How Dare You: W.H.O. Chief Rejects Mike Pompeo’s Claim He Was ‘Bought’ by China

BEIJING, CHINA - JANUARY 28: Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the World Health Organiza
Kyodo News via Getty Images
Simon Kent

The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Thursday reported comments by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo challenging his independence were untrue and would not distract the organisation from tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

“The comments are untrue and unacceptable and without any foundation,” Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a Geneva briefing about Pompeo’s claims.

“Our sole focus – and the focus of the entire organisation – is on saving lives … and WHO will not be distracted by these comments,” he said. “We don’t want the international community also to be distracted.”

As Breitbart London reported, Pompeo is said to have made the accusations in a Tuesday meeting with a bipartisan group of British lawmakers.

He spoke on the back of widespread criticism that neither Tedros nor the W.H.O. have done anything but act in the interests of China since the virus was first detected in the southern chinese city of Wuhan last November.

The Secretary of State is reported to have said the U.S. had a “firm intelligence foundation” to make the claim China “bought” Tedros, per multiple sources quoted by The Times.

According to the Telegraph, Pompeo also compared the W.H.O. to the United Nations Human Rights Council, accusing the globalist body of choosing “politics” over “science.”

This is the second time in less than a month the long-standing member of the Marxist-Leninist Ethiopian party has gone public to plead for support and ask for an end to criticism of his handling of the pandemic.

On July 10, a clearly distressed Tedros wiped tears from his eyes as he blasted a global “lack of leadership and solidarity” during the coronavirus crisis, pleading with world figures to unite and back his troubled organization.

“How is it difficult for humans to unite and fight a common enemy that is killing people indiscriminately?” Tedros pleaded between long breaths and deep pauses that punctuated his dewy-eyed speech.

“Are we unable to distinguish or identify the common enemy? Can’t we understand that the divisions and the cracks between us are an advantage for the virus?”

A W.H.O. advance team is currently in China organising a mission to investigate the origins of the virus that first came to public attention in a food market in the central city of Wuhan late last year.

The investigative team is headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

For her part, the left-wing Clark has previously claimed the W.H.O. was “left out to dry” by a lack of support from the United Nations Security Council and the G20.

“Its toxic geopolitics have stopped it doing anything useful at all,” Clark said of the powerful Security Council in May.

Even before she had heard a single word of evidence as part of her inquiry, the New Zealander stressed she was a “defender” of the W.H.O. because “in the circumstances, it’s done the best job it could.”

Washington formally launched a withdrawal procedure from W.H.O. on July 8 after announcing the move in May.

White House

Speaking after Tedros on Thursday, Maria Van Kerkhove, W.H.O.’s COVID-19 technical lead, said: “As an American, I have never been so proud to be a member of this organisation. I witness the work first hand, what Dr Tedros is doing and what our teams are doing around the world.”

Worldwide more than 15 million coronavirus cases have now been reported and nearly 620,000 deaths, the W.H.O. reported Thursday, according to Reuters.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com

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