In his letter to Tedros, Young criticized the WHO for praising China’s initial response to the coronavirus and for relying on data from the Chinese government.
“The Chinese government’s systematic failure, a failure verified by our intelligence community, to accurately report the number of cases is damaging our epidemiological knowledge of COVID-19,” the Indiana Republican wrote. “Rather than publicly and forcefully combat this obstruction, the WHO has assisted.”
Young called on Tedros to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations’ Subcommittee on Multilateral Institutions for a hearing on how U.S. federal dollars may go to the WHO in the future.
Young, in the interview, said he was optimistic Tedros would appear before the committee given that the United States is the organization’s largest contributor country.
The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Young’s letter comes after Trump said this week at a news conference that the United States would “put a hold on money spent to the WHO.” However, he quickly walked back that statement, saying he was “looking into it.”
The Indiana Republican joins a chorus of criticism among Senate Republicans of the WHO. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has called for a congressional inquiry into the WHO’s response and suggested the United States should cut off funding. Meanwhile, Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) has called for Tedros to resign.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, appeared resistant to that idea Wednesday.
“This is not the time to be doing that kind of change,” Pompeo said. “There’ll be a lot of time to look back and see how the World Health Organization performed.“
Tedros continues to defend the WHO’s handling of the pandemic and said this week he believes the United States will continue to contribute its share of money.
Source: politico.com
See more here: news365.stream
