.png){kind=spacer}
It has been just over a week since the United States formally completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, and I was invited on GB News by Bev Turner to react to it. You can watch the full interview here:
As for Geneva’s reaction? They have not taken it well.
Rather than reflect on why its biggest funder walked away, the WHO leadership has gone on the offensive. Dr Tedros claimed that the US’ reasons for leaving were “untrue”, insisting they never recommended lockdowns, mask or vaccine mandates during COVID.
Luckily, Dr Jay Bhattacharya, Director of the National Institutes of Health of the United States, produced the receipts in a thread on X, proving that the WHO was in fact a champion of lockdowns during the pandemic. They issued a warning to countries to keep lockdowns in place until the epidemic was “under control” in May 2020, a WHO epidemiologist lauded lockdowns as a way to “stop” COVID outbreaks in October 2020, and, alarmingly, called them a “glimpse of what our world could look like” if the world took “bold steps” to curb climate change.
But the most extraordinary development could be what comes next.
The WHO may try to claim that the United States has not left at all. This issue will be on the agenda at the WHO’s Executive Board next week, where they will also consider Argentina’s exit.
The WHO Constitution contains no clause allowing unilateral withdrawal. However, in the 1940s the US Congress added a condition stating that the United States could withdraw on one year’s notice, provided that all financial obligations had been met.
Since President Trump both triggered the one-year withdrawal process and stopped all funding last year, the WHO may argue that the United States has, in fact, not left at all.
This, quite frankly, is a technocrat’s dream. They hope to smugly explain to the most powerful man in the world that his country is still a member, and indeed not sovereign.
Frankly, it is irrelevant.
If the United States is not attending meetings, engaging with the organisation, or contributing money, then it is not a member.
This could potentially be quite a sneaky move from the WHO. If a future Democrat were to become President and rejoin, the case for the WHO to demand the money President Trump has not paid would be much stronger.
Instead of learning from their mistakes, the WHO seems to be set on waiting out the next three years, hoping that someone who lets them do what they like returns to the White House.
Yours sincerely,
David Roach
CEO
Action on World Health