Individual sovereignty: Patients consult with GPs who diagnose and recommend treatment, with the patient retaining the right to informed consent and to seek second opinions
• National sovereignty: Governments set health standards, train doctors, establish infrastructure, and regulate medical practice
• Advisory role for WHO: The global health organization provides technical expertise and recommendations but does not direct national policy

"Increasingly we've seen centralization of authority within states and transfer of authority from states to global governance. That is what has produced the backlash," Thakur said.

WHO's "Epistemic Authority" Functions as Direction

While WHO technically issues recommendations rather than mandates, Thakur explained that the organization's technical authority means few states can resist in practice.

"It's authority and legitimacy based on the technical expertise of the global medical community is such that very few states have the strength and the capacity to resist recommendations from the WHO," he said.

In poorer countries, aid conditionality and other pressures mean WHO recommendations "end up being directive rather than mere advice."

Thakur pointed to WHO's early pandemic advice that countries should follow China's approach as an example of the organization accepting claims at face value without adequate scrutiny.

Gain-of-Function Research and COVID Origins

Dr. Bell addressed the controversial question of COVID-19's origins, referencing recent accusations by former US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that Dr. Anthony Fauci suppressed information about the pandemic's source.

"There is overwhelming evidence... there's very strong evidence that there's gain-of-function research in North America, North Carolina and elsewhere in the labs there," Bell said. "During the Obama government there was a moratorium on this in the US. It was shifted out of the US including to Wuhan Institute of Virology."

He noted that NIH funding from the United States was used to support this research through EcoHealth Alliance, and that US consulate reports pre-2020 documented poor biosecurity at the Wuhan facility.

"The virus appeared to have broken out first in Wuhan... near the lab in China that was doing research on that type of virus and doing gain-of-function research to try to make it passage better through humans. Thousands of miles from where the bats are in the bat cave where this virus originates," Bell said.

Scientific Papers Contradicted Private Communications

Bell referenced emails showing that authors of an influential Nature Medicine paper privately expressed belief the virus showed signs of human manipulation, then published a letter calling laboratory origin "a conspiracy theory."

"We know that the people involved were writing stuff in journals that they knew to be probably not the truth," he said.

With approximately 20 million excess deaths during the pandemic period, Bell argued that understanding COVID's origins is critical because gain-of-function research continues on avian flu and other viruses in laboratories worldwide.

"Lab leaks are normal. They happen frequently," he warned. "If we allow gain-of-function research in labs with poor biosecurity... that's what we're doing."

Media Dismissal of Reform Advocates

Both speakers addressed a Sydney Morning Herald article by journalist John Buckley that characterized them as "mega-aligned WHO haters" following their parliamentary appearance.

"The journalist has never bothered to read the reports. He's never spoken to us. So it's essentially made up," Bell responded. "I used to work there. I still work in this industry. We both very strongly believe that an organization like WHO used to be is highly valuable to the world."

Professor Thakur noted that "pretty much every single one of the three or four sentences he mentioned about us and the report, every single one was false and demonstrably false."

Bell suggested the article revealed more about media framing than substance: "Politicians of all persuasions seem to align with this, which was standard 20, 30 years ago, was considered center, center-left, and pro-human rights, pro-low-income countries. Those now that stand for that rather than standing on the side of these large corporations that are trying to muscle into global health are treated in this way. They're treated as hard right or far right."

Reform or Replacement?

The speakers outlined two potential paths forward. The first involves fundamental structural reform of WHO to return it to evidence-based public health priorities and restore member state sovereignty.

The second, more radical option, involves establishing a replacement international health organization built on first principles if WHO proves resistant to reform.

Professor Thakur acknowledged that while the United States can withdraw from WHO and pursue its own interests, "that's much more difficult for almost all other countries, including Australia."

He suggested Australia and like-minded countries should put the threat of withdrawal on the table while making clear they support international health cooperation in principle.

"If the WHO continues to resist major reform, only then will we look for alternatives, and we will still need to act in combination or in coalition with other like-minded states and some civil society groups," Thakur said.

Return to Foundational Principles

The International Health Reform Panel advocates returning to the principles that originally gave WHO its prestige and authority: focusing on basic public health measures like sanitation and nutrition, prioritizing major killer diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, providing technical assistance to countries, and respecting national sovereignty in health policy decisions.

As Dr. Bell summarized: "We are supporting multilateral cooperation in health. An organization like WHO used to be is highly valuable to the world."

The question now facing parliamentarians and health policymakers is whether that organization can be reformed or must be replaced.