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Brownstone Institute

WHO IHR Modifications Were Illegally Approved

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18 minute read

From the Brownstone Institute

By ROBERT MALONE   

The 77th meeting of the World Health Assembly concluded Saturday, June 01, 2024. This particular Assembly meeting, the first following the Covid crisis, failed to achieve agreement on the wording or passage of a proposed World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic “treaty,” also referred to as an “agreement.” In parallel to the treaty, the World Health Assembly (in close cooperation with the US HHS/Biden administration) has been working on “updating” the existing (2005) International Health Regulations (IHR) agreement, which historically functioned as a voluntary accord establishing international norms for reporting, managing, and cooperating in matters relating to infectious diseases and infectious disease outbreaks (including “pandemics”).

In blatant disregard for established protocol and procedures, sweeping IHR amendments were prepared behind closed doors, and then both were submitted for consideration and accepted by the World Health Assembly quite literally in the last moments of a meeting that stretched late into Saturday night, the last day of the meeting schedule.

Although the “Article 55” rules and regulations for amending the IHR explicitly require that “the text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration,” the requirement of four months for review was disregarded in a rush to produce some tangible deliverable from the Assembly. This hasty and illegal action was taken in direct violation of its own charter, once again demonstrating an arbitrary and capricious disregard of established rules and precedent by the WHO under the leadership of the Director-General.

There was no actual vote to confirm and approve these amendments. According to the WHO, this was achieved by “consensus” among this unelected insider conclave rather than a vote; “Countries agreed by consensus to amend the International Health Regulations, which were last changed in 2005, such as by defining the term “pandemic emergency” and helping developing countries to gain better access to financing and medical products,” a WHO statement reported, continuing that “countries” agreed to complete negotiations on the pandemic accord with the year, “at the latest.”

Representatives from many WHO member nation-states were not in the room, and the ones that were there were encouraged to keep quiet. After the non-vote, there was giddy celebration of this achievement, clearly demonstrating the lack of somber maturity, commitment to both rules and careful diplomatic consensus, and absence of serious intent and purpose warranted by the topic.

This was clearly an insider clique acting unilaterally to circumvent normal process and mirrors a similar process used to confirm the re-appointment of Tedros Ghebreyesus to the Director-General position. This unelected WHO clique of “true believers” clearly signals that it believes itself above any requirements to comply with established international norms and standards, including its own. By their actions you will know them; the giddy arrogance of these actions predicts that WHO decision-making will continue to be arbitrary, capricious, and politicized, and will continue to reflect the will of various insider interest groups (and nation-states) rather than anything even approximating a broad-based international consensus.

Here in the United States, these unilateral actions, backed by an executive branch and bureaucracy that repeatedly demonstrates a deep disdain for the rule of law and the US Constitution, may require that individual States pass legislation to reject the WHO Amendments to IHR based on the illegality of the process and violation of Article 55. Similar discussions are occurring in the UK and across many WHO member states, adding momentum to the emerging WHO-exit movement.

For those not familiar, the current WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is neither a physician nor a trained public health or epidemiology specialist, but rather is an Ethiopian microbiologist, malaria researcher, and politician.

The hastily approved IHR consolidates virtually unchecked authority and power of the Director-General to declare public health emergencies and pandemics as he/she may choose to define them, and thereby to trigger and guide the allocation of global resources as well as a wide range of public health actions and guidances. These activities include recommendations relating to “persons, baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods and postal parcels,” but based on earlier draft language of proposed IHR amendments and the WHO pandemic “accord” are likely to extend to both invasive national surveillance and mandated public health “interventions” such as vaccines and non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing and lockdowns. Not to mention the continuing weaponization of public health messaging via censorship of dissenting voices and liberal use of the fear-based tactics known as information or psychological bioterrorism to mobilize public opinion in favor of WHO objectives.

The IHR amendments retain troubling language regarding censorship. These provisions have been buried in Annex 1,A.2.c., which requires State Parties to “develop, strengthen and maintain core capacities…in relation to…surveillance…and risk communication, including addressing misinformation and disinformation.”

The requirement that nations “address” “misinformation and disinformation” is fraught with opportunities for abuse. None of these terms is defined in the document. Does “addressing” it mean censoring it, and possibly punishing those who have offered divergent opinions? We have already seen how doctors and scientists who disagreed with the WHO narrative under Covid-19 were censored for their views – views that turned out to be true. Some who offered protocols not recommended by the WHO even had their licenses to practice medicine threatened or suspended. How much worse will this censorship be if it is baked in as a requirement of the International Health Regulations?

The “surveillance” requirement does not specify what is to be surveilled. The IHR amendments, however, should be read together with the proposed Pandemic Treaty, which the WHO is continuing to negotiate. Article 5 of the most recent draft of the Treaty sets forth the “One Health Approach,” which connects and balances human, animal, plant, and environmental health, giving a pretext for surveillance on all these fronts.

Meanwhile, Article 4: Pandemic Prevention and Public Health Surveillance, states:

The Parties recognize that environmental, climatic, social, anthropogenic [climate change caused by people], and economic factors increase the risk of pandemics and endeavor to identify these factors and take them into consideration in the development and implementation of relevant policies…” Through the “One Health” approach, the WHO is asserting its authority over all aspects of life on earth, all of which are apparently to be surveilled.

Regarding the IHR, Article 35 details the requirements of “Health Documents,” including those in digital format. The system of digital health documents is consistent with, and in my opinion a precursor to, the Digital IDs described by the World Economic Forum. According to the attached WEF Chart, people will need a Digital ID to:

  • Access healthcare insurance and treatment
  • Open bank accounts and carry out online transactions
  • Travel
  • Access Humanitarian Services
  • Shop and conduct business transactions
  • Participate in social media
  • Pay taxes, vote, collect government benefits
  • Own a communication device [such as a cell phone or a computer]

In other words, individuals will need Digital IDs to access almost every aspect of civilized society. All of our actions, taken with the use of Digital IDs, will be tracked and traced. If we step out of line, we can be punished by, for example, being severed from our bank accounts and credit cards – similar to what happened to the Canadian Truckers. Digital IDs are a form of mass surveillance and totalitarian control.

These Digital IDs are currently being rolled out by the World Health Organization in collaboration with the European Union. Most of us will agree that this is not the way forward to make the world safer but rather is a path leading towards a techno-totalitarian hellscape.

To support decision-making, the IHR authorizes the Director-General to appoint an “IHR Expert Roster,” an “Expert Committee” selected from the “IHR Expert Roster,” as well as a “Review Committee.” However, although the committees may make recommendations, the Director-General will have final decision authority in all relevant matters.

To further illustrate the point, the revised IHR directs that “The Director-General shall invite Member States, the United Nations and its specialized agencies and other relevant intergovernmental organizations or nongovernmental organizations in official relations with WHO to designate representatives to attend the Committee sessions. Such representatives may submit memoranda and, with the consent of the Chairperson, make statements on the subjects under discussionThey shall not have the right to vote.”

The approved amendments redefine the definition of a “Pandemic Emergency;” include a newly added emphasis on “equity and solidarity;” direct that independent Nations (“States Parties”) shall assist each other to support local production capacity for research, development, and manufacturing of health products; that equitable access to relevant health products for public health emergencies including pandemics shall be facilitated; and that developed nations shall make available “relevant terms of their research and development agreements for relevant health products related to promoting equitable access to such products during a public health emergency of international concern, including a pandemic emergency.”

The amended IHR also directs that each nation (“States Parties”) shall “develop, strengthen and maintain core capacities” for “preventing, preparing for and responding to public health risks and events,” including in relation to:

  • Surveillance
  • On-site Investigations
  • Laboratory diagnostics, including referral of samples
  • Implementation of control measures
  • Access to health services and health products needed for the response
  • Risk communication, including addressing misinformation and disinformation
  • Logistical assistance

The amended IHR also includes copious new language, terms, and conditions relating to the responsibilities of “States Parties” to perform surveillance and transparent timely reporting of information relating to infectious disease outbreaks. This includes multiple references to information gathering, sharing, and distribution, including the need to counter the distribution of “misinformation and disinformation”.

There is the appearance that some of this new text may be informed by the recent failure of China (PRC/CCP) to provide timely and complete reporting of events and information relating to the initial SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Unfortunately, this failure to inform in a timely manner was not unique. There is a long history of repeated, chronic problems with transparent national reporting of infectious disease outbreaks. A variety of adverse economic and political impacts are associated with infectious disease outbreaks, and this creates a strong incentive for both local politicians and public health officials to minimize initial reporting of unusual infectious disease signals or findings.

The amended IHR frequently refers to “scientific principles as well as the available scientific evidence and other relevant information” as a key factor in guiding decision-making. However, the IHR does not acknowledge the diversity of opinion surrounding what are considered sound and valid “scientific principles” or “scientific evidence,” and there is no indication that the World Health Assembly or the WHO recognizes how readily “scientific principles” and “scientific evidence” were manipulated or otherwise biased during prior public health crises, and the likelihood that this will continue to happen on a regular basis unless reforms designed to respect diversity of opinion and interpretation are implemented. There seems to be a complete lack of self-awareness of the rampant groupthink that chronically characterizes WHO decision-making during both the Covid crisis as well as prior public health events of concern.

Although many of these revisions are generally reasonable and aligned with good and practical international public health norms and actions, and in some cases are greatly improved relative to prior draft language, the recent history of WHO mismanagement and actual WHO spreading and amplification of mis- and disinformation regarding SARS-CoV-2 virology, immunology, and pathophysiology, pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions for SARS-CoV-2 raise legitimate concerns about how these words will be interpreted and implemented.

Furthermore, the pattern of repeated arbitrary, capricious, and scientifically unjustifiable decisions regarding Covid and monkeypox suggests that expanding the authority of either the Director-General or the WHO is unwise at this time. Rather, more mature, thoughtful, and prudent evaluation of that recent experience argues for reduced rather than expanded authority, and for a more decentralized, multilateral model for the management of global and regional public health risks and events. The world does not need more condescending authoritarianism from those entrusted to facilitate international cooperation in public health.

Just speaking in terms of best practices, it is clearly inappropriate to rely on administrators with such a vested personal interest in the outcome to be so intimately involved in crafting sweeping international policy changes. This revision process should have been managed by an independent commission of seasoned, objective experts who were carefully vetted to minimize potential conflict of interest.

The hasty willingness to bypass its own charter by unilaterally and arbitrarily jamming these changes through on extremely short notice raises further concerns regarding the reliability, maturity, and competency of the WHO, the World Health Assembly, and the Director-General to provide the calm, steady hand so sorely needed after the mismanaged major public health catastrophe and global trauma which all have experienced over the last four years.

The world, its inhabitants, those who work to provide medical care, and the overall world health enterprise deserve better.

Author

Robert W. Malone is a physician and biochemist. His work focuses on mRNA technology, pharmaceuticals, and drug repurposing research. You can find him at Substack and Gettr

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Brownstone Institute

The Most Devastating Report So Far

Published on

From the Brownstone Institute

By Jay BhattacharyaJayanta Bhattacharya 

The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.

HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.

The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.

Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.

The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignored the FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.

The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.

President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?

In 2021, former CDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.

During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.

In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.

In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.

Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.

HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.

When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.

In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.

The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.

In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?

The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.

The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.

I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.

In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.

With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.

The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.

Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.

You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.

Author

Jay Bhattacharya

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a physician, epidemiologist and health economist. He is Professor at Stanford Medical School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a Faculty Member at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Co-Author of the Great Barrington Declaration.

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Brownstone Institute

The Revolution of 2024: A Rare Victory for Anti-Establishment Fury

Published on

From the Brownstone Institute

By Jeffrey A TuckerJeffrey A. Tucker 

The sudden coming together of three great sectors of anti-establishment fury – MAGA, MAHA, and DOGE – in the last two months of the election of 2024 is one for the ages.

People are out and about, smiling at each other. It’s been true since the morning after the election, the results of which defied every prediction. Who doesn’t like to see the smug elites who have ruled the world for five awful years taken down a peg?

More than that, there are hints of a return to sanity. Mainstream advertisers are suddenly returning to X, putting their economic interest above their tribalist loyalties. The editor of pro-lockdowns  Scientific American, which had long blessed totalitarian measures as true science, has resigned.

The attempt to pillage InfoWars and give it to The Onion has been reversed by a federal judge. That might be a fluke or might not be: maybe the lawfare is dialing back too. The cabinet of the incoming administration is being filled by voices that were fully censored for years. Employees are reportedly packing their bags at the FDA and other agencies.

Mainstream news commentators are sputtering around with less bravado than they have shown in years. CNN is firing major personalities.

Trump is talking about abolishing the income tax and granting $10K in tax credits per homeschooled child, not to mention blowing up college accreditation systems, among other sweeping changes.

The American Bastille day is coming, not only freeing the political prisoners of January 6 but also many of the unjustly persecuted including Ross Ulbricht, Roger Ver, and Ian Freeman, among so many others. That will be a day of rejoicing.

Oh, and peace seems to have broken out in some contentious areas of the world, for now.

What is happening? This is not the usual transfer of the resident of the White House. This is starting to look like an actual transfer of power, not just from Biden to Trump but from the permanent government – ensconced in many sectors – that has been long in hiding to an entirely new form of government responsive to actual voters.

As it turns out, there was no late surge for Kamala Harris. All the polls were wrong, and the rest was media blather. What was correct were the betting odds on Polymarket, and only days later, the FBI raided the 26-year-old founder’s home and confiscated his phone and laptop.

There are still many millions of missing voters, people who supposedly showed up for Biden in 2020 but stayed home this time. Meanwhile, there has been a historic shift in all races, ethnicities, and regions, with even the possibility of flipping California from blue to red in the future.

After decades of academic slicing and dicing of the population according to ever more eccentric identity buckets involving race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual interest, along with countless thousands of studies documenting deep complexity over intersectionality, the driving force of the election was simple: class, and the few intellectuals and some wealthy entrepreneurs who understand that.

The division was not really left vs right. It was workers vs laptoppers, wage earners vs six-figure stay-at-homers, bottom half vs top 5 percent, people with actual skills vs weaponized resume wielders, and those with affection for old-world values vs those whose educations have beaten it out of them for purposes of career advancement.

The silent majority has never been so suddenly loud. It just so happened that the heavily privileged had come to inhabit easily identifiable sectors of American society and, in the end, had no choice but hitch the whole of the overclass wagon to the fortunes of a candidate like themselves (Kamala) but who was unable to pull off a compelling masquerade. Not even a parade of well-paid celebrity endorsements could save her from total rebuke at the polls.

Sylvester Stallone called Trump a second George Washington but another reference point might be Andrew Jackson. The overwhelming victory for Trump is on a scale not seen since 1828 when, four years after the presidency was stolen from Jackson, Old Hickory came back in a wild landslide and cleaned up Washington. Trump arrives in Washington with a mandate for the same, with 81% of the public demanding that the government shrink in size and power.

It has all happened so quickly. We are barely ten days into the realization of what just transpired and the entire lay of the land seems different, like a tectonic shift in politics, culture, mood, and possibilities. We are even seeing blunt and open talk about the horrendous Covid response that so utterly demoralized the country and the world, after years of silence on the topic. We have promised hearings coming, and court cases galore now on fast track.

The sudden coming together of three great sectors of anti-establishment fury – MAGA, MAHA, and DOGE – in the last two months of the election of 2024 is one for the ages. It provides the beginnings of an answer to the great question on our minds for decades: how precisely does an authentic revolution take root in an industrialized Western democracy? Are elections capable of delivering real results?

For now, the answer seems to be yes. That should thrill any responsible observer of social, cultural, economic, and political affairs. It means that the early architects of the American system were not wrong. The intolerable costs of political upheaval of ages past can be mitigated by planting power firmly in the hands of the people through the plebiscite. This was their view and their gamble. All the evidence of our time points to the wisdom of the idea.

In the darkest days of the last year of the first Trump presidency, the bureaucracy was riding high, in full revenge mode against an elected government it hated and sought to overthrow. The agencies were passing strange edicts that felt like laws but no one knew for sure. You are essential, you are not. You must stay home, unless you have an emergency. Your elective surgery needs to wait. The kids cannot go to school. That European vacation cannot happen. You can eat at a restaurant but only if you are six feet away from other patrons and you must put this China-made cloth on your mouth if you get up to go to the restroom.

The flurry of edicts was mind-boggling. It felt like martial law, because it was some form of exactly that. The best research points to the astonishing reality that this was never really a public-health response but a scheme by security and intelligence sectors to enact some kind of global color revolution, which is why the policies were so similar the world over. It was indeed an awesome display of power, one that invaded all our communities, homes, and families.

No one knows this better than Team Trump, even if there has been near silence on the topic for all these years. They have had time to put the pieces together and figure out what happened and why. And they carefully, and in seclusion worthy of a Cistercian monastery, plotted their return, leaving nothing to chance.

Meanwhile, the past two years have had the Covid insurrectionists quietly stepping away from the spotlight, while leaving as much of their newfound power in place: the censorship, the technology, the mandates, and the propaganda that all of this shock-and-awe was nothing more than “common sense health measures.” It was never tenable, and vast numbers have come to realize that something went very wrong, like a kind of evil settled over the world and burrowed itself within all institutions.

In an instant, the whole scheme seems to be crumbling. The incredible result is that the administration under which this calamity occurred is now coming back, which is probably the strangest irony of our times.

And yet, even though no one has yet been open about precisely what happened in the White House in March 2020 to cause Trump to greenlight the lockdowns, there is a widespread belief that it was never really his choice. It was some kind of coup – egged on even by his closest advisors and the VP – that he either could not stop or lacked the personnel to marshal effective resistance. Regardless, he has been forgiven because, implausibly, the next administration not only owned the worst of it but added even more on top of that, including the wicked combination of mask mandates, forced injections, and continued school closures.

The result has been a continuing economic crisis, one far worse than agencies admit, in addition to a health, education, and cultural crisis. Meanwhile, all those involved in causing this from behind the scenes have been rewarded with professorships, loving interviews in the mainstream media, and lavish security provisions to protect them from legions of what they suppose are angry workers and peasants.

Therefore, among many of the ruling class, the results of this election are certainly not welcome, and nor are many of the early appointments. They represent the coming together of MAGA, MAHA, and DOGE, the fulfillment of decades of cultivation of disparate groups of dissidents who had not previously realized their common interests and common enemies. It was the Covid era and the imposition of top-down rule that brought them all together.

It was like three groups wandering around in a giant maze who suddenly confront each other and then, realizing that they all shared the same predicament, figure the way out together. These new alliances have not only shattered right and left, as traditionally understood, but reshaped the structural basis of political activism for the duration. It turns out that medical freedom, food freedom, free speech, political freedom, and peace all go together. Who knew?

The incumbent world of academia, think tanks, and most media simply finds itself unprepared to deal with the new realities. They had hoped everyone would forget about the last five years as if it was just a thing that happened but is now over; everyone just needs to grapple with the great reset and learn to love our new lives of surveillance, propaganda, censorship, perpetual war, poison food, unaffordable everything, and endless injections of potions for our own health and well-being.

Well, times have changed. How much? Early signs point to a dramatic unfolding of revolutionary change over the coming months. Is believing this the triumph of hope over experience? Absolutely. Then again, no one believed five years ago that most people in the world would be locked in their homes and communities, stuck drinking and streaming movies until biotech could come up with a cure for a respiratory virus with a zoonotic reservoir. Then it did not work and made people more sick than ever.

That was nuts but it happened.

If that could happen, with predictable results, the response could be equally implausible and more much thrilling. What’s man made can be unmade by man, and something new built in its place.

Author

Jeffrey A Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Founder, Author, and President at Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Life After Lockdown, and many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

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