Next week the World Health Assembly begins in Geneva. The annual meeting of the World Health Organisation is sure to be a splendid affair, with much self-congratulatory speechmaking, but underneath the WHO is getting increasingly politicised and is failing to combat the diseases of poverty, preferring to look at fashionable western problems, notably obesity and smoking.

WHO officials are adept at using media and political systems to increase their influence, funding and power. Now they are taking an increasingly "Old Europe" approach to foreign policy, as demonstrated in their treatment of Taiwan and Palestine in particular.

The tobacco control convention and obesity initiative show that the WHO is pandering to the desires of its western, especially European, donors, rather than the malnourished millions of Africa and Asia. Smoking and over-eating may have public health aspects to them but they are largely individual lifestyle choices, rather than involuntary causes of death.

It is surely the role of individual countries to decide whether to influence the lifestyles of their citizens. Spending western taxpayers' money on removing Coca-Cola vending machines from schools, and placing anti-smoking billboards in African cities, are strange priorities when every five seconds an African child dies of preventable Aids, TB or malaria.

Last year, for the seventh time, the WHO turned down Taiwan's request for membership. It remains shut out from participating in and benefiting from WHO programmes because the organisation argues that Beijing is the country's true political master. The WHO completely ignored the fact that Taiwan had confronted the Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus openly, while Beijing's response was obfuscation and delay--and 600 unnecessary deaths.

Of course the WHO, like all UN agencies, must deal with the realpolitik of nations. China's power means that its "one China" policy commands acceptance, but the WHO's reputation should spring from its willingness to bring medical assistance to wherever it is needed. Even in times of war, medical emergencies can lead to ceasefires.

Where Taiwan acted to restrict the spread of Sars and send regular updates to the WHO, the People's Republic kept silent. Yet the WHO would not even respond to cries for help from Taiwan for expertise to counter the spread of the disease, because it refuses to recognise the existence of the country.

It was left to Tommy Thompson, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, referring to Taiwan, to tell the WHO last May: "If we are truly serious about stopping this disease in its tracks, then we cannot ignore millions of people who are at risk."

After months of restraint, Taiwan eventually lost patience with the WHO and said that: "The WHO should not become a political stage. Politics should remain out of healthcare."

For the WHO to ignore Taiwan is inexcusable, since its own charter calls for political reorganisation in the interests of public health. It also claims that "the Israeli occupation [of Palestine] is a serious health problem". Its "solution" is to reaffirm "the inalienable, permanent and unqualified right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including their right to establish their sovereign and independent Palestinian state."

Israel is the only country to be repeatedly attacked by the WHO, despite the evidence that the Palestinians' health has improved under occupation. Mortality rates have fallen in the past 30 years in the West Bank and Gaza, and the life expectancy of Palestinians has jumped from 48 to 72 years--rather better than the Arab or North African averages.

Steven Menashi, of the Hoover Institution in California, points out that instead of concerning itself with health matters, "World Health Assembly resolutions and WHO reports condemn the Jewish state for requiring security checkpoints, building settlements, and responding militarily to terrorist attacks. All these may well be worthy of criticism and debate within a deliberative political body, but by presenting them as health concerns, the WHO attempts to pass off its political preferences as scientific expertise."

We shall see next week whether the assembly will once again condemn Israel and ignore Taiwan, or whether it will return to its charter and put health above politics.

We should not hold our breath. Since 1998, the organisation has become progressively more politicised, adopting Continental European attitudes and earning the distrust of commentators and nation states alike.

In the last decade, the numbers dying annually from infectious disease have increased from 17 million to nearly 19 million, while the WHO has played politics.

By focusing on smoking and obesity and promoting a Franco-German world view, the WHO has lost sight of its mission to save the poorest from easily preventable and cheaply curable diseases. Next week is its chance to get back to basics, if it will only take it.

Roger Bate is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.