This week, Mr. Trump, by personal executive decree withdrew the US from the World Health Organization (WHO).
He also suspended, indefinitely, all scientific health agency meetings, training sessions, travel and grant panels. This applies to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and other preeminent US scientific institutions.
I believe that the combination of these actions places the public health in jeopardy unlike any actions taken in the past 100 years.
Why?
As of last week, the WHO had 192 member countries, including EVERY member state in the United Nations except for Liechtenstein and the Cook Islands.
Now it lacks the USA.
The WHO was created in 1948 as part of the United Nations. It works with other global health initiatives, conducting research, setting norms, providing technical support, and monitoring health trends around the world.
It monitors genetically modified foods, climate change, road safety and tobacco and drug use.
It has defined which drugs need to be stocked in hospitals, which diagnostic tests should be available and what types of equipment are essential. All member countries use these guidelines for their hospitals and clinics.
The WHO’s child vaccination programs have eradicated smallpox and reduced polio infections by 99%.
The WHO Collaborating Centers for Influenza, of which there is one at the CDC in Atlanta, monitor which new Influenza strains are emerging and circulating each year, providing a “heads up” for the vaccine manufacturers, giving them sufficient time to prepare new vaccines for the public in time for the outbreak in this country.
It has the exclusive authority to declare global health emergencies.
By absenting the US from this organization, this country will no longer have access to the information generated by the worldwide network of researchers, clinicians, and monitors. We will no longer have alert systems that will advise us of emerging health dangers, upcoming epidemics and warnings of where visitors coming into this country might be carrying disease. Our public will not have access to health warnings of which countries should be avoided or for which vaccines are needed before traveling to them. We will not have advance notice of which new Influenza strains are emerging and when they are likely to enter the US.
Stopping scientific meetings stops data circulation and research.
Stopping travel stops researchers from learning from each other and sharing data.
Stopping granting panels stops funding for Cancer, Vaccines, Diseases and Basic Research.
Stopping information exchange does not stop disease outbreaks, but it does stop us from learning where those outbreaks are occurring.
I have written about Bird Flu. Stopping all travel, meetings and granting will not prevent Bird Flu from spreading; it will stop us from stemming that spread. Cattle and poultry will now be infected at a higher rate, resulting in the death and euthanasia of large fractions of those herds and flocks. You can expect to see the price of eggs, milk and milk products, and beef to dramatically rise.
Mr. Trump’s vendetta against the WHO, stemming from their recommendations during the COVID pandemic, which saved tens of millions of lives, seems to be the impetus for these actions. His desire to create a Grand Pause on research is apparently part of his strategy to get RFK Jr. an appointment as head of HHS. You can expect Mr. Trump to suggest that in order to get all of these pauses reversed, we need to have a permanent Cabinet Secretary confirmed so that the Department can review the current programs and make necessary changes.
This is an unmitigated disaster in which Cancer patients will die, in which food prices will rise, in which research will be cancelled if it does meet the political agenda of the new administration. Researchers denied grant funding will need to leave their labs to find employment elsewhere. The foremost Health Research institutes in the world will be drained and their work reduced in quality.
I am horrified by these actions.
As a note, you can expect to hear this from RFK Jr., at the Senate hearings next week:
“I am not anti-vax. Quite the contrary, I am supportive of vaccines. I just want to be sure that they are ‘safe and effective’”.
This is classic double-speak. Since he believes that NO vaccine is safe and effective, his statement that he supports vaccines will be pure nonsense.