Last month the World Council For Health, published a comprehensive document outlining its rationale for condemning the World Health Organization’s proposed amendments to International Health Regulations (2005) and the pandemic treaty/accord to significantly expand the control of the World Health Organization (WHO) over global public health responses and thinking via a) amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005), and b) a pandemic treaty/accord (WHO CA+).
The Conclusion Section of their document is provided below. Click Here For The Complete Document
The aim of many proponents of the amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) and the pandemic treaty/accord WHO CA+ is to increase compliance with sensible obligations under the IHR (2005) and to avoid national interests from impeding efficient responses to infectious disease emergencies by handing unprecedented power to the WHO and enabling further centralization of political control. What these advocates do not take into account is that handing more power to the WHO, at this point, equals handing more, not less power to the special interests (national and private) that have, unfortunately, compromised the organization and impeded efficient responses to several infectious disease emergencies as well as other global health issues in the recent past.
What they also do not take into account is that any excessive concentration of power or monopoly power in the hands of a few without a popular mandate and constitutional control mechanisms to restrain it, by nature, leads to abuse of power, undermines and compromises democratic processes, corrupts science, curtails choice, suffocates competing solutions, enables control over the flow of information and stifling of dissent.
The proposed IHR amendments and the pandemic treaty – if agreed upon – will inevitably be used to advance the interests of a few powerful actors that have compromised the WHO at the expense of others.
They can use these instruments to replace international collaboration with undemocratic centralized dictates, to encourage censorship, and to legitimize a cartel that imposes on populations interest-driven health products that generate profits over those that work best – under the disguise of equity.
International collaboration and sharing to benefit global health cannot be improved by assigning undemocratic concentrated power to an unelected, unaccountable, and compromised supranational organization.
That is why the amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) discussed in Chapter II and the pandemic treaty (WHO CA+) as outlined in its zero draft must be opposed and rejected when they are put to a vote in either May 2023 or May 2024. Should they pass, countries need to opt out of the revised Regulations within 10 months and need to reject ratification of the treaty. In addition, prudent legislative and educational measures, as outlined in Chapter V of this document, should be introduced, passed, and implemented to counter any monopolization or attempts at monopolization, to safeguard democratic ideals, and to benefit public health.