US health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr US health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr: ‘The new regulations employ extremely broad language that gives the WHO unprecedented power’ © Reuters
Patrick Temple-West and Michael Peel July 18, 2025
The US has rejected the World Health Organization’s new efforts to combat international health emergencies, alleging the group threatens US sovereignty and “lays the groundwork for global surveillance of every human being”.
In a statement on Friday, US health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr said the US had opted out of changes that the WHO approved last year to better respond to severe disease outbreaks. Kennedy’s decision comes one day before the deadline to decline the amendments. “The new regulations employ extremely broad language that gives the WHO unprecedented power,” Kennedy said. “That opens the door to the kind of narrative management and propaganda and censorship that we saw during the Covid pandemic.”
The US rejection of the WHO amendments could hamper global co-operation for future health crises. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had hailed the changes last year for bolstering countries’ ability to share information and respond to potential pandemics. The amendments also call for members to commit additional financing and medical products for developing countries.
The WHO changes came under fire from US conservatives last year, leading House Republicans to pass legislation rejecting the measures. The global health body’s first ever pandemic agreement agreed this year, however, explicitly reaffirms country sovereignty and gives the WHO no powers to restrict travel, mandate vaccines or impose lockdowns.
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Kennedy, in a joint statement with secretary of state Marco Rubio, said the changes failed to adequately address the WHO’s susceptibility to “political influence and censorship.”
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While the WHO has power to declare a “public health emergency”, what that announcement means is legally vague. Declaring an emergency is an important symbolic step, but only a handful of countries have any references to it in legislation, researchers wrote in the Lancet. WHO has declared public health emergencies in recent years for diseases including Ebola, Covid and mpox.
When Donald Trump was sworn into office in January for his second term, he signed an executive order to start a year-long process to pull the US out of the WHO. Congress this week passed funding cuts for foreign aid, including cutting WHO funding. The WHO has drawn wider criticism for some aspects of its handling of the Covid pandemic, but its defenders argue the US conservative attacks misrepresent its role and undermine its ability to co-ordinate needed international action.
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Via https://www.ft.com/content/478955b0-83ec-4c1b-abf0-1b81dcd98622
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