Say No to America’s Signing of the WHO Pandemic Agreement

Just in case you missed it, there was a big win in Ohio this week. Almost 1,900 AMAC members took part in the “Stand Up for Children and Override Gov DeWine’s Veto of the SAFE Act.” Their action was successful, and the Ohio House voted 65-28 to override Republican Governor Mike DeWine’s veto of the bill.

We can make a difference. And when we keep up the pressure, we can win.

Yes, it’s sad that so much of our medical establishment has embraced destructive and radical gender ideology. It’s also sad and frustrating that there had to be this action in a red state—with Republican governors like this, who needs Democrats? But that’s where we are. The key point is that this bill to protect parental rights and prevent children from suffering irreversible effects from medical procedures that do not benefit them was indeed passed.

The problems of medicine these days are legion; nowhere more than in the highest reaches of the “public health” bureaucracies around the world. Last week, a leader for the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that COVID is “still a pandemic.” This is even more radical than the WHO itself, which stopped talking about it as an international public health threat last May. Yet even if the WHO is seemingly more moderate than its more wild-eyed members, it is itself a threat to the United States because of the Pandemic Agreement it has written and to which the United States is likely to bind itself unless there is sufficient public outcry.

Ben Johnson of The Washington Stand has written as thorough an exposé of the Agreement as is possible. He shows that the WHO’s Agreement is precisely an “agreement” rather than a “treaty” because the Biden Administration lobbied to have it so. A treaty requires the consent of the Senate while an agreement can be entered by the President. That is why it is particularly important for there to be an outcry.

What’s in the Pandemic Agreement as it stands that makes it so bad?  Well, there is a lot to cover, for which those interested can read the October 2023 text or Johnson’s full article. The most important thing is the ceding of authority to the WHO. While the document itself affirms as a principle that states have “the sovereign right to legislate and to implement legislation in pursuance of their health policies,” this is hedged in by the fact that the Agreement also binds those signing on to “recognize” the WHO as “the directing and coordinating authority on international health work.” And indeed, those with the sole authority to make binding decisions will be a “Conference of the Parties” (Articles 21 and 24), whose delegates will be chosen from the Parties alone, defined as “a State or regional economic integration organization that has consented to be bound by this Agreement.” One is reminded of Solzhenitsyn’s withering critique of the United Nations—it is not nations, but governments, that are uniting together. In this case, we will see not only nations but “regional economic integration organizations”—something that might include the EU or other Free Trade Areas or Customs Unions. In short, unaccountable groups.

Once in this Agreement, nations are committed to “national” policies around pandemics. It is not unreasonable to see this as a way around what happened with COVID-19: in a nation with strong federalism such as the U. S., various states—particularly Florida under the leadership of Ron DeSantis—were able to buck national and international health organizations. This agreement is aimed at making sure there are no control groups for the kind of coercive policies that are sure to be rolled out again.  

In addition to these more general problems of authority, the Agreement, if signed, would commit the U. S. to donating 10% of any “pandemic-related products” (vaccines, medicine, equipment) to the WHO and providing another 10% at “affordable prices” (Article 12:4b(ii)(a)). It would also commit the U. S. to settling disputes via arbitration or the International Court of Justice at the Hague (Article 34:2).

The lines of authority and the demands made are bad enough, but most of the other substance of the agreement is also terrible. Johnson notes that, though not mentioned in the Agreement, following the paper trails reveals that the WHO’s understanding is that abortion is “an essential service”: “In March 2022,” he writes, “WHO released a new ‘Abortion care guideline” stating that both chemical and surgical abortion should continue even during global health crises. “In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic … WHO has included comprehensive abortion care in the list of essential health services,’ said the document.”

Indeed, abortion is not the only globalist, left-wing element of substance. Alongside the supposed commitment to “national sovereignty,” the Agreement commits signers to the dreaded “equity,” which, to achieve equal outcomes among groups, will require discrimination against individuals. Think COVID-era Stand Up for Children and Override Gov DeWine’s Veto of the SAFE Act in Democratic-run cities and states in which medical treatments were prioritized on the basis of race.

Even worse is the “One Health” approach. This latter is defined in the Agreement as “an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems.” Note this notion of a “balance” between human and animal health. In other words, human life is not even the main priority. Though that’s not quite spelled out in the document, Johnson cites a 2023 editorial in the British medical journal Lancet, which describes “a fundamentally different approach to the natural world, one in which we are as concerned about the welfare of non-human animals and the environment as we are about humans.” The editorial explicitly describes One Health as “a call for ecological, not merely health, equity.”

Bad policies will be everywhere if this is signed. With respect to vaccines, the Agreement calls for rules for development, distribution, and use of emergency-authorized vaccines. It also calls for ways to deal with liability for the inevitable vaccine injuries. One suggested approach is, as was true with the COVID shots, complete freedom from liability. That this freedom from accountability was a bad idea ought to be obvious, but to the WHO, it is not. Johnson notes that in all this discussion, there is not a word to be said condemning those countries that violated basic human rights in the name of the emergency. Look for more COVID-style authoritarianism for countries that sign on.

Perhaps the worst aspect of this Agreement, however, is the promotion of more totalitarian speech policing. The Agreement encourages nations to work together on “infodemic management” (Article 9:2D), by which the document means both “false or misleading information” and “too much information,” both of which lead “to mistrust in health authorities and undermines public health and social measures” (Article 1C). That it was public health authorities that were themselves purveyors of misinformation during the COVID episode is something that is nowhere acknowledged. Johnson cites the many contradictory and false claims about non-pharmaceutical interventions from masking to “social distancing,” as well as the false claims about pharmaceutical interventions themselves, as good evidence that this kind of top-down approach to information will be guaranteed to make things worse in any future pandemic.

Nobody should be in doubt that the U.S.’s signing on to such an agreement would be a destructive thing. Johnson notes that there are at least four different pieces of legislation in the works to keep us from the baleful effects of this governmental and health boondoggle. But given that our own national legislative branch is not red as is Ohio’s, the best way to make sure we have victory is to stop this thing dead in its tracks now. The required 30-day public comment period for this new rule opened up December 22, which means that it ends January 22 at 5:00 PM Eastern Time. Given the seriousness of this new and hidden threat to our political and bodily health, everybody should email comments against the signing of this agreement to [email protected] using the subject line “Written Comment Re: Implications of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Commitments/Regimes and Other Proposed Commitments in the WHO Pandemic Agreement.”

The voice of Americans is needed now more than ever. Let’s keep up the pressure and win this national fight. Given the fact that the United States still carries weight in many parts of the world, not signing the Pandemic Agreement would be a win not just for America and Americans but for the world.

David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, and is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X @davidpdeavel.