Beyond federal websites (.gov, .mil) there are lot of gov contractor websites that are being taken down (presumably at the demand of agencies) that contain a wealth of information and years of project research.
The pedestrian "right", which I encounter on a day-to-day basis the months I visit client sites a couple hundred miles inland of the Gulf of America, will look at climatelinks.org and say something like: "all I see are foreign countries, why are we spending money on this instead of citizens of the United States?".
IMHO, we should do it because the person who pays tends to have more power over what happens. Just like how in high school the kid who drives everyone tends to have a higher than normal say in what the friend group does.
> Why should US fund WHO ~5-6 times more than China [0] (and more than EU)
The base contributions are a function of GDP. The extra contributions are voluntary, and the US did it because it was in the US’ interests. It’s a founding error in the US foreign policy budget and was a good investment in terms of goodwill and data for American health research institutions.
WHO must focus where it is needed most. Public health is much better in the EU (and even in Europe, accounting for places like Belarus and Ukraine) than in China, and there are much fewer epidemics that emerge in Europe in general.
The whole idea is that if we limit the emergence of epidemics where they are likely to happen, we end up with fewer pandemics after these epidemics spread worldwide (which includes Europe and North America). The whole world is better without another COVID, Ebola, or Polio.
> only to have the WHO be controlled by China
This is bullshit. The WHO is not controlled by China any more than other UN institutions. What is certain, though, is that the US won’t have any say whatsoever once they are out.
“The whole idea is that if we limit the emergence of epidemics where they are likely to happen, we end up with fewer pandemics after these epidemics spread worldwide”
I realize I’m arguing against a negative but has that actually been accomplished? I don’t argue that they (I assume) probably help with things like Ebola outbreaks but that’s almost certainly never going to become a pandemic.
Some below of contractors that work with US AID:
- https://www.edu-links.org/ (taken down)
- https://www.genderlinks.org/ (taken down)
- https://usaidlearninglab.org/ (taken down)
- https://agrilinks.org/ (presumably at risk)
- https://www.climatelinks.org/ (presumably at risk)
- https://biodiversitylinks.org/ (presumably at risk)