IHT bootlick wrongly new WHO chief
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1.IHT praised new WHO new chief Margaret Chan wrongly:
Weathering each crisis with a direct, outspoken approach, Chan proved to be more of a no-nonsense British civil servant than a Chinese Communist Party bureaucrat.....
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/05/news/profile.php
Today Strait Times 14.Jan 2007 Sunday page 31
2.But IHT failed to take note, or choose to forget ,that she was condemed by HK Legislative Council without any objection!!
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To add ", and condemns the former Director of Health, Dr Margaret CHAN FUNG Fu-chun" after "the Hospital Authority".
The Report of the Select Committee to inquire into the handling of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak by the Government and the Hospital Authority.Hong Kong Legislative Council Agenda,
Wednesday 7 July 2004 at 2:30.
Dr Margaret CHAN FUNG Fu-chun
The results of Motion of Legislative Council to condemn Magrat Chan.:
Members.....Result....Attained.....Agree....Object......Abstain
Functional...Passed.....17...........17..............0..........0
Districts......Passed.....18...........16..............0...........1
Caption: Legislative Council passed the Motion to condemn Margaret CHAN FUNG Fu-chun by majority
2.Even the pro governments Members agree condemn her.
HK people are the best jugdes of her performances during
1997 bird flu and SARS.
3.Beijing cant found ''better'' person to promote Chinese images.
HK people too anxious to promote HK images and all forget her
performances.
She once said since SARS was not on the list of UN contagious diseases,
therefore no need to report to WHO!! -
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/05/news/profile.php
At WHO, a chief cut from Hong Kong cloth
Job could put her at odds with Beijing
By Elisabeth Rosenthal,Published: January 5, 2007
NEW YORK: She was nominated by the People's Republic of China to be chief of the World Health Organization and has been repeatedly dubbed "the Chinese candidate." But there is little in terms of style or history that links Dr. Margaret Chan, who took office this week as the agency's new director general, to the country she still calls "mainland China."
Raised in the British colony of Hong Kong and trained as a doctor in Canada, Chan was Hong Kong's chief public health official from 1994 to 2003, an extraordinary decade that spanned not only the territory's return to China, but also two public health crises: the first outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, in 1997, and the 2003 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed 800 people worldwide, nearly a third of them in Hong Kong.
Weathering each crisis with a direct, outspoken approach, Chan proved to be more of a no-nonsense British civil servant than a Chinese Communist Party bureaucrat.
Throughout her tenure, Chan was best known for her differences with Chinese officials over how to handle health issues, from counterfeit medicines to infectious diseases. During the SARS and bird flu outbreaks, the Hong Kong government published painstaking daily updates on illness and death, while China — the place that many scientists believe both viruses originated — worked hard to cover up the problems, allowing the diseases to spread.
At home in Cantonese and English, Chan admits that her Mandarin — the official language in China — is slightly ragged. And Chinese officials must cringe a bit when she refers to "mainland China," a term regarded as something of an aberration in Beijing, where language is chosen carefully to avoid lending credence to the concept of a separate, independent Taiwan.
At Beijing's urging, the WHO has repeatedly voted to reject Taiwan's requests to attend the organization's yearly meeting as an observer. In a news conference Thursday, Chan said that this would not change, but that Taiwanese scientists would be able to attend WHO meetings as technical experts, in accordance with a policy established in 2005.
Chan, 59, said that she was surprised when officials in Beijing called last fall to tell her they wanted to nominate her to lead the United Nation's health agency.
Before she accepted, "I said, 'I really need to understand why China wants to nominate me,'" said Chan, a chatty woman who wore a fashionable black pantsuit at a recent interview near the United Nations.
Subsequent discussions convinced her that China was ready to become a more active and open participant in global health matters. "I said: 'Good, all right, if you're really interested I'm happy to take on this challenge. But don't think I'm going to let you off the hook.'"
Still, during the highly politicized campaign for WHO leadership last year, many experts objected that Chan lacked the clout and experience for the job and to stand up to China. Since then, some detractors have softened these views.
Chan's new position could quickly put her at odds with Beijing. International scientists complain that China is still playing down its bird flu problem and has been slow to share virus samples that would allow them to develop better vaccines.
"It is a huge step, moving from managing a health department of a British colony to managing a global health system, but I'm less worried about that now," said Dr. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, a medical journal, who had previously questioned Chan's qualifications.
"In her speeches so far, she's sent strong signals about her intentions — to focus on Africa and women. And I think that should be applauded."
Some doctors who worked with Chan when she was in Hong Kong, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, regard her vault to power as unwise, even surreal, "like making a colonel head of the armed forces."
Chan knows that she faces enormous challenges. Last year, WHO announced that it would take a more active role in ensuring that expensive medicines were available to poor people in the developing world. With the rapid spread of bird flu, the agency has become the de facto coordinator for preparedness against pandemics.
Chan, who has been WHO's chief communicable disease official for the past two years, will have to show "much stronger engagement" in confronting drug companies in patent disputes so that poor people can get medicines for HIV and malaria, said Tido Von Schoen Angerer, of Doctors Without Borders' Campaign for Essential Medicines.
To promote women's health, she will have to champion improved access to contraception and abortion, said Horton, moves that are opposed by the U.S. government.
Chan says that she believes in "coming together rather than confrontation" and hopes that her "access" in Beijing will help to improve collaboration on bird flu, for example.
But she insists she will not compromise on things like the need to share viral samples and will fight, if required.
Born in Hong Kong in 1947, Chan had planned to become a teacher. Instead, she followed the man she would later marry, David Chan, to medical school in Canada. "I gave up my teaching career to study medicine with him," she said. "Now he says it's his turn to retire early to join me in Geneva."
Returning home, she rose steadily through the bureaucratic ranks of the Hong Kong health department, becoming director in 1994. Despite pressure from Beijing, she banned imports of substandard foods and medicines from across the border in China. "I also banned ice cream from the U.S.," she says, with a smile.
But bird flu and SARS were Chan's trial by fire, catapulting her into the international limelight. On Dec. 29, 1997, to combat the first recognized outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza in people — four had died in Hong Kong — Chan ordered all 1.2 million chickens and ducks in the city killed and closed down live poultry markets. That draconian strategy has become a model for controlling the disease in outbreaks taking place elsewhere.
After the SARS outbreak in 2003, a Hong Kong legislative panel concluded that Chan had failed to respond quickly enough, ignoring rumors that the deadly pneumonia was killing people in neighboring Guangdong Province.
But many experts say that the real culprits were the Chinese officials who refused to share data. Chan told the panel that the Guangdong health department had failed to respond to her numerous inquiries, regarding infectious disease as a state secret.
Once SARS was confirmed in Hong Kong, Chan organized daily briefings, displaying a candidness that displeased some Chinese officials, who were convinced that the term SARS had been created by the World Health Organization "to discredit Hong Kong," she said. (The Chinese territory is officially known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, or Hong Kong SAR.)
"The leadership in mainland China has moved a long way since then," she said.
"Hong Kong demanded transparency. They know what kind of person I am."