Remarks as Prepared to the World Health Assembly Plenary Session

Thank you, Dr. [Margaret] Chan.  Thank you for your leadership of the World Health Organization. Congratulations, Secretary Jane Halton of Australia, on your election as President of this Assembly.

In the past few years, the Assembly’s leading issue has been the threat of pandemic influenza.  In the past few months, the media buzz about “bird flu” has died down, but the H5N1 strain of avian influenza has not.  It remains a serious danger that we must all face together.

Last year, President Bush mobilized the United States to prepare for an influenza pandemic.  Because the threat is global, our response is also global.

The United States strongly supports the Organization’s efforts to meet the global need for an influenza vaccine.  We have provided $10 million to the Organization to help other countries produce more vaccine.  We have also invested heavily in vaccine research, and in expanding our own production capability.

The United States also works with partners throughout the world to monitor the spread of disease, and to prepare for possible pandemics.  This collaboration is based on four important principles:

• transparency
• rapid reporting
• sharing of data
• scientific cooperation

We continue to call on countries everywhere to share influenza samples openly and rapidly, without preconditions.  No nation can go it alone.

In a pandemic, time matters—and lives are at stake.

All nations have a responsibility—and all benefit—developed and developing nations alike.

We must all participate fully in the Global Influenza Surveillance Network; and we must all work together toward universal implementation of the International Health Regulations.

The United States is also responding globally to other health threats.

We have committed $15 billion to fight AIDS around the world.  This is the largest commitment ever by any nation for an international health initiative to combat a single disease.

We have pledged an additional $1.2 billion to fight malaria, and we remain committed to the Organization’s campaign to eradicate polio.

We have also embarked on a new Health Diplomacy Initiative in Central America.  This new initiative has three planks:

• Direct patient care provided by U.S. personnel, particularlydental care, 
• Training of local health workers at a new Regional Training Center in Panama, and 
• Closer collaboration with non-governmental health-care providers.

This initiative is not only bringing the countries of the region closer together, but over time, it will also make a dramatic difference in the lives of countless people.

Lastly, let me share with you a success that we have enjoyed at home.

We recently began offering senior Americans a prescription drug benefit.  An important lesson was learned here.  We could have done this through a single government-run drug plan; instead, we opted for choice and competition, and the market responded with innovation.

Ninety percent of seniors are now enrolled in a plan.  Competition works—quality goes up, and cost goes down.  People are getting the drugs they need to be healthy.  As a result, the costs of the benefit, both to seniors and to the United States government, have been far lower than expected.

This success speaks to the proper role of government in providing health care.  Governments can and should organize health-care systems that allow markets to provide care, but they should not be the proprietors of those systems.

Government isn’t the source of the innovation that gives us new cures; the private sector is.  Government can’t provide the best care at the lowest cost to the most people; only a free market can.  That is the lesson of the 20th century.

I look forward to discussing these issues with other delegates, and to finding ways to work together that address every nation’s concerns.

Thank you

Last revised: March 13, 2008