So the Trump administration has just pulled the US out of the World Health Organization, WHO.

WHO is the biggest and most important international health organization. It’s an arm of the United Nations.  It’s been around since 1948. Almost every country in the world is a member.

Most people have only the vaguest idea of what WHO is or what it does. Teal deer, they do a lot of different stuff, most of it pretty good. They were crucial to eliminating smallpox a while back. They come up with cool ideas like a list of essential medicines and health care products that are cheap and easy to produce, along with easy how-to guides on producing them. They do all sorts of research, especially on public health. They were deeply involved in controlling Ebola. (You haven’t heard much about Ebola lately, right? Thank USAID and WHO.)

To be fair, WHO also has some significant negatives. It’s part of the UN system, so it skews slow and inefficient. WHO leadership did not handle COVID well… I mean, they really did not handle COVID well. They made bad, dumb choices based on not offending (some) member countries, and then they doubled down. It wasn’t great.

But anyway! I have one personal story about WHO, from my time in development, below the cut.

[click to continue…]