The future WHO (World Health Organization)

Originally published in Gatestone Institute

Recently the World Health Assembly (WHA), the governing organization of the World Health Organization (WHO), met to discuss and evaluate proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations. This document sets the legal framework for how countries respond to public health outbreaks that can cross borders and the broad range of responsibilities for the WHO in response. Amazingly, it was the Biden administration that proposed the set of amendments that would have dramatically expanded the scope and authorities of the WHO.

Rep. Chris Smith, the ranking member of the House Global Health Subcommittee, warned:

“The alarming amendments offered by the Biden Administration to the WHO’s International Health Regulations would grant new unilateral authority to [WHO] Director-General Tedros to declare a public health crisis in the United States or other sovereign nations, without any consultation with the U.S. or any other WHO member.

“Specifically, the Biden Amendment would strike the current regulation that requires the WHO to ‘consult with and attempt to obtain verification from the State Party in whose territory the event is allegedly occurring in,’ ceding the United States’ ability to declare and respond to an infectious disease outbreak within the United States, dependent on the judgment of a corrupt and complicit UN bureaucracy.”

Just as amazingly, the amendments failed to be accepted at the WHA meeting. Instead, future amendments and potentially a future International Pandemic Treaty were pushed out into the future. The delay was declared by some to be a huge win. Color me skeptical. I believe that the time will be used to develop and market even more diabolical policies. Now is not the time to take a victory lap, it is the time to be ever vigilant.

In January of 2022, the Biden Administration quietly proposed thirteen amendments to be considered by the WHA. There was no notification to the U.S. Congress on the amendments, which would have significantly enhanced the WHO’s power. For example, experts believed that the language would have enabled the WHO director to unilaterally declare a “pandemic” or “serious health status” within any country without providing the country a chance to respond or advising the WHO prior to a declaration. Instead, the director would unilaterally establish the parameters and basis for the decision.

Similar to the U.S. Disinformation Board that the Department of Homeland Security recently proposed, the WHO would now also be empowered to combat supposed disinformation and misinformation. It is disconcerting that governmental institutions and international organizations are seeking the power and public resources to combat what they determine to be misinformation; it is a development that should concern us all.

The Biden Administration alarmingly wanted to give this power to an international organization with no transparency, no accountability to the U.S. or anyone else, and an abysmal track record of disregarding warnings from Taiwan about the human-to-human transmissibility of the COVID-19 virus and instead colluded with the Chinese Communist Party in lying to the world about the danger of the virus while the CCP shut down domestic travel but encouraged foreign travel.

The good news is that these amendments have not been adopted. The WHA basically tabled the amendments for potential future consideration. Instead, it created a working group to further develop and consider those and other amendments. It also will begin work on a new International Pandemic Treaty. Expectations are already being created for what the result of these actions should be: unsettlingly, they seek to expand on the authorities the Biden Administration was prepared to concede to the WHO.

Read more HERE.