A letter from a French professor

This year, the government of Taiwan decides to officially demand the World Health Organization the status of full membership for the people of Taiwan. This new initiative was announced by the secretary general of the office of the President, the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of Health in a press conference held on 12 April 2007. This announcement changed the strategy which has been adopted by the Taiwanese Authority in the past ten years, advocating for the country to be an observer in the World Health Assembly.

In the past decades, the WHO administration has been under constant pressure from China and kept ignoring the repeated request of granting Taiwan the status of the membership. During the outbreak of SARS, Taiwan was in constant danger of the virus threat from China, the officials of the WHO just simply refused to help Taiwan because of one political reason: Taiwan is not member of WHO. Fortunately, with the assistance of specialists from the US and Japan, the SARS epidemic was under controlled over a short period of time.

The majority of the people who work for the World Health Organization have a medical background. As we know, the duty of a doctor is to save people in danger despite race, gender, or political affiliation. But specialists from WHO refused to save people in Taiwan for the reason that China has been long against the idea. In fact, it is the WHO that failed to fulfill the principals of its funding motto.

In fact, it is written in the Constitution of WHO that the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition. But the administrations of the WHO just completely ignored the Constitution and continue to discriminate Taiwan.

Moreover, the world is facing now a new danger in the spread of bird flu as many countries are facing perilous prospects in which humanity is severely threatened if it is not properly contained. The SARS epidemic was the most suitable moment for WHO to accept Taiwan, but nothing happened. To protect the people in Taiwan as well as the whole world, the new policy of the government of Taiwan is to urge the administration of WHO to acknowledge the danger caused by the epidemic and take necessary precaution against it. If the administrations of WHO continue to take the stand of discrimination against Taiwan, they might have to accept the dire and unimaginable consequences.