WHO’s Proposed Changes Could Lead to Global Health Tyranny

This is a summary and exploration of the news covered here: https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/WHO-IHR-2005-Amendments-and-Pandemic-Treaty.-Rejecting-Monopoly-Power-Over-Global-Public-Health.pdf

Recent negotiations for amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) and a pandemic treaty could lead to a supranational bureaucracy with increased powers for the WHO and its Director-General. These amendments and treaty could replace international collaboration with centralized dictates, stifle dissent, and legitimize health colonialism and financial pressure on low-income countries.

One of the proposed amendments to the IHR could legitimize health colonialism and financially pressure low-income countries into compliance, undermining their sovereignty. Powerful governments and private stakeholders could use the revised IHR as a legal framework to push their own interests. The amendments also encourage collaboration to counter dissent from positions held by governments and the WHO, and an expanded surveillance system with health certificates and locator forms.

The WHO is also seeking power over the identification, production, and allocation of health products, which could undermine the sovereignty of State Parties and create an atmosphere of mistrust. Furthermore, the proposed WHO pandemic treaty could cede an inappropriate amount of authority to the WHO, recognizing its central role in pandemic prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery of health systems.

The proposed treaty also ostensibly encourages tackling false and misleading information, and claims the WHO Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network would facilitate the global supply of medicines and other health products. There is a risk, however, that the Network will be used to push profitable pharmaceutical products with little-understood safety profiles.

Ultimately, international collaboration and sharing to benefit global health cannot be improved by assigning concentrated power to an unelected and unaccountable supranational organization like the WHO. Instead, control over health policies should be decentralized via legislative measures, with local states, state parliaments, courts, and referenda playing a more central role than federal governments.

Dissent is also essential for positive social change and development, and to protect the right to dissent, digital IDs with the consolidation of all data relating to an individual must be prohibited, and digital mining and control of private data must be criminalized. Additionally, free speech and press should be protected, with whistleblower protection enshrined in national and international law.

It is important to note that during the COVID-19 pandemic, local governments, physicians, and faith-based initiatives have proven their worth by providing early warning and treatment protocols, as well as equipment. Therefore, national and international leaders and organizations should take action to decentralize control and limit supranational organizations to provide a forum for exchange, advice, and response capabilities.

In conclusion, the proposed amendments to the IHR and pandemic treaty could lead to a supranational bureaucracy with excessive and undemocratic powers, threatening democratic systems, state sovereignty, and global health. Prudent legislative and educational measures should be implemented to counter any monopolization or attempts at monopolization, to safeguard democratic ideals, and to benefit global health.