By Bonner R. Cohen, Heartland Institute
The Trump administration has formally rejected the 2024 International Health Regulations (IHR) amendments put forward by the World Health Organization (WHO).
A joint statement issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the State Department on July 18 said the WHO regulations would give the organization to much power over the United States.
“The amended IHR would give the WHO the ability to order global lockdowns, travel restrictions, or any other measures it sees fit to respond to nebulous ‘potential public health risks,’” the statement said. “These regulations are set to become binding if not rejected by July 19, 2025, regardless of the United States’ withdrawal from the WHO.”
COVID Power
The restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, lasting more than three years from March 2020 to May 2023, is a major reason why HHS is backing off from the IHR, says HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations open the door to the kind of narrative management, propaganda, and censorship that we saw during the COVID pandemic,” said Kennedy in the statement. “The United States can cooperate with other nations without undermining our Constitution and without ceding away America’s cherished sovereignty.”
Global Not American Response
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the IHR encompasses more than public health.
“Terminology throughout the amendments to the 2024 International Health Regulations is vague and broad, risking WHO-coordinated international responses that focus on political issues like solidarity, rather than rapid and effective actions,” said Rubio in the joint statement. “Our agencies have been and will continue to be clear: we will put Americans first in all our actions and we will not tolerate international policies that infringe on Americans’ speech, privacy, or personal liberties.”
The COVID-19 pandemic “exposed the incompetency and corruption at the WHO,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in the HHS news release.
“Instead of addressing its disastrous public health policies during COVID, the WHO wants International Health Regulation amendments and a pandemic treaty to declare public health emergencies in member states, which could include failed draconian responses like business and school closures and vaccine mandates,” said Johnson.
History Lesson
The WHO’s history of corruption and failure provides ample reason for the United States to keep its distance, says Jeff Stier, a senior fellow at the Consumer Choice Center
“Recall that in 2017, while the WHO was reeling from repeated financial and abuse scandals, its membership elected Dr. Tedros Ghebreysus as its director-general,” said Stier.
“Dr. Tedros came to power in Ethiopia during a 30-year career in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front,” said Stier. “Global public health is indeed critical to American interests at home and abroad. However, we would be derelict to support, endorse, or conspire in any way with an organization so corrupt and infected with anti-democratic principles.”
WHO’s tactics warrant caution, says Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“The WHO has amply demonstrated its incompetence and corruption,” said Orient. “Spreading panic is an effective tool for enforcing global tyranny, with disastrous effects as shown with COVID. Americans should reject any global authority. It is unconstitutional and destructive of America’s God-given rights.
“International bureaucracies are unaccountable, uncontrollable, and hostile to national sovereignty,” said Orient.
Executive Decision
The U.S. House passed legislation last year sponsored by Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-WI., requiring any agreement negotiated between the United States and the WHO be submitted to the Senate as a treaty.
An identical bill sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-WI., in the Senate was halted by a Democrat filibuster. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the WHO and formal rejection of the IHR amendments effectively removes the United States from WHO jurisdiction for as long as Republicans control the White House.
Terminology Concerns
Adopted on June 1, 2024 by the 77th World Health Assembly, a WHO body, the amendments to the original 2005 IHR are presented as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The amendments introduce the term “pandemic emergency,” which is described as “the highest level of global alert the [WHO] Director-General may issue.” A pandemic emergency “requires rapid, equitable, and coordinated international action, with whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches,” an amendment states.
Noting the IHR amendments were developed in close cooperation with the Biden administration, Robert Malone, M.D. said, “[T]he recent history of WHO mismanagement and actual WHO spreading and amplification of mis- and disinformation regarding SARS-CoV-2 virology, immunology, and pathophysiology, pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions for SARS-CoV-2 raise legitimate concerns about how these words will be interpreted and implemented,” writing on his Malone News blog,
“Furthermore, the pattern of repeated arbitrary, capricious, and scientifically unjustifiable decisions regarding COVID and monkeypox suggest that expanding the authority of either the Director-General or the WHO is unwise at this time,” Malone wrote.
Repeat Performance
WHO Director-General Ghebreyesus sparked renewed concerns over his organization’s expanding role in setting global health policies a few months before the IHR amendments were finalized.
Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2024, Ghebreyesus voiced support for a WHO global pandemic treaty to deal with the next “Disease X.” Ghebreyesus described COVID-19 as the first Disease X.
Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph.D., ([email protected]) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.