The World Health Organization has been under fire ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Many feel the W.H.O. deserves every bit of the blame it is receiving for accelerating rather than slowing the spread of the disease. The latest casualty of the controversy surrounding the international organization is a medical research doctor who tried to do the right thing.
Dr. Francesco Zambon
As the pandemic swept Europe – and quickly reached into Italy. Dr. Zambon was shocked at the lack of preparedness of the Italian government to thwart any kind of pandemic. He went to his boss (then-assistant director general, Dr. Ranieri Guerra) with the complaint.
I should pause this story for a minute and relate a few numbers. The death toll in Italy on a percentage basis was beyond tragic. Nearly 122,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported. Roughly 85 percent of those fatalities were people older than 70. A huge percentage of Italy’s elderly population was wiped out.
By March 2020, more than 13,000 Italians were in intensive care. The virus cut a swath through nursing homes with devastating speed, but it reached all age groups down to toddlers.
While Italy started widespread inoculations by December 2020, the virus had done its damage.
The potential for all of this mayhem, was seen by Dr. Zambon. One of the things he reported to his boss, early on, was that the preparedness plan was old and failed to address medical facilities such as nursing homes. In fact, the “newest version” of the preparedness plan dated to 2006.
Go Away
Zambon initially laid out his concerns to Guerra. To his amazement, Guerra wanted to pressure Zambon to simply update it to 2016. Basically, to “Go Away,” and rubber stamp the old report. But Zambon saw what was happening in other European countries. He repeatedly urged his boss through emails to update the plan as soon as possible.
Guerra’s office refused to do that, and instead pressured his subordinate to intentionally falsify the level of Italy’s preparedness to the pandemic.
Frustrated after repeated – and failed attempts to sway Guerra’s office, Dr. Zambon went to the W.H.O. and reported the problems to their ethics committee.
Here is where the scandal, if not unethical enough, ratcheted to the next level. The World Health Organization’s ethics function is supposed to be sacrosanct. It is where gross negligence and malpractice issues are supposed to be reviewed in iron-clad secrecy.
The agency turned around and reported to the Italian authorities that Dr. Francesco Zambon, had released a report on their ill-preparedness. Zambon was isolated and marginalized. The way in which he was treated forced him to resign in March 2020.
The concerns of Zambon and a few other co-workers initially came about as they were helping other countries to prepare for the worst. Though it is true that Zambon’s timeline of the disease progression across Europe was initially thought to be accurate (and were not), the inconsistencies were immediately corrected.
Guerra suddenly denied any fallout was not his responsibility. He said he was only responsible for the period from 2014 to 2017, which undoubtedly led to his resignation.
The W.H.O.
The bigger ethical issue here (though any unnecessary COVID death was tragic), is how and why the World Health Organization, took a confidential, ethical complaint by a legitimate source and made the whistleblower “public.”
This move has prompted more than 30 groups, including Transparency International and the Whistleblowing International Network to come down on the agency. They are demanding the W.H.O. reform its whistleblowing protection policy and pointing out that the agency might have been yielding to pressure from China.
In the end, it is Zambon who stands tall, but at what personal price, and beyond that what is the price that 122,000 Italians paid for being sacrificed? There is no price high enough. The question remains if anyone at the W.H.O. cares?
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