UN WHO
Urged on by Conservatives and His Own Advisers, Trump Targeted the WHO

Trump cuts WHO funding in concerted efforts with conservatives and allies

Michael D. Shear, The New York Times•April 16, 2020

WASHINGTON — Fox News pundits and Republican lawmakers have raged for weeks at the World Health Organization for praising China’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. On his podcast, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, urged his former boss to stop funding the WHO, citing its ties to the “Chinese Communist Party.”

And inside the West Wing, the president found little resistance among the China skeptics in his administration for lashing out at the WHO and essentially trying to shift the blame for his own failure to aggressively confront the spread of the virus by accusing the world’s premier global health group of covering up for the country where it started.

Trump’s decision Tuesday to freeze nearly $500 million in public money for the WHO in the middle of a pandemic was the culmination of a concerted conservative campaign against the group. But the president’s announcement on the WHO drew fierce condemnations from many quarters.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said cutting its funding was “not in U.S. interests.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the decision “dangerous” and “illegal.” Former President Jimmy Carter said he was “distressed,” calling the WHO “the only international organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus.”

Founded in 1948, the WHO works to promote primary health care around the world, improve access to essential medicine and help train health care workers. During emergencies, the organization, a United Nations agency, seeks to identify threats and mitigate the risks of dangerous outbreaks, especially in the developing world.

In recent years, the United States has been the largest contributor to the WHO, giving about $500 million a year, though only about $115 million of that is considered mandatory as part of the dues that Congress agreed to pay as a member. The rest was a voluntary contribution to combat specific health challenges like malaria or AIDS.

How Trump’s order to freeze the group’s funding while officials conduct a review of the WHO would be carried out was not clear. Congressional Democrats who oversee foreign aid said they did not believe Trump had the power to unilaterally stop paying the nation’s dues to the WHO. Congressional aides cited a Government Accountability Office report in January that concluded that the administration could not simply ignore congressionally directed funding for Ukraine simply because Trump wanted to.

A senior aide to House Democrats said they were reviewing their options in the hopes of keeping the money flowing. But Democrats conceded that Trump most likely has wide latitude to withdraw the voluntary contributions to specific health programs run by the WHO.

White House officials say Trump was moved to act in part by his well-known anger about sending too much of the public’s money to international organizations like NATO and the United Nations. And they said he agreed with the criticism that the WHO was too quick to accept China’s explanations after the virus began spreading.

           JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY

They cited a Twitter post by the WHO on Jan. 14 saying that the Chinese government had “found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus” as evidence that the WHO was covering up for China. And they noted that in mid-February, a top official at the WHO praised the Chinese for restrictive measures they insisted had delayed the spread of the virus to other countries, saying, “Right now, the strategic and tactical approach in China is the correct one.”

“It is very China-centric,” Trump said in announcing his decision Tuesday in the Rose Garden.

“I told that to President Xi,” he said, referring to Xi Jinping of China. “I said, ‘The World Health Organization is very China-centric.’ Meaning, whatever it is, China was always right. You can’t do that.”

Public health experts say the WHO has had a mixed record since the coronavirus emerged in late December.

The health organization raised early alarms about the virus, and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the group’s director-general, held almost daily news briefings beginning in mid-January, repeating the mantra, “We have a window of opportunity to stop this virus. But that window is rapidly closing.”

But global health officials and political leaders — not just Trump — have said the organization was too willing to accept information supplied by China, which still has not provided accurate numbers on how many people were infected and died during the initial outbreak in the country.

On Wednesday, Scott Morrison, the prime minister of Australia, called it “unfathomable” that the WHO had issued a statement supporting China’s decision to allow the reopening of so-called wet markets, the wildlife markets where the virus is believed to have first spread to humans. And in Japan, Taro Aso, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, recently noted that some people have started referring to the WHO as the “Chinese Health Organization.”

But defending the WHO on Wednesday, Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of its emergencies programs, cited the early warning it sounded. “We alerted the world on January the 5th,” Ryan told reporters.

Ghebreyesus expressed disappointment with Trump’s decision to freeze funding.

“WHO is not only fighting COVID-19,” he said. “We’re also working to address polio, measles, malaria, Ebola, HIV, tuberculosis, malnutrition, cancer, diabetes, mental health and many other diseases and conditions.”

THE ORIGIN OF ANTI-VAXING IS ANTI-COMMUNIST AMERICAN FASCISM

           JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY

Trump’s decision to attack the WHO comes as he is under intense fire at home for a failure to respond aggressively to the virus, which as of Wednesday had claimed more than 28,000 lives and infected at least 600,000 people in the United States.

The president publicly shrugged off the virus throughout January and much of February, repeatedly saying that it was under control. He said in mid-February that he hoped the virus would “miraculously” disappear when the weather turned warm.

Trump barred some travel from China in late January, a move that health experts say helped delay widespread infection. But he also presided over a government that failed to make testing and medical supplies widely available and resisted calling for social distancing that allowed the virus to spread for several critical weeks.

The president’s decision to freeze the WHO funding was backed by many of his closest aides, including Peter Navarro, his trade adviser, and key members of the National Security Council, who have long been suspicious of China. Trump himself has often offered contradictory messages about the country — repeatedly saying nice things about Xi even as he wages a fierce on-again, off-again trade war with China.

“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus,” Trump tweeted Jan. 24. “The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.”

At a meeting of his coronavirus task force Friday, Trump polled all the doctors in the room about the WHO, according to an official who attended the meeting. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said that the WHO had a “China problem,” and then others around the room — including Dr. Deborah Birx, who is coordinating the U.S. response, and Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — agreed with the statement, the official said.

But the president’s critics assailed the timing of the announcement, saying that any assessment of the WHO should wait until the threat was over.

           JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY


Among those questioning the president’s decision to act now was Redfield, who heaped praise on the WHO during an appearance Wednesday on “CBS This Morning,” saying that questions about what the group did during the pandemic should be left until “after we get through this.” He said that the WHO remained “a long-standing partner for CDC,” citing efforts to fight the Ebola virus in Africa and the cooperation to limit the spread of the coronavirus. And he added that the United States and the WHO have “worked together to fight health crises around the world — we continue to do that.”

Pelosi said Trump was acting “at great risk to the lives and livelihoods of Americans and people around the world.” And in its statement, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that it supported reform of the WHO but that “cutting the WHO’s funding during the COVID-19 pandemic is not in U.S. interests given the organization’s critical role assisting other countries — particularly in the developing world — in their response.”

In a tweet, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and later a global health foundation, said the decision to end funding “during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds.”

He added, “Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company

Paper towels may remove virus missed by poor hand washing: study

HAND DRYERS BLOW BUGS EVERYWHERE PAPER TOWELS ARE BEST

People should dry their hands with paper towels to avoid spreading the new coronavirus, according to the authors of a study published on Friday that finds disposable tissues are better than jet dryers at removing pathogens missed by ineffective washing. 

AFP Relax News•April 16, 2020


People should dry their hands with paper towels to avoid spreading the new coronavirus, according to the authors of a study published on Friday that finds disposable tissues are better than jet dryers at removing pathogens missed by ineffective washing.

Global health authorities have highlighted the crucial importance of washing hands with soap and water to protect against COVID-19, which has killed tens of thousands and spread around the world.

Contaminated hands are a major route for germ transmission, potentially spreading pathogens to surfaces -- like door handles or taps -- and causing infection when people touch their faces.

A small study by experts from Britain's University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust found that if hands had not been properly washed, drying with a paper towel was more effective at removing microbes.

"We believe that our results are relevant to the control of the novel coronavirus that is spreading at pace worldwide," said the authors, led by Ines Moura from the University of Leeds.

"Paper towels should be the preferred way to dry hands after washing and so reduce the risk of virus contamination and spread."

Four volunteers had their hands contaminated using a bacteriophage -- a virus that infects bacteria and is harmless to humans -- and then did not attempt to wash the microbes away.

They then dried their hands either with paper towels or a jet air dryer in a hospital toilet and went on to touch various surfaces including door handles, stair rails, phones and stethoscopes.
Researchers found that using both paper towels and jet dryers reduced the contamination on hands.

- 'Wash hands properly' -

But for 10 out of 11 surfaces sampled, the jet method left "significantly greater environmental contamination".

Microbes were found on all surfaces touched after using the jet dryer, with contamination on average 10 times higher than after the use of paper towels.
The authors said the study was particularly relevant for hospital settings.

They noted that while the NHS and World Health Organisation (WHO) recommend the use of disposable towels after hand-washing -- as well as using them to turn off taps -- healthcare facilities in the UK were increasingly using jet dryers.

"Clearly how much virus remains on peoples' hands after washing depends to a large extent on how efficiently people are at washing their own hands," said Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, in response to the research.

"If people do not wash their hands properly then other people may be at risk if standing close to someone using such a jet dryer. This study reinforces the need to wash hands properly so as much virus is removed as possible before drying."

The study was due to be presented at this year's European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Paris this month, which was itself cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

AS A HEAD CUSTODIAN I WAS OFFERED THE OPPORTUNITY TO INSTALL AIR HAND DRYERS IN MY SCHOOL, I INVESTIGATED AND EVEN BACK THEN (THREE DECADES AGO) THE RESEARCH SAID, PAPER TOWELS WERE BEST. 

Draft UN resolution urges global access to COVID-19 material

The draft “reaffirms the fundamental role of the United Nations system in coordinating the global response to control and contain the spread of COVID-19 ... (and) acknowledges the crucial leading role played by the World Health Organization.”

EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press•April 16, 2020

A cyclist passes the United Nations headquarters Thursday, April 16, 2020, in New York. New York planned for a long fight against the coronavirus outbreak amid hopeful hospitalization trends. Gov. Andrew Cuomo extended stay-at-home restrictions Thursday through mid-May and New York City is getting ready to use 11,000 empty hotel rooms for coronavirus quarantines. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)


UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly has until Monday to consider a draft resolution calling for global action to rapidly scale up development, manufacturing and access to medicine, vaccines and medical equipment to confront the coronavirus pandemic.

The proposed resolution obtained by The Associated Press requests Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to work with the World Health Organization and recommend options to ensure timely and equitable access to testing, medical supplies, drugs and future coronavirus vaccines for all in need, especially in developing countries.

The measure, drafted by Mexico and co-sponsored by about 75 countries, encourages all countries to work in partnership to increase research and funding for vaccines and medicine, and to strengthen international scientific cooperation to combat the coronavirus.

The draft also calls for stepped up coordination, including with the private sector, “towards rapid development, manufacturing and distribution of diagnostics, anti-viral medicines, personal protective equipment and vaccines.”

And it calls on all countries “to immediately take steps to prevent ... speculation and undue stockpiling that may hinder access to safe, effective and affordable essential medicines, vaccines, personal protective equipment and medical equipment."

Under new voting rules instituted because the General Assembly isn’t holding meetings during the pandemic, a draft resolution is circulated to the 193 U.N. member nations. If a single country objects before the deadline, the resolution is defeated. Normally, assembly resolutions are adopted by majority votes or by consensus.

General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande sent a letter to member nations on Thursday giving members until 5 p.m. EDT on Monday to object.

If adopted, the resolution would be the second one on the pandemic approved by the General Assembly. Its resolutions are not legally binding but reflect world opinion.

The assembly’s members approved without objection a resolution on April 2 recognizing “the unprecedented effects” of the pandemic and calling for “intensified international cooperation to contain, mitigate and defeat” the virus.

The more powerful 15-member Security Council, whose resolutions are legally binding, has not adopted a resolution since the pandemic began circling the globe, infecting more than 2.1 million people and killing more than 140,000 worldwide, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Its five permanent members, who have been divided on how to address the pandemic, are discussing a French-drafted resolution while its 10 elected members have their own draft. Diplomats expect discussions next week on merging the rival texts.

The Mexican draft before the General Assembly also addresses the World Health Organization, which has come under attack by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has suspended funding the U.N. agency,

The draft “reaffirms the fundamental role of the United Nations system in coordinating the global response to control and contain the spread of COVID-19 ... (and) acknowledges the crucial leading role played by the World Health Organization.”

I Was the Secretary-General of the U.N. Here's How the Coronavirus Crisis Can Bring the World Together

SOCIAL SOLIDARITY AS WELL AS SOCIAL DISTANCING

Ban Ki-moon,Time•April 15, 2020


There is no precedent in living memory for the challenge that COVID-19 now poses to world leaders.

The disease stands poised to cause a far-reaching economic depression and a tragically high number of deaths. Its impact will be felt in every corner of the world. To combat this historic threat, leaders must urgently put aside narrow nationalism and short-term, selfish considerations to work together in the common interest of all humanity.

As a former Secretary-General of the U.N., I support the call from my successor António Guterres for an additional $2 billion in humanitarian aid to tackle the pandemic. This aid—which will contribute to key efforts such as developing and distributing tests, treatments and vaccines—is essential to reducing the virus’s spread.

I also urge global leaders, led by the U.N., to consider how to develop a global governance system that can cope more effectively with any pandemics that may occur in the future. They should recommit to the values of the U.N. Charter, and use other multi-lateral bodies—including the G-20, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—to proactively support the world’s most vulnerable populations.

It is encouraging that G-20 leaders last month committed to implementing any necessary measures to stop the spread of the virus and to injecting $5 trillion into the global economy. But these commitments need to be translated into immediate, proactive assistance to vulnerable countries in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Further, to ensure an effective recovery, this cooperation will need to be strengthened and sustained for some time. It is also crucial that border restrictions and closures, as well as pre-existing sanctions for countries like Iran, which have been severely affected by the pandemic, do not prevent critical medical equipment and supplies from being transported to where they are most urgently needed.

COVID-19 shines a harsh light on the many profound inequalities that scar our planet. Disparities of wealth between and within countries now risk being exacerbated even further by the pandemic.

Similarly, the constraints many countries have imposed on movement and assembly are understandable and necessary under the current circumstances, but legislators and judiciaries must bear in mind that, if not carefully instituted, these restrictions risk accentuating the marginalization of vulnerable groups such as refugees, migrants and racial minorities.

Respect for human rights, solidarity and justice need to be at the heart of our response to COVID-19. We all have a responsibility as global citizens to stay vigilant and not allow authoritarian regimes to exploit the crisis to roll back rights and democratic safeguards. Otherwise, we risk the prospect of a future where rich countries have recovered and reinstate “normal” patterns of social and economic interaction, but poorer states remain ravaged, with their citizens excluded and subject to new forms of discrimination.

Even before COVID-19 took hold, we were confronted by the existential threats of climate change and nuclear weapons. In January, I attended the unveiling of the “Doomsday Clock” in Washington, D.C., when the clock’s minute hand was moved closer to midnight than ever before.

The clock is still ticking, and these threats have been further aggravated since the outbreak of COVID-19. But if the world can show the necessary courage and leadership today, we will be better placed to tackle equally grave challenges tomorrow.

Ban is the deputy chair of the Elders, an independent group of global leaders, and served as Secretary-General of the U.N. from 2007 to 2016

This article is part of a special series on how the coronavirus is changing our lives, with insights and advice from the TIME 100 community. 

WHO, Now Trump's Scapegoat, Warned About Coronavirus Early and Often

Richard Pérez-Peña and Donald G. McNeil Jr., The New York Times•April 16, 2020

President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the Rose Garden of the White House, Wednesday, April 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

On Jan. 22, two days after Chinese officials first publicized the serious threat posed by the new virus ravaging the city of Wuhan, the chief of the World Health Organization held the first of what would be months of almost daily media briefings, sounding the alarm, telling the world to take the outbreak seriously.

But with its officials divided, the WHO, still seeing no evidence of sustained spread of the virus outside of China, declined the next day to declare a global public health emergency. A week later, the organization reversed course and made the declaration.

Those early days of the epidemic illustrated the strengths and weaknesses of the WHO, an arm of the United Nations that is now under fire by President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday ordered a cutoff of American funding to the organization.

With limited, constantly shifting information to go on, the WHO showed an early, consistent determination to treat the new contagion like the threat it would become, and to persuade others to do the same. At the same time, the organization repeatedly praised China, acting and speaking with a political caution born of being an arm of the United Nations, with few resources of its own, unable to do its work without international cooperation.

Trump, deflecting criticism that his own handling of the crisis left the United States unprepared, accused the WHO of mismanaging it, called the organization “very China-centric” and said it had “pushed China’s misinformation.”

But a close look at the record shows that the WHO acted with greater foresight and speed than many national governments, and more than it had shown in previous epidemics. And while it made mistakes, there is little evidence that the WHO is responsible for the disasters that have unfolded in Europe and then the United States.

The WHO needs the support of its international members to accomplish anything — it has no authority over any territory, it cannot go anywhere uninvited, and it relies on member countries for its funding. All it can offer is expertise and coordination — and even most of that is borrowed from charities and member nations.

The WHO has drawn criticism as being too close to Beijing — a charge that grew louder as the agency repeatedly praised China for cooperation and transparency that others said were lacking. China’s harsh approach to containing the virus drew some early criticism from human rights activists, but it proved effective and has since been adopted by many other countries.

A crucial turning point in the pandemic came Jan. 20, after China’s central government sent the country’s most famous epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan, to Wuhan to investigate the new coronavirus racing through that city of 11 million people. Zhong delivered a startling message on national television: local officials had covered up the seriousness of the outbreak, the contagion spread quickly between people, doctors were dying and everyone should avoid the city.

Zhong, an eccentric 83-year-old who led the fight against the SARS outbreak of 2002 and 2003, was one of few people in China with enough standing to effectively call Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, a rising official in the Communist Party, a liar.

Zhou, eager to see no disruption in his plans for a local party congress from Jan. 11-17 and a potluck dinner for 40,000 families on Jan. 18, appears to have had his police and local health officials close the seafood market, threaten doctors and assure the public that there was little or no transmission.

Less than three days after Zhong’s warning was broadcast, China locked down the city, preventing anyone from entering or leaving and imposing strict rules on movement within it — conditions it would later extend far behind Wuhan, encompassing tens of millions of people.

The national government reacted in force, punishing local officials, declaring that anyone who hid the epidemic would be “forever nailed to history’s pillar of shame,” and deploying tens of thousands of soldiers, medical workers and contact tracers.

It was the day of the lockdown that the WHO at first declined to declare a global emergency, its officials split and expressing concern about identifying a particular country as a threat, and about the effect of such a declaration on people in China. Such caution is a standard — if often frustrating — fact of life for U.N. agencies, which operate by consensus and have usually avoided even a hint of criticizing nations directly.

Despite Zhong’s warning about human-to-human transmission, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said there was not yet any evidence of sustained transmission outside China.

“That doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” Tedros said.

“Make no mistake,” he added. “This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one.”

The WHO was still trying to persuade China to allow a team of its experts to visit and investigate, which did not occur until more than three weeks later. And the threat to the rest of the world on Jan. 23 was not yet clear — only about 800 cases and 25 deaths had been reported, with only a handful of infections and no deaths reported outside China.

“In retrospect, we all wonder if something else could have been done to prevent the spread we saw internationally early on, and if WHO could have been more aggressive sooner as an impartial judge of the China effort,” said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of the MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global Health Security at University of Washington.

“Clearly a decision was taken by Dr. Tedros and the organization to bite their tongues, and to coax China out of its shell, which was partially successful,” said Amir Attaran, a public health and law professor at the University of Ottawa.

“That in no way supports Trump’s accusation,” he added. “The president is scapegoating, dishonestly.”

Indeed, significant shortcomings in the administration’s response arose from a failure to follow WHO advice.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bungled the rollout of diagnostic tests in the United States, even as the WHO was urging every nation to implement widespread testing. And the White House was slow to endorse stay-home restrictions and other forms of social distancing, even after the WHO advised these measures were working in China.

It is impossible to know whether the nations of the world would have acted sooner if the WHO had called the epidemic a global emergency, a declaration with great public relations weight, a week earlier than it did.

But day after day, Tedros, in his rambling style, was delivering less formal warnings, telling countries to contain the virus while it was still possible, to do testing and contact tracing, and isolate those who might be infected. “We have a window of opportunity to stop this virus,” he often said, “but that window is rapidly closing.”

In fact, the organization had already taken steps to address the coronavirus, even before Zhong’s awful revelation, drawing attention to the mysterious outbreak.

On Jan. 12, Chinese scientists published the genome of the virus, and the WHO asked a team in Berlin to use that information to develop a diagnostic test. Just four days later, they produced a test and the WHO posted online a blueprint that any laboratory around the world could use to duplicate it.

On Jan. 21, China shared materials for its test with the WHO, providing another template for others to use.

Some countries and research institutions followed the German blueprint, while others, like the CDC, insisted on producing their own tests. But a flaw in the initial CDC test, and the agency’s slowness in approving testing by labs other than its own, contributed to weeks of delay in widespread testing in the United States.

In late January, Trump praised China’s efforts. Now, officials in his administration accuse China of concealing the extent of the epidemic, even after the crackdown on Wuhan, and the WHO of being complicit in the deception. They say that lulled the West into taking the virus less seriously than it should have.

Larry Gostin, director of the WHO’s Center on Global Health Law, said the organization relied too heavily on the initial assertions out of Wuhan that there was little or no human transmission of the virus.

“The charitable way to look at this is that WHO simply had no means to verify what was happening on the ground,” he said. “The less charitable way to view it is that the WHO didn’t do enough to independently verify what China was saying, and took China at face value.”

The WHO was initially wary of China’s internal travel restrictions, but endorsed the strategy after it showed signs of working.

“Right now, the strategic and tactical approach in China is the correct one,” Dr. Michael Ryan, the WHO’s chief of emergency response, said on Feb. 18. “You can argue whether these measures are excessive or restrictive on people, but there is an awful lot at stake here in terms of public health — not only the public health of China but of all people in the world.”

A WHO team — including two Americans, from the CDC and the National Institutes of Health — did visit China in mid-February for more than a week, and its leaders said they were given wide latitude to travel, visit facilities and talk with people.

Whether or not China’s central government intentionally misstated the scale of the crisis, incomplete reporting has been seen in every other hard-hit country. France, Italy and Britain have all acknowledged seriously undercounting cases and deaths among people who were never hospitalized, particularly people in nursing and retirement homes.

New York City this week reported 3,700 deaths it had not previously counted, in people who were never tested. The United States generally leaves it to local coroners whether to test bodies for the virus, and many lack the capacity to do so.

In the early going, China was operating in a fog, unsure of what it was dealing with, while its resources in and around Wuhan were overwhelmed. People died or recovered at home without ever being treated or tested. Official figures excluded, then included, then excluded again people who had symptoms but had never been tested.

On Jan. 31 — a day after the WHO’s emergency declaration — Trump moved to restrict travel from China, and he has since boasted that he took action before other heads of state, which was crucial in protecting the United States. In fact, airlines had already canceled the great majority of flights from China, and other countries cut off travel from China at around the same time Trump did.

The first known case in the United States was confirmed Jan. 20, after a man who was infected but not yet sick traveled five days earlier from Wuhan to the Seattle area, where the first serious American outbreak would occur.

The WHO said repeatedly that it did not endorse international travel bans, which it said are ineffectual and can do serious economic harm, but it did not specifically criticize the United States, China or other countries that took that step.

Experts say it was China’s internal travel restrictions, more severe than those in the West, that had the greatest effect, delaying the epidemic’s spread by weeks and allowing China’s government to get ahead of the outbreak.

The WHO later conceded that China had done the right thing. Brutal as they were, China’s tactics apparently worked. Some cities were allowed to reopen in March, and Wuhan did on April 8.

The Trump administration has not been alone in criticizing the WHO. Some public health experts and officials of other countries, including Japan&aposs finance minister, have also said the organization was too deferential to China.

The WHO has altered some of its guidance over time — a predictable complication in dealing with a new pathogen, but one that has spurred criticism. But at times, the agency also gave what appeared to be conflicting messages, leading to confusion.

In late February, before the situation in Italy had turned from worrisome to catastrophic, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and other government officials, citing WHO recommendations, said the regional governments of Lombardy and Veneto were doing excessive testing.

“We have more people infected because we made more swabs,” Conte said.

In fact, the WHO had not said to limit testing, though it had said some testing was a higher priority. It was — and still is — calling for more testing in the context of tracing and checking people who had been in contact with infected patients, but few Western countries have done extensive contact tracing.

But the organization took pains not to criticize individual countries — including those that did insufficient testing.

On March 16, Tedros wrote on Twitter, “We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.” Three days later, a WHO spokeswoman said that there was “no ‘one size fits all’ with testing,” and that “each country should consider its strategy based on the evolution of the outbreak.”

The organization was criticized for not initially calling the contagion a pandemic, meaning an epidemic spanning the globe. The term has no official significance within the WHO, and officials insisted that using it would not change anything, but Tedros began to do so March 11, explaining that he made the change to draw attention because too many countries were not taking the group’s warnings seriously enough.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.




© 2020 The New York

Trump’s name on coronavirus stimulus checks could become a 2020 campaign issue

Coronavirus stimulus checks: Trump signature scramble could delay first batch

Ben Werschkul DC Producer, Yahoo Finance•April 15, 2020

On Tuesday night, the Washington Post published a story that had been bubbling for weeks: The Trump administration was ordering that the president’s name appear on the memo line of the paper coronavirus stimulus checks set to be distributed soon.

The question was whether the change – which the IRS was reportedly only alerted to on Tuesday - would delay the checks actually being disbursed. Millions of Americans will receive their “Economic Impact Payments” via direct deposit which do not include the president’s name.

The Washington Post reported that the process could “slow their delivery by a few days.” Chad Hooper, national president of the IRS-founded Professional Managers Association (PMA), told Yahoo Finance that "reprogramming historically has led to delays.”

In 2001, the government sent a retroactive tax rebate as part of President George W. Bush’s tax legislation. Then, the 2008 Economic Stimulus Act, also during the Bush administration, included checks of $600 per individual with $300 per dependent child. The president’s name did not appear on checks in either of these instances.

President Trump during Monday's the daily briefing of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The Treasury Department denied there will be any delays in a statement to Yahoo Finance. “Economic Impact Payment checks are scheduled to go out on time and exactly as planned—there is absolutely no delay whatsoever,” said a spokeswoman, who added that they expect the first round of physical checks to be in the mail by next week.

Hooper added that “our team works around the clock to try to make changes which would mitigate impact.”

The Treasury Department also recently announced that 80 million Americans will see the money this week via direct deposit. The first batch of printed checks is expected to arrive by April 24. Any delays may only impact the first round of checks, which will be distributed in waves.
An immediate Democratic reaction

The story appears set to become an immediate 2020 issue, especially if any delays materialize. In addition to questions about the appropriateness of the president’s name appearing on the check, Democrats are focused on how any disbursement glitches will play with average voters.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was one of the most prominent Democrats to weigh in saying in a statement that the effort could delay the payments and “is another shameful example of President Trump’s catastrophic failure to treat this crisis with the urgency it demands.”

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), a former presidential candidate himself, was asked about it on Yahoo Finance. “Are you freaking kidding me?” he responded. He added a possible preview of the message to voters: “I just think that the average person where I grew up, where we come from in Ohio, is just appalled by something so obnoxious as trying to get your name on your check for your own political gain.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Democratic ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said that “Donald Trump is further delaying cash payments to millions of Americans struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table to feed his ego.”


Thousands of families are running out of money as they lose their jobs. Days and hours matter.
But Trump comes first. America always come second.
So Trump is delaying the stimulus checks so his signature can be printed on each one.
Him first. You second.
Always.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 15, 2020

A range of Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill blasted Trump on Twitter.

A spokesperson for the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee told Yahoo Finance that “the committee was not consulted” about the addition. Members are closely monitoring the checks and will “be watching for any sort of delay the signatures may cause.”
The Republican pushback

On April 3, Trump was asked if he wanted to sign the stimulus checks himself. At the time, he said no. “There’s millions of checks,” he said. It’s “a Trump administration initiative but do I want to sign them? No.”

On Wednesday, the Trump campaign highlighted the Treasury Department’s statement denying any delays.

That’s not what the article says.

“Economic Impact Payment checks are scheduled to go out on time and exactly as planned—there is absolutely no delay whatsoever,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said. https://t.co/LC0JW2cmo1
— Matt Wolking (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@MattWolking) April 15, 2020

The Treasury Department is focused on what it sees as a larger success story on the stimulus checks, specifically how 80 million payments are set to be made in the first 2-and-a-half weeks of the program. “This in and of itself is a major achievement,” the spokeswoman said.

On Wednesday, the Treasury Department also launched a “Get My Payment” website to allow taxpayers set to receive a paper check to instead get the money more quickly via direct deposit (by inputting their tax and bank account information).

A government check from 2001. Traditionally, government disbursement have only featured the signatures of civil servants, not political leaders. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Either way, the Democratic response has often featured phrases you could easily see in a campaign advertisement this fall.

Speaking about Americans in precarious financial situations, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) told Yahoo Finance in an interview that “I hope they realize the reason that the check is going to take so long for them to get is because President Trump wanted his name on it.”

Ben Werschkul is a producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC.

Additional reporting by Jessica Smith and Denitsa Tsekova

Millions of stimulus checks delayed because Trump now wants his name printed on each one

THE INDEPENDENT APRIL 15, 2020

Picture: Alex Wong/Getty Images/Twitter

The Internal Revenue Service is due to send stimulus cheques to millions of households across the United States to relieve the financial burden that some are facing during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, those expecting the cheques will have to wait a little bit longer as in an unprecedented move, the US Treasury Department has ordered the IRS to print every cheque with Donald Trump's signature on it.

Around 70 million Americans were expecting the cheques worth $1,200 in the next few days but they will now have to wait longer while the president's name is printed onto the paper, something which has never happened before.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that 'president Donald J. Trump' will appear on the left-hand side of the payment but Treasury officials have disputed that delivery of the checks would be delayed.



According to the Post Trump had suggested to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that the president signs the cheques despite this being a civil servant job and not that of the POTUS. (This ensures that any legal disbursements from the treasury are nonpartisan.)

Therefore, Trump's name will appear in the memo line, below a line that reads, “Economic Impact Payment​," as told to the Post by an administration official. Around 5 million cheques are set to be delivered a week in the US, with the whole process predicted to take around 20 weeks to complete, but the addition of the signature could now add extra days to this operation.

Trump had previously denied that he wanted to sign the cheques. According to CNN, on 3 April he said:
No. Me sign? No. There's millions of checks. I'm going to sign them? No. It's a Trump administration initiative. But do I want to sign them? No.

Regardless of how long this is going to take or if Trump wanted to do it or not, there is no doubt that this is a political move from the president and people are pretty aghast that he would deploy such a tactic in such uncertain and worrying times, when millions could be depending on these cheques to stay afloat.

The cheques are part of the US government's $2 trillion stimulus package to offer financial relief to those most affected by the coronavirus. The US has more than 570,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, the most in the world, which at the time of writing, has resulted in more than 22,000 deaths.

Trump's signature to be on stimulus checks, delaying mailing process: report

Published: April 14, 2020 By Mike Murphy

Federal stimulus checks for millions of Americans will be delayed by several days because President Donald Trump wanted his signature to be on them, the Washington Post reported late Tuesday.

 It will reportedly be the first time any president's signature has appeared on checks to taxpayers. 

Since the president is not actually authorized to sign checks from the U.S. Treasury, Trump's signature will appear in the "memo" space on the bottom left, across from the authorized signature of a nonpartisan Bureau of the Fiscal Service official. 

The Post reported the final decision was made Monday night, and will delay the first batch of checks to be mailed out. 

Treasury Department officials denied to the Post that Trump's signature caused a delay, saying checks were not scheduled to be mailed until next week anyway. The signature will not appear on direct deposits, only on checks mailed to taxpayers for whom the government does not have banking information.

Whole Foods staff protest against conditions as coronavirus cases rise

Workers say too little is being done to enforce social distancing in stores, and some are not given masks or training on cleaning
Michael Sainato Thu 16 Apr 2020 
 

‘The bottom line is we don’t think Whole Foods or Amazon is doing nearly enough as they could to protect both employees and customers at the store in terms of personal safety and public health.’ Photograph: Peter Foley/EPA

Whole Foods workers across the US are planning to hold another sickout protest on 1 May, as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infections at the supermarket chain continues to rise and workers charge the Amazon-owned company is doing too little to help them.


Workers complain too little is being done to enforce social distancing in stores; it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to qualify for sick pay; and some are not given masks or training on cleaning. In the meantime, Whole Foods is reportedly recording record sales.

Dan Steinbrook, an employee at Whole Foods in Boston, said: “The bottom line is we don’t think Whole Foods or Amazon is doing nearly enough as they could be to protect both employees and customers at the store in terms of personal safety and public health.”

Steinbrook, who also participated in a sickout protest on 31 March organized by Whole Worker, a worker activism group said: “Grocery stores are one of the only places open to the public so they’ve become a significant public health concern in terms of stopping the spread of this disease. Any transmission we can stop at the grocery stores is extremely important for saving a lot of lives.”

Whole Foods workers have become increasingly concerned over the confirmed cases of coronavirus at Whole Foods stores. Employees have tested positive for coronavirus at Whole Foods locations across the country including West Orange, New Jersey; Sudbury, Massachusetts; Brookline, Massachusetts; Arlington, Massachusetts; Hingham, Massachusetts; Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; New York City, New York; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The Guardian spoke to several Whole Foods workers across the US about working conditions and the company’s policies. The workers requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

“I haven’t felt safe going into work because Whole Foods hasn’t really done anything to combat the amount of Amazon shoppers in the stores,” said a Whole Foods employee at Bowery Place in New York City, the center of the coronavirus pandemic in the US. “The store has been closing earlier, but they still want us to stay until 11pm to clean, and we aren’t trained to clean or given masks or anything.”

Whole Foods workers have noted some stores where a worker has tested positive for coronavirus have yet to be publicly reported in the media.

“Team members are being told there was a deep clean overnight and not to worry,” said a Whole Foods worker in West Bloomfield, Michigan. “I’m scared to work. I have three immune sensitive people living in my house and I don’t want to get them sick, but I can’t lose my only income.”

A worker at Whole Foods in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, said there have been two positive cases at their store. “It has been almost impossible to maintain basic social distancing practices. We’ve seen huge sales ever since the outbreak and it’s been all hands on deck. As of 1 April, there were no limits on the number of customers allowed in at a given time,” said the employee.

In Minnesota, a Whole Foods employee is currently on unpaid leave after experiencing coronavirus symptoms when their roommate was advised by their doctor to self-quarantine.

“When I talked to my HR department they told me I would need to take a two week leave as well, but unless I test positive for Covid-19, I do not qualify for the ‘guaranteed two weeks paid time off’ corporate is saying they are offering,” said the worker. “Everyone knows tests are limited and unavailable to most people unless they are showing severe symptoms, and as retail workers, many of us cannot afford to go to the doctor unless we’re in desperate need of medical attention.”

A Whole Foods employee in Massachusetts is also currently taking unpaid leave after experiencing coronavirus symptoms.

“I’m in a situation where I can’t get tested or afford a doctor. At first I was told I wouldn’t be eligible for sick pay without a positive test. Later I was told that I might qualify, that pay was being disbursed on a case by case basis. My case has been pending for over a week with no response and I ran out of paid time off,” said the worker.

“My parents lent me money, so I’ll be able to finish quarantine and still afford groceries. Money was tight before bills were due, and those fears kept me from reaching out to a doctor. My symptoms were mild, but I don’t know what I would have done if they got serious.”

A Whole Foods spokesperson told the Guardian: “The safety of our team members and customers is our top priority and we are diligently following all guidance from local health and food safety authorities. We’ve been working closely with our store Team Members, and are supporting the diagnosed Team Members, who are in quarantine.

“Out of an abundance of caution, each of these stores performed an additional deep cleaning and disinfection, on top of our current enhanced sanitation measures. As we prioritize the health and safety of our customers and Team Members, we will continue to do the following to help contain the spread of Covid-19.”

---30---

Exclusive: FDA may have dropped standards too far in hunt for chloroquine to fight coronavirus - sources

Katherine Eban

(Reuters) - On March 21, two days after President Donald Trump first touted chloroquine drugs as a “gamechanger” in the fight against COVID-19, administration officials privately described what they felt was a “win” in the president’s efforts to build an emergency stockpile of the drugs: a hefty donation of pills from Bayer AG. BayGn.DE


In an exchange of enthusiastic emails among federal health officials reviewed by Reuters, Keagan Lenihan, chief of staff of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), cautioned that “3-4 days” of testing would be needed.

“Potentially serious issues with product so let’s be careful when we take that win,” she wrote.

Bayer has since donated three million tablets of the drug, called Resochin, to the U.S. national stockpile for treatment of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. After a brief period of testing, its use in the United States was approved on an emergency basis.

But three U.S. government sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that there is reason to be concerned about the quality of Resochin and its makers, located in India and Pakistan.

Although some rules can be waived in an emergency, the FDA dropped its quality-control standards too far as it scoured the world for scarce supplies of chloroquine drugs, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The plants that make Resochin ingredients and finished doses in India and Pakistan have never been registered with, or inspected by, the FDA, according to the three government sources, as well as FDA documents compiled in the private online database FDAzilla.com. Some chloroquine drugs were already approved by the FDA before the pandemic as antimalarial medications, a process that required plant inspections. Resochin was not approved.

Pakistani regulators, who inspected Bayer’s Resochin plant in Karachi in 2015, found a “gross failure” in manufacturing processes there, according to documents from the Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, reviewed by Reuters. And though the FDA has never screened the Indore, India, plant that supplies ingredients for Resochin, the U.S. agency has inspected other Indian plants run by the same Indian supplier and found serious deficiencies, including falsification of records, inspection documents spanning 2014 through 2019 show.

Responding to questions from Reuters about Resochin, FDA spokesman Michael Felberbaum said that the agency “sampled and tested the donated drugs to evaluate acceptability for importation” and they met appropriate standards.

Asked about Lenihan’s March 21 email, the FDA spokesman said the agency “does not comment on alleged, leaked emails.”

In a statement to Reuters, Bayer said that the FDA had tested Resochin “and found it to be of appropriate quality for release to the (stockpile) for emergency use. We are proud to make this donation to the U.S. government in the fight against COVID-19.”

Resochin is part of a class of medications containing one of two active ingredients - chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine - that the Trump administration has praised as a potentially lifesaving treatment. But the effectiveness of chloroquine drugs against coronavirus has not been proven. Though in use for years in the United States as a treatment for malaria and autoimmune conditions such as lupus, the medicines can have serious side effects, including heart arrhythmias.


The three U.S. sources who spoke with Reuters, as well as an independent expert, said spot-testing is not always sufficient to ensure a drug’s safety and effectiveness, and plant inspections normally done by the FDA are crucial to ensuring overall quality.

“If you’re talking about millions of doses, you can’t test every product,” said Stephen Payne, who for years chaired a practice group specializing in the FDA and health care at a global law firm. “You have no idea what you don’t know.”
A PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

Trump first endorsed chloroquine drugs to treat COVID-19 from the White House podium on March 19, citing “very, very encouraging early results” and downplaying any risks. “If things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anyone,” he said.

The statements came as the administration was being hammered for its slow response to the growing coronavirus crisis, which to date has infected more than 637,000 people in the United States, killing almost 31,000. His comments set high public expectations for the drugs, which are now being snapped up all over the globe.

In emails two days later, federal health officials greeted the Bayer donation of chloroquine phosphate, or Resochin, with eagerness.

Cicely Waters, director of external affairs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), saw a media opportunity. A shipment of two million tablets was due to arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

“I would like to get photos of the product coming off of the FedEx plane so we can be prepared to support the story with visuals if this turns out the way we hope,” wrote Waters.

Lenihan of the FDA told the group of health officials that “if it is the product we think it is and it is not toxic we will release it to ASPR” - the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, a division within HHS.

Reached by email, Lenihan referred Reuters back to the FDA press office. Waters did not respond to an email seeking comment.

One of the participants in the March 21 email discussion appeared to raise the issue of which agency should get credit for the deal. Joseph Hamel, ASPR’s manager of strategic innovation and emerging technology, asked in an email to the group: “How do you want to handle? FDA win? ASPR win? Happy either way, please let us know.”

Hamel did not return an email seeking comment.


Asked about the email exchanges, an HHS spokesman echoed the FDA’s statement, saying the agency would not comment on “alleged, leaked emails.”
‘GROSS FAILURE’

The pills and ingredients welcomed by the administration had origins that should have raised red flags and prompted greater scrutiny, said the three sources who spoke to Reuters.

In 2015, Bayer’s plant in Pakistan, Bayer Pakistan Private Ltd, was cited by that country’s regulators for making Resochin that was lower in potency than labeled, according to inspection documents reviewed by Reuters.

A whistleblower complaint led to the discovery of more than 21 million Resochin tablets that were too weak, more than 12% under the specified weight of 400 milligrams, according to the Pakistani regulatory records.

Officials blamed the problem on a “gross failure” of manufacturing operations, citing improperly calibrated machines, poorly trained workers and insufficient staffing. Weak medications can fail to treat the illness for which they’re prescribed and harm patients.

The investigation was ultimately resolved with Bayer’s agreement to destroy the 21 million doses.

Regarding the 2015 incident, the company told Reuters: “All batches produced with lower content due to an error in production were never released, the corresponding batches destroyed.”

According to FDA records reviewed by Reuters, the active ingredients for the drug are made at a plant in Indore, India, run by Ipca Laboratories Ltd, an Indian drug manufacturer and ingredient supplier that exports its products globally.

In 2016, the FDA issued a warning letter to Ipca regarding three of its plants in India that make chloroquine ingredients and finished pills for companies other than Bayer. The plants did not include the one making the active ingredient for Bayer’s Resochin. Nonetheless, the U.S. government sources said, Ipca’s troubled history calls into question its general practices.

The FDA found the company was deleting, manipulating and fabricating laboratory data, according to the agency’s records. The company vowed at the time to “resolve these issues at the earliest.”

In 2017, the agency restricted drugs and ingredients from those three plants from entering the U.S. market, a regulatory sanction called an import alert. Then in August 2019, the FDA accused one of the Ipca plants of a “cascade of failure” for not properly maintaining its quality data, agency records show.

Ipca did not respond to questions from Reuters about its track record with the FDA.


On March 20, a day after Trump praised the antimalarial drug from the podium, the FDA lifted its import alert for Ipca’s chloroquine ingredients and completed tablets from the three restricted plants, according to a March 21 statement filed by Ipca with the Indian stock exchange.

The company pledged in the statement to adhere to stringent manufacturing standards, “and thus help mankind in the best possible way in these testing times.”


Katherine Eban reported from New York; Editing by Elyse Tanouye and Julie Marquis
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust

Food Vs. Fuel: What Trump's Ethanol Policy Means For The Food System

Oct 25, 2018 Jenny Splitter 

Senior Contributor Food & Drink Forbes
I cover the intersection of technology, farming and food.

Corn is a complicated crop. It’s highly efficient, nutrient-packed and yet, on the other hand, the U.S. probably grows too much of it.

With corn’s high yields and caloric density, it serves as a far better food source than it does as a source for fuel

Corn sits on top of a combine after being harvested in Shelbyville, Kentucky, U.S.

 
The Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with President Trump’s directive to lift a federal ban on high ethanol blended gas during the summer months, though not quickly enough for Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who Reuters reports is urging the EPA to lift the ban on a much quicker timeline. Lifting the ban is a policy shift that’s being celebrated by large-scale corn growers and decried by biofuel opponents. But the policy has implications for the food system too, as many food system reformers say the last thing U.S. farmers should be growing is more corn.

Corn is a complicated crop. It’s highly efficient, nutrient-packed and yet, on the other hand, the U.S. probably grows too much of it. Corn has earned its fair share of criticism — it’s starchy, grown industrially and ubiquitous in ultra-processed food — but this leading cereal crop has also more than earned its place as an agricultural success story.

A beef cow eats grain-based rations at the Texana Feeders feedlot in Floresville, Texas, U.S.
Modern maize is descended from an ancient grass called teosinte. Corn’s ancient precursor was modified over the years by careful seed saving efforts, brought into the U.S. from Mexico by indigenous tribes where it was later introduced to early European settlers, eventually becoming a staple of colonial American cooking.

Synthetic fertilizer, advances in transportation and government subsidies all paved the way for corn to become the U.S.’s highest yielding crop. More corn meant more feed for cattle, which led to a boon in the production of beef and milk, plentiful protein sources for a growing American population.

Corn is nutritionally dense and genetically diverse. There are many, many different types of maize — including popcorn, corn with higher lysine and protein content, blue corn and corn with rainbow-colored gemstone-like kernels. But most of the corn grown in the U.S. doesn’t belong to any of these unique varieties because most of it isn’t actually grown for human consumption at all, and that’s the crux of the food system problem.

Process operator Dean Wingerter takes a corn oil sample, a product used in the production of Biofuels

More than 90 million acres of U.S. farmland is devoted to growing corn, but most of it goes to animal feed and ethanol production. Corn grown for ethanol fuels cars rather than people, and that’s a significant problem for the coming global food crisis, argues Tim Searchinger, Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute.

Ethanol production began increasing in the 1990s (more than doubling between 1999 and 2004), thanks to a combination of federal and state policies favoring ethanol-blended fuel. Ethanol production surged even more dramatically after authorization of the renewal fuel standard in 2005, passed in part to reduce American reliance on foreign oil. Dependence on foreign oil did indeed decline over the years, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. is less reliant on oil as a fuel source. Americans are still pumping plenty of gas, with more now sourced from U.S.-based fracking operations.

An employee inspects freshly picked ears of bi-color sweet corn at the Scotlynn Sweet Pac Growers

That’s not the only problem with policies favoring ethanol production, however. The increasing reliance on ethanol, ethanol blends and biofuels isn’t actually better for the food system or the environment, argues Searchinger, and that’s because of what he describes as “basically a kind of math error.”

Biofuel advocates argue that even though burning biofuel emits at least as much if not a bit more carbon than regular gas, based on both tailpipe emissions as well as the emissions resulting from ethanol production, those carbon emissions are canceled out because similar levels of carbon are absorbed by the corn when it’s growing in the field.

That would be true, says Searchinger, if the land weren’t already in use as farmland prior to shifting to ethanol production. Since the crops grown on the land have been absorbing carbon all along, “you can't take credit for something that was already occurring.”

That calculus, along with increasing global demand for food, cuts against policies favoring crops for ethanol production, argues Searchinger. “We already have this huge challenge that we have to produce more or less 50% more food,” he says, so why use that farmland for what turns out to be an inefficient fuel source?

It takes a large amount of land to produce a relatively small amount of bioenergy, explains Searchinger, who argues in his working paper, Avoiding Bioenergy Competition For Food Crops and Land, that “[a]lthough photosynthesis is an effective means of producing food, wood products, and carbon stored in vegetation, it is an inefficient means of converting the energy in the sun’s rays into a form of non-food energy useable by people.” That’s because it takes a fair amount of energy to take these plants, in this case corn, and convert them into ethanol.

But the plants themselves are renewable, biofuel advocates argue, as more and more can be planted indefinitely. Not so fast, says Searchinger, who says these renewable crops are kind of like a monthly paycheck. Sure, next month there will be another paycheck, but it’s still important to spend that paycheck wisely. “That's the same for plant growth...we can use it for food...for wood products, we use it to store carbon, we use it actually to replenish carbon that microbes are putting back in the atmosphere [but] if we use it for energy, we lose the other uses.” The Renewable Fuels Association, leading trade association for the ethanol industry, rejects this argument, pointing to low food prices and food surpluses in support of continued ethanol production.

Chilled local sweet corn soup is arranged for a photo at Lever House in New York, U.S.

Corn might be an inefficient source of fuel, but it’s an incredibly efficient food crop — a high-yielding, whole grain nutritious option. One ear of corn contains 10% of an adult’s recommended daily fiber intake, with the high lysine varieties providing a fairly decent amount of protein to boot. Many different cuisines rely heavily on corn, which is part of why corn is the leading cereal crop grown throughout the world, followed by rice and wheat.

Corn may be starchy and industrially grown, but that’s exactly what makes it an abundant source of nutrition. With corn’s high yields and caloric density, it serves as a far better food source than it does as a source for fuel. That’s not to say the U.S. agricultural system couldn’t stand to boost other nutritionally dense crops like tubers and oats. Cover crops and new microbial solutions for reducing fertilizer use can aid soil health too. But policies that increase demand for ethanol mean more of the food system will continue to be devoted to corn grown for fuel, not food, which seems to be the opposite direction from where food system reform should be headed.



Jenny Splitter
I’m a food and agriculture writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Popular Mechanics, OneZero, New York Magazine, Slate, Mental Floss and SELF. 

How leaders use emergency powers to target journalists, critics

From Hungary to Thailand, new emergency powers are helping leaders keep a tight lid on public dissent during the pandemic. Human rights advocates say some regimes are exploiting misinformation laws to target journalists and political critics.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights/AP
Danai Ussama stands inside a police station in Bangkok on March 24, 2020 after being arrested for posting a message on social media criticizing the lack of government measures in screening passengers when arriving at the airport.

April 16, 2020

By Grant Peck and Preeyapa T. Khunsong Associated Press
BANGKOK

Health concerns were on artist Danai Ussama’s mind when he returned to Thailand last month from a trip to Spain. He noticed that he and his fellow passengers did not go through medical checks after arriving at Bangkok’s airport, and thought it worth noting on his Facebook page.

The airport authorities denied it, lodged a complaint with police, and he was arrested at his gallery in Phuket for violating the Computer Crime Act by allegedly posting false information – an offense punishable by up to five years' imprisonment and a fine of $3,000.

Mr. Danai told The Associated Press that his Facebook post, though public, was really meant just for a small circle of 40 to 50 people. Instead it went viral.

He believes the government is afraid its opponents would use his observation as proof it was failing the fight against the coronavirus, and acted against him as a warning to others.

As governments across the world enact emergency measures to keep people at home and stave off the pandemic, some are unhappy about having their missteps publicized. Others are taking advantage of the crisis to silence critics and tighten control.

“COVID-19 poses significant threats to government and regime security as it has the potential to expose poor governance and lack of transparency on issues that affect every citizen in a given country,” said Aim Sinpeng, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Sydney.

“As the pandemic is a global issue and is constantly on the news around the world, governments have a harder time controlling messages to the public without exposing how little/how much they do in comparison to other countries around the world,” she said in an email interview.

In Cambodia, where Prime Minister Hun Sen has been in power for 35 years, human rights group LICADHO has documented 24 cases of people being detained for sharing information about the coronavirus.

They include four supporters of the dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party.

Human Rights Watch also reported the arrest and questioning of a 14-year-old who expressed fears on social media about rumors of positive COVID-19 cases at her school and in her province. The group withheld more details to safeguard the girl’s privacy.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban may have been the most adroit at exploiting the health crisis.

His country’s Parliament granted him the power to rule indefinitely by decree, unencumbered by existing laws or judicial or parliamentary restraints. One aspect of the law ostensibly passed to cope with the coronavirus calls for prison terms of up to five years for those convicted of spreading falsehoods or distorted facts during the emergency.

“The global health problems caused by COVID-19 require effective measures to protect people’s health and lives,” acknowledged Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic. “This includes combating disinformation that may cause panic and social unrest.”

But she said, "regrettably some governments are using this imperative as a pretext to introduce disproportionate restrictions to press freedom. This is a counterproductive approach that must stop. Particularly in times of crisis, we need to protect our precious liberties and rights.”

Lawmakers in the Philippines last month passed special legislation giving President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers.

Mr. Duterte, already criticized for a brutal war on drugs that has left thousands dead, has been fiercely belligerent toward critics. The new law makes “spreading false information regarding the COVID-19 crisis on social media and other platforms” a criminal offense punishable by up to two months in jail and fines of up to $19,500.

At least two reporters have been charged by police with spreading false information about the crisis.

“It is feared that Duterte will use his increased authority to quell dissent and further pounce on [his] political enemies,” said Aries Arugay, associate professor of political science at the University of the Philippines.

Egypt expelled a correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian over a report citing a study that challenged the official count of coronavirus cases. Iraq suspended the operations of the Reuters news agency for three months and imposed a fine of about $20,800 for reporting that the actual number of infections and deaths was vastly more than the government acknowledged. Reuters stood by its story.

In Serbia, police briefly detained journalist Ana Lalic, who wrote about a lack of protective equipment and “chaotic” conditions at a large hospital complex. The clinical center said her article “disturbed the public and hurt the image of the health organization.”

The government also closed its daily coronavirus news conferences for journalists, asking them to send their questions by email. It said it's meant to stop the spread of the virus but rights groups and independent media decried it as a form of censorship.

A state of emergency invoked in late March gives Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha extraordinary powers to fight COVID-19, including censoring the media.

More than a dozen people in Thailand are reported to have been arrested on charges related to spreading coronavirus misinformation.

Thailand’s top public health experts deserve credit for their sincere efforts to counter misinformation, said Joel Selway, an associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University, who has published a book on politics and health policy in developing countries.

“This doesn’t mean that the Prayuth-led government would not also take advantage of this to crush political opponents,” he added.

Artist Danai, who said he will contest the charge against him, admits to regrets over writing his Facebook post about his airport arrival.

“If I had known that I would be in so much trouble like this, I wouldn’t have written it.” he said. “I have never been arrested nor gone to court before. I was handcuffed and slept overnight in a police station cell. I was devastated, actually. It affects my family and myself.

“But deep down inside, I would have wanted to write it anyway.”

This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP correspondents Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary; Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia; Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Busaba Sivasomboon in Bangkok, and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.