• The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Guide
    By David Bell, Thi Thuy Van Dinh March 22, 2024 Government, Society 30 minute read
    The World Health Organization (WHO) and its 194 Member States have been engaged for over two years in the development of two ‘instruments’ or agreements with the intent of radically changing the way pandemics and other health emergencies are managed.

    One, consisting of draft amendments to the existing International health Regulations (IHR), seeks to change the current IHR non-binding recommendations into requirements or binding recommendations, by having countries “undertake” to implement those given by the WHO in future declared health emergencies. It covers all ‘public health emergencies of international concern’ (PHEIC), with a single person, the WHO Director-General (DG) determining what a PHEIC is, where it extends, and when it ends. It specifies mandated vaccines, border closures, and other directives understood as lockdowns among the requirements the DG can impose. It is discussed further elsewhere and still under negotiation in Geneva.

    A second document, previously known as the (draft) Pandemic Treaty, then Pandemic Accord, and more recently the Pandemic Agreement, seeks to specify governance, supply chains, and various other interventions aimed at preventing, preparing for, and responding to, pandemics (pandemic prevention, preparedness and response – PPPR). It is currently being negotiated by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB).

    Both texts will be subject to a vote at the May 2024 World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland. These votes are intended, by those promoting these projects, to bring governance of future multi-country healthcare emergencies (or threats thereof) under the WHO umbrella.

    The latest version of the draft Pandemic Agreement (here forth the ‘Agreement’) was released on 7th March 2024. However, it is still being negotiated by various committees comprising representatives of Member States and other interested entities. It has been through multiple iterations over two years, and looks like it. With the teeth of the pandemic response proposals in the IHR, the Agreement looks increasingly irrelevant, or at least unsure of its purpose, picking up bits and pieces in a half-hearted way that the IHR amendments do not, or cannot, include. However, as discussed below, it is far from irrelevant.

    Historical Perspective

    These aim to increase the centralization of decision-making within the WHO as the “directing and coordinating authority.” This terminology comes from the WHO’s 1946 Constitution, developed in the aftermath of the Second World War as the world faced the outcomes of European fascism and the similar approaches widely imposed through colonialist regimes. The WHO would support emerging countries, with rapidly expanding and poorly resourced populations struggling under high disease burdens, and coordinate some areas of international support as these sovereign countries requested it. The emphasis of action was on coordinating rather than directing.

    In the 80 years prior to the WHO’s existence, international public health had grown within a more directive mindset, with a series of meetings by colonial and slave-owning powers from 1851 to manage pandemics, culminating in the inauguration of the Office Internationale d’Hygiene Publique in Paris in 1907, and later the League of Nations Health Office. World powers imposed health dictates on those less powerful, in other parts of the world and increasingly on their own population through the eugenics movement and similar approaches. Public health would direct, for the greater good, as a tool of those who wish to direct the lives of others.

    The WHO, governed by the WHA, was to be very different. Newly independent States and their former colonial masters were ostensibly on an equal footing within the WHA (one country – one vote), and the WHO’s work overall was to be an example of how human rights could dominate the way society works. The model for international public health, as exemplified in the Declaration of Alma Ata in 1978, was to be horizontal rather than vertical, with communities and countries in the driving seat.

    With the evolution of the WHO in recent decades from a core funding model (countries give money, the WHO decides under the WHA guidance how to spend it) to a model based on specified funding (funders, both public and increasingly private, instruct the WHO on how to spend it), the WHO has inevitably changed to become a public-private partnership required to serve the interests of funders rather than populations.

    As most funding comes from a few countries with major Pharma industrial bases, or private investors and corporations in the same industry, the WHO has been required to emphasize the use of pharmaceuticals and downplay evidence and knowledge where these clash (if it wants to keep all its staff funded). It is helpful to view the draft Agreement, and the IHR amendments, in this context.

    Why May 2024?

    The WHO, together with the World Bank, G20, and other institutions have been emphasizing the urgency of putting the new pandemic instruments in place earnestly, before the ‘next pandemic.’ This is based on claims that the world was unprepared for Covid-19, and that the economic and health harm would be somehow avoidable if we had these agreements in place.

    They emphasize, contrary to evidence that Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) origins involve laboratory manipulation, that the main threats we face are natural, and that these are increasing exponentially and present an “existential” threat to humanity. The data on which the WHO, the World Bank, and G20 base these claims demonstrates the contrary, with reported natural outbreaks having increased as detection technologies have developed, but reducing in mortality rate, and in numbers, over the past 10 to 20 years..

    A paper cited by the World Bank to justify urgency and quoted as suggesting a 3x increase in risk in the coming decade actually suggests that a Covid-19-like event would occur roughly every 129 years, and a Spanish-flu repetition every 292 to 877 years. Such predictions are unable to take into account the rapidly changing nature of medicine and improved sanitation and nutrition (most deaths from Spanish flu would not have occurred if modern antibiotics had been available), and so may still overestimate risk. Similarly, the WHO’s own priority disease list for new outbreaks only includes two diseases of proven natural origin that have over 1,000 historical deaths attributed to them. It is well demonstrated that the risk and expected burden of pandemics is misrepresented by major international agencies in current discussions.

    The urgency for May 2024 is clearly therefore inadequately supported, firstly because neither the WHO nor others have demonstrated how the harms accrued through Covid-19 would be reduced through the measures proposed, and secondly because the burden and risk is misrepresented. In this context, the state of the Agreement is clearly not where it should be as a draft international legally binding agreement intended to impose considerable financial and other obligations on States and populations.

    This is particularly problematic as the proposed expenditure; the proposed budget is over $31 billion per year, with over $10 billion more on other One Health activities. Much of this will have to be diverted from addressing other diseases burdens that impose far greater burden. This trade-off, essential to understand in public health policy development, has not yet been clearly addressed by the WHO.

    The WHO DG stated recently that the WHO does not want the power to impose vaccine mandates or lockdowns on anyone, and does not want this. This begs the question of why either of the current WHO pandemic instruments is being proposed, both as legally binding documents. The current IHR (2005) already sets out such approaches as recommendations the DG can make, and there is nothing non-mandatory that countries cannot do now without pushing new treaty-like mechanisms through a vote in Geneva.

    Based on the DG’s claims, they are essentially redundant, and what new non-mandatory clauses they contain, as set out below, are certainly not urgent. Clauses that are mandatory (Member States “shall”) must be considered within national decision-making contexts and appear against the WHO’s stated intent.

    Common sense would suggest that the Agreement, and the accompanying IHR amendments, be properly thought through before Member States commit. The WHO has already abandoned the legal requirement for a 4-month review time for the IHR amendments (Article 55.2 IHR), which are also still under negotiation just 2 months before the WHA deadline. The Agreement should also have at least such a period for States to properly consider whether to agree – treaties normally take many years to develop and negotiate and no valid arguments have been put forward as to why these should be different.

    The Covid-19 response resulted in an unprecedented transfer of wealth from those of lower income to the very wealthy few, completely contrary to the way in which the WHO was intended to affect human society. A considerable portion of these pandemic profits went to current sponsors of the WHO, and these same corporate entities and investors are set to further benefit from the new pandemic agreements. As written, the Pandemic Agreement risks entrenching such centralization and profit-taking, and the accompanying unprecedented restrictions on human rights and freedoms, as a public health norm.

    To continue with a clearly flawed agreement simply because of a previously set deadline, when no clear population benefit is articulated and no true urgency demonstrated, would therefore be a major step backward in international public health. Basic principles of proportionality, human agency, and community empowerment, essential for health and human rights outcomes, are missing or paid lip-service. The WHO clearly wishes to increase its funding and show it is ‘doing something,’ but must first articulate why the voluntary provisions of the current IHR are insufficient. It is hoped that by systematically reviewing some key clauses of the agreement here, it will become clear why a rethink of the whole approach is necessary. The full text is found below.

    The commentary below concentrates on selected draft provisions of the latest publicly available version of the draft agreement that seem to be unclear or potentially problematic. Much of the remaining text is essentially pointless as it reiterates vague intentions to be found in other documents or activities which countries normally undertake in the course of running health services, and have no place in a focused legally-binding international agreement.

    REVISED Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement. 7th March, 2024

    Preamble

    Recognizing that the World Health Organization…is the directing and coordinating authority on international health work.

    This is inconsistent with a recent statement by the WHO DG that the WHO has no interest or intent to direct country health responses. To reiterate it here suggests that the DG is not representing the true position regarding the Agreement. “Directing authority” is however in line with the proposed IHR Amendments (and the WHO’s Constitution), under which countries will “undertake” ahead of time to follow the DG’s recommendations (which thereby become instructions). As the HR amendments make clear, this is intended to apply even to a perceived threat rather than actual harm.

    Recalling the constitution of the World Health Organization…highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.

    This statement recalls fundamental understandings of public health, and is of importance here as it raises the question of why the WHO did not strongly condemn prolonged school closures, workplace closures, and other impoverishing policies during the Covid-19 response. In 2019, WHO made clear that these dangers should prevent actions we now call ‘lockdowns’ from being imposed.

    Deeply concerned by the gross inequities at national and international levels that hindered timely and equitable access to medical and other Covid-19 pandemic-related products, and the serious shortcomings in pandemic preparedness.

    In terms of health equity (as distinct from commodity of ‘vaccine’ equity), inequity in the Covid-19 response was not in failing to provide a vaccine against former variants to immune, young people in low-income countries who were at far higher risk from endemic diseases, but in the disproportionate harm to them of uniformly-imposed NPIs that reduced current and future income and basic healthcare, as was noted by the WHO in 2019 Pandemic Influenza recommendations. The failure of the text to recognize this suggests that lessons from Covid-19 have not informed this draft Agreement. The WHO has not yet demonstrated how pandemic ‘preparedness,’ in the terms they use below, would have reduced impact, given that there is poor correlation between strictness or speed of response and eventual outcomes.

    Reiterating the need to work towards…an equitable approach to mitigate the risk that pandemics exacerbate existing inequities in access to health services,

    As above – in the past century, the issue of inequity has been most pronounced in pandemic response, rather than the impact of the virus itself (excluding the physiological variation in risk). Most recorded deaths from acute pandemics, since the Spanish flu, were during Covid-19, in which the virus hit mainly sick elderly, but response impacted working-age adults and children heavily and will continue to have effect, due to increased poverty and debt; reduced education and child marriage, in future generations.

    These have disproportionately affected lower-income people, and particularly women. The lack of recognition of this in this document, though they are recognized by the World Bank and UN agencies elsewhere, must raise real questions on whether this Agreement has been thoroughly thought through, and the process of development been sufficiently inclusive and objective.

    Chapter I. Introduction

    Article 1. Use of terms

    (i) “pathogen with pandemic potential” means any pathogen that has been identified to infect a human and that is: novel (not yet characterized) or known (including a variant of a known pathogen), potentially highly transmissible and/or highly virulent with the potential to cause a public health emergency of international concern.

    This provides a very wide scope to alter provisions. Any pathogen that can infect humans and is potentially highly transmissible or virulent, though yet uncharacterized means virtually any coronavirus, influenza virus, or a plethora of other relatively common pathogen groups. The IHR Amendments intend that the DG alone can make this call, over the advice of others, as occurred with monkeypox in 2022.

    (j) “persons in vulnerable situations” means individuals, groups or communities with a disproportionate increased risk of infection, severity, disease or mortality.

    This is a good definition – in Covid-19 context, would mean the sick elderly, and so is relevant to targeting a response.

    “Universal health coverage” means that all people have access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship.

    While the general UHC concept is good, it is time a sensible (rather than patently silly) definition was adopted. Society cannot afford the full range of possible interventions and remedies for all, and clearly there is a scale of cost vs benefit that prioritizes certain ones over others. Sensible definitions make action more likely, and inaction harder to justify. One could argue that none should have the full range until all have good basic care, but clearly the earth will not support ‘the full range’ for 8 billion people.

    Article 2. Objective

    This Agreement is specifically for pandemics (a poorly defined term but essentially a pathogen that spreads rapidly across national borders). In contrast, the IHR amendments accompanying it are broader in scope – for any public health emergencies of international concern.

    Article 3. Principles

    2. the sovereign right of States to adopt, legislate and implement legislation

    The amendments to the IHR require States to undertake to follow WHO instructions ahead of time, before such instruction and context are known. These two documents must be understood, as noted later in the Agreement draft, as complementary.

    3. equity as the goal and outcome of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, ensuring the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people.

    This definition of equity here needs clarification. In the pandemic context, the WHO emphasized commodity (vaccine) equity during the Covid-19 response. Elimination of differences implied equal access to Covid-19 vaccines in countries with large aging, obese highly vulnerable populations (e.g. the USA or Italy), and those with young populations at minimal risk and with far more pressing health priorities (e.g. Niger or Uganda).

    Alternatively, but equally damaging, equal access to different age groups within a country when the risk-benefit ratio is clearly greatly different. This promotes worse health outcomes by diverting resources from where they are most useful, as it ignores heterogeneity of risk. Again, an adult approach is required in international agreements, rather than feel-good sentences, if they are going to have a positive impact.

    5. …a more equitable and better prepared world to prevent, respond to and recover from pandemics

    As with ‘3’ above, this raises a fundamental problem: What if health equity demands that some populations divert resources to childhood nutrition and endemic diseases rather than the latest pandemic, as these are likely of far higher burden to many younger but lower-income populations? This would not be equity in the definition implied here, but would clearly lead to better and more equal health outcomes.

    The WHO must decide whether it is about uniform action, or minimizing poor health, as these are clearly very different. They are the difference between the WHO’s commodity equity, and true health equity.

    Chapter II. The world together equitably: achieving equity in, for and through pandemic prevention, preparedness and response

    Equity in health should imply a reasonably equal chance of overcoming or avoiding preventable sickness. The vast majority of sickness and death is due to either non-communicable diseases often related to lifestyle, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus, undernutrition in childhood, and endemic infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. Achieving health equity would primarily mean addressing these.

    In this chapter of the draft Pandemic Agreement, equity is used to imply equal access to specific health commodities, particularly vaccines, for intermittent health emergencies, although these exert a small fraction of the burden of other diseases. It is, specifically, commodity-equity, and not geared to equalizing overall health burden but to enabling centrally-coordinated homogenous responses to unusual events.

    Article 4. Pandemic prevention and surveillance

    2. The Parties shall undertake to cooperate:

    (b) in support of…initiatives aimed at preventing pandemics, in particular those that improve surveillance, early warning and risk assessment; .…and identify settings and activities presenting a risk of emergence and re-emergence of pathogens with pandemic potential.

    (c-h) [Paragraphs on water and sanitation, infection control, strengthening of biosafety, surveillance and prevention of vector-born diseases, and addressing antimicrobial resistance.]

    The WHO intends the Agreement to have force under international law. Therefore, countries are undertaking to put themselves under force of international law in regards to complying with the agreement’s stipulations.

    The provisions under this long article mostly cover general health stuff that countries try to do anyway. The difference will be that countries will be assessed on progress. Assessment can be fine if in context, less fine if it consists of entitled ‘experts’ from wealthy countries with little local knowledge or context. Perhaps such compliance is best left to national authorities, who are more in use with local needs and priorities. The justification for the international bureaucracy being built to support this, while fun for those involved, is unclear and will divert resources from actual health work.

    6. The Conference of the Parties may adopt, as necessary, guidelines, recommendations and standards, including in relation to pandemic prevention capacities, to support the implementation of this Article.

    Here and later, the COP is invoked as a vehicle to decide on what will actually be done. The rules are explained later (Articles 21-23). While allowing more time is sensible, it begs the question of why it is not better to wait and discuss what is needed in the current INB process, before committing to a legally-binding agreement. This current article says nothing not already covered by the IHR2005 or other ongoing programs.

    Article 5. One Health approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response

    Nothing specific or new in this article. It seems redundant (it is advocating a holistic approach mentioned elsewhere) and so presumably is just to get the term ‘One Health’ into the agreement. (One could ask, why bother?)

    Some mainstream definitions of One Health (e.g. Lancet) consider that it means non-human species are on a par with humans in terms of rights and importance. If this is meant here, clearly most Member States would disagree. So we may assume that it is just words to keep someone happy (a little childish in an international document, but the term ‘One Health’ has been trending, like ‘equity,’ as if the concept of holistic approaches to public health were new).

    Article 6. Preparedness, health system resilience and recovery

    2. Each Party commits…[to] :

    (a) routine and essential health services during pandemics with a focus on primary health care, routine immunization and mental health care, and with particular attention to persons in vulnerable situations

    (b) developing, strengthening and maintaining health infrastructure

    (c) developing post-pandemic health system recovery strategies

    (d) developing, strengthening and maintaining: health information systems

    This is good, and (a) seems to require avoidance of lockdowns (which inevitably cause the harms listed). Unfortunately other WHO documents lead one to assume this is not the intent…It does appear therefore that this is simply another list of fairly non-specific feel-good measures that have no useful place in a new legally-binding agreement, and which most countries are already undertaking.

    (e) promoting the use of social and behavioural sciences, risk communication and community engagement for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

    This requires clarification, as the use of behavioral science during the Covid-19 response involved deliberate inducement of fear to promote behaviors that people would not otherwise follow (e.g. Spi-B). It is essential here that the document clarifies how behavioral science should be used ethically in healthcare. Otherwise, this is also a quite meaningless provision.

    Article 7. Health and care workforce

    This long Article discusses health workforce, training, retention, non-discrimination, stigma, bias, adequate remuneration, and other standard provisions for workplaces. It is unclear why it is included in a legally binding pandemic agreement, except for:

    4. [The Parties]…shall invest in establishing, sustaining, coordinating and mobilizing a skilled and trained multidisciplinary global public health emergency workforce…Parties having established emergency health teams should inform WHO thereof and make best efforts to respond to requests for deployment…

    Emergency health teams established (within capacity etc.) – are something countries already do, when they have capacity. There is no reason to have this as a legally-binding instrument, and clearly no urgency to do so.

    Article 8. Preparedness monitoring and functional reviews

    1. The Parties shall, building on existing and relevant tools, develop and implement an inclusive, transparent, effective and efficient pandemic prevention, preparedness and response monitoring and evaluation system.

    2. Each Party shall assess, every five years, with technical support from the WHO Secretariat upon request, the functioning and readiness of, and gaps in, its pandemic prevention, preparedness and response capacity, based on the relevant tools and guidelines developed by WHO in partnership with relevant organizations at international, regional and sub-regional levels.

    Note that this is being required of countries that are already struggling to implement monitoring systems for major endemic diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, and nutritional deficiencies. They will be legally bound to divert resources to pandemic prevention. While there is some overlap, it will inevitably divert resources from currently underfunded programs for diseases of far higher local burdens, and so (not theoretically, but inevitably) raise mortality. Poor countries are being required to put resources into problems deemed significant by richer countries.

    Article 9. Research and development

    Various general provisions about undertaking background research that countries are generally doing anyway, but with an ’emerging disease’ slant. Again, the INB fails to justify why this diversion of resources from researching greater disease burdens should occur in all countries (why not just those with excess resources?).

    Article 10. Sustainable and geographically diversified production

    Mostly non-binding but suggested cooperation on making pandemic-related products available, including support for manufacturing in “inter-pandemic times” (a fascinating rendering of ‘normal’), when they would only be viable through subsidies. Much of this is probably unimplementable, as it would not be practical to maintain facilities in most or all countries on stand-by for rare events, at cost of resources otherwise useful for other priorities. The desire to increase production in ‘developing’ countries will face major barriers and costs in terms of maintaining quality of production, particularly as many products will have limited use outside of rare outbreak situations.

    Article 11. Transfer of technology and know-how

    This article, always problematic for large pharmaceutical corporations sponsoring much WHO outbreak activities, is now watered down to weak requirements to ‘consider,’ promote,’ provide, within capabilities’ etc.

    Article 12. Access and benefit sharing

    This Article is intended to establish the WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS System). PABS is intended to “ensure rapid, systematic and timely access to biological materials of pathogens with pandemic potential and the genetic sequence data.” This system is of potential high relevance and needs to be interpreted in the context that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing the recent Covid-19 outbreak, was highly likely to have escaped from a laboratory. PABS is intended to expand the laboratory storage, transport, and handling of such viruses, under the oversight of the WHO, an organization outside of national jurisdiction with no significant direct experience in handling biological materials.

    3. When a Party has access to a pathogen [it shall]:

    (a) share with WHO any pathogen sequence information as soon as it is available to the Party;

    (b) as soon as biological materials are available to the Party, provide the materials to one or more laboratories and/or biorepositories participating in WHO-coordinated laboratory networks (CLNs),

    Subsequent clauses state that benefits will be shared, and seek to prevent recipient laboratories from patenting materials received from other countries. This has been a major concern of low-and middle-income countries previously, who perceive that institutions in wealthy countries patent and benefit from materials derived from less-wealthy populations. It remains to be seen whether provisions here will be sufficient to address this.

    The article then becomes yet more concerning:

    6. WHO shall conclude legally binding standard PABS contracts with manufacturers to provide the following, taking into account the size, nature and capacities of the manufacturer:

    (a) annual monetary contributions to support the PABS System and relevant capacities in countries; the determination of the annual amount, use, and approach for monitoring and accountability, shall be finalized by the Parties;

    (b) real-time contributions of relevant diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines produced by the manufacturer, 10% free of charge and 10% at not-for-profit prices during public health emergencies of international concern or pandemics, …

    It is clearly intended that the WHO becomes directly involved in setting up legally binding manufacturing contracts, despite the WHO being outside of national jurisdictional oversight, within the territories of Member States. The PABS system, and therefore its staff and dependent entities, are also to be supported in part by funds from the manufacturers whom they are supposed to be managing. The income of the organization will be dependent on maintaining positive relationships with these private entities in a similar way in which many national regulatory agencies are dependent upon funds from pharmaceutical companies whom their staff ostensibly regulate. In this case, the regulator will be even further removed from public oversight.

    The clause on 10% (why 10?) products being free of charge, and similar at cost, while ensuring lower-priced commodities irrespective of actual need (the outbreak may be confined to wealthy countries). The same entity, the WHO, will determine whether the triggering emergency exists, determine the response, and manage the contracts to provide the commodities, without direct jurisdictional oversight regarding the potential for corruption or conflict of interest. It is a remarkable system to suggest, irrespective of political or regulatory environment.

    8. The Parties shall cooperate…public financing of research and development, prepurchase agreements, or regulatory procedures, to encourage and facilitate as many manufacturers as possible to enter into standard PABS contracts as early as possible.

    The article envisions that public funding will be used to build the process, ensuring essentially no-risk private profit.

    10. To support operationalization of the PABS System, WHO shall…make such contracts public, while respecting commercial confidentiality.

    The public may know whom contracts are made with, but not all details of the contracts. There will therefore be no independent oversight of the clauses agreed between the WHO, a body outside of national jurisdiction and dependent of commercial companies for funding some of its work and salaries, and these same companies, on ‘needs’ that the WHO itself will have sole authority, under the proposed amendments to the IHR, to determine.

    The Article further states that the WHO shall use its own product regulatory system (prequalification) and Emergency Use Listing Procedure to open and stimulate markets for the manufacturers of these products.

    It is doubtful that any national government could make such an overall agreement, yet in May 2024 they will be voting to provide this to what is essentially a foreign, and partly privately financed, entity.

    Article 13. Supply chain and logistics

    The WHO will become convenor of a ‘Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network’ for commercially-produced products, to be supplied under WHO contracts when and where the WHO determines, whilst also having the role of ensuring safety of such products.

    Having mutual support coordinated between countries is good. Having this run by an organization that is significantly funded directly by those gaining from the sale of these same commodities seems reckless and counterintuitive. Few countries would allow this (or at least plan for it).

    For this to occur safely, the WHO would logically have to forgo all private investment, and greatly restrict national specified funding contributions. Otherwise, the conflicts of interest involved would destroy confidence in the system. There is no suggestion of such divestment from the WHO, but rather, as in Article 12, private sector dependency, directly tied to contracts, will increase.

    Article 13bis: National procurement- and distribution-related provisions

    While suffering the same (perhaps unavoidable) issues regarding commercial confidentiality, this alternate Article 13 seems far more appropriate, keeping commercial issues under national jurisdiction and avoiding the obvious conflict of interests that underpin funding for WHO activities and staffing.

    Article 14. Regulatory systems strengthening

    This entire Article reflects initiatives and programs already in place. Nothing here appears likely to add to current effort.

    Article 15. Liability and compensation management

    1. Each Party shall consider developing, as necessary and in accordance with applicable law, national strategies for managing liability in its territory related to pandemic vaccines…no-fault compensation mechanisms…

    2. The Parties…shall develop recommendations for the establishment and implementation of national, regional and/or global no-fault compensation mechanisms and strategies for managing liability during pandemic emergencies, including with regard to individuals that are in a humanitarian setting or vulnerable situations.

    This is quite remarkable, but also reflects some national legislation, in removing any fault or liability specifically from vaccine manufacturers, for harms done in pushing out vaccines to the public. During the Covid-19 response, genetic therapeutics being developed by BioNtech and Moderna were reclassified as vaccines, on the basis that an immune response is stimulated after they have modified intracellular biochemical pathways as a medicine normally does.

    This enabled specific trials normally required for carcinogenicity and teratogenicity to be bypassed, despite raised fetal abnormality rates in animal trials. It will enable the CEPI 100-day vaccine program, supported with private funding to support private mRNA vaccine manufacturers, to proceed without any risk to the manufacturer should there be subsequent public harm.

    Together with an earlier provision on public funding of research and manufacturing readiness, and the removal of former wording requiring intellectual property sharing in Article 11, this ensures vaccine manufacturers and their investors make profit in effective absence of risk.

    These entities are currently heavily invested in support for WHO, and were strongly aligned with the introduction of newly restrictive outbreak responses that emphasized and sometimes mandated their products during the Covid-19 outbreak.

    Article 16. International collaboration and cooperation

    A somewhat pointless article. It suggests that countries cooperate with each other and the WHO to implement the other agreements in the Agreement.

    Article 17. Whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches

    A list of essentially motherhood provisions related to planning for a pandemic. However, countries will legally be required to maintain a ‘national coordination multisectoral body’ for PPPR. This will essentially be an added burden on budgets, and inevitably divert further resources from other priorities. Perhaps just strengthening current infectious disease and nutritional programs would be more impactful. (Nowhere in this Agreement is nutrition discussed (essential for resilience to pathogens) and minimal wording is included on sanitation and clean water (other major reasons for reduction in infectious disease mortality over past centuries).

    However, the ‘community ownership’ wording is interesting (“empower and enable community ownership of, and contribution to, community readiness for and resilience [for PPPR]”), as this directly contradicts much of the rest of the Agreement, including the centralization of control under the Conference of Parties, requirements for countries to allocate resources to pandemic preparedness over other community priorities, and the idea of inspecting and assessing adherence to the centralized requirements of the Agreement. Either much of the rest of the Agreement is redundant, or this wording is purely for appearance and not to be followed (and therefore should be removed).

    Article 18. Communication and public awareness

    1. Each Party shall promote timely access to credible and evidence-based information …with the aim of countering and addressing misinformation or disinformation…

    2. The Parties shall, as appropriate, promote and/or conduct research and inform policies on factors that hinder or strengthen adherence to public health and social measures in a pandemic, as well as trust in science and public health institutions and agencies.

    The key word is as appropriate, given that many agencies, including the WHO, have overseen or aided policies during the Covid-19 response that have greatly increased poverty, child marriage, teenage pregnancy, and education loss.

    As the WHO has been shown to be significantly misrepresenting pandemic risk in the process of advocating for this Agreement and related instruments, its own communications would also fall outside the provision here related to evidence-based information, and fall within normal understandings of misinformation. It could not therefore be an arbiter of correctness of information here, so the Article is not implementable. Rewritten to recommend accurate evidence-based information being promoted, it would make good sense, but this is not an issue requiring a legally binding international agreement.

    Article 19. Implementation and support

    3. The WHO Secretariat…organize the technical and financial assistance necessary to address such gaps and needs in implementing the commitments agreed upon under the Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations (2005).

    As the WHO is dependent on donor support, its ability to address gaps in funding within Member States is clearly not something it can guarantee. The purpose of this article is unclear, repeating in paragraphs 1 and 2 the earlier intent for countries to generally support each other.

    Article 20. Sustainable financing

    1. The Parties commit to working together…In this regard, each Party, within the means and resources at its disposal, shall:

    (a) prioritize and maintain or increase, as necessary, domestic funding for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, without undermining other domestic public health priorities including for: (i) strengthening and sustaining capacities for the prevention, preparedness and response to health emergencies and pandemics, in particular the core capacities of the International Health Regulations (2005);…

    This is silly wording, as countries obviously have to prioritize within budgets, so that moving funds to one area means removing from another. The essence of public health policy is weighing and making such decisions; this reality seems to be ignored here through wishful thinking. (a) is clearly redundant, as the IHR (2005) already exists and countries have agreed to support it.

    3. A Coordinating Financial Mechanism (the “Mechanism”) is hereby established to support the implementation of both the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations (2005)

    This will be in parallel to the Pandemic Fund recently commenced by the World Bank – an issue not lost on INB delegates and so likely to change here in the final version. It will also be additive to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and other health financing mechanisms, and so require another parallel international bureaucracy, presumably based in Geneva.

    It is intended to have its own capacity to “conduct relevant analyses on needs and gaps, in addition to tracking cooperation efforts,” so it will not be a small undertaking.

    Chapter III. Institutional and final provisions

    Article 21. Conference of the Parties

    1. A Conference of the Parties is hereby established.

    2. The Conference of the Parties shall keep under regular review, every three years, the implementation of the WHO Pandemic Agreement and take the decisions necessary to promote its effective implementation.

    This sets up the governing body to oversee this Agreement (another body requiring a secretariat and support). It is intended to meet within a year of the Agreement coming into force, and then set its own rules on meeting thereafter. It is likely that many provisions outlined in this draft of the Agreement will be deferred to the COP for further discussion.

    Articles 22 – 37

    These articles cover the functioning of the Conference of Parties (COP) and various administrative issues.

    Of note, ‘block votes’ will be allowed from regional bodies (e.g. the EU).

    The WHO will provide the secretariat.

    Under Article 24 is noted:

    3. Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement shall be interpreted as providing the Secretariat of the World Health Organization, including the WHO Director-General, any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the domestic laws or policies of any Party, or to mandate or otherwise impose any requirements that Parties take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures, or implement lockdowns.

    These provisions are explicitly stated in the proposed amendments to the IHR, to be considered alongside this agreement. Article 26 notes that the IHR is to be interpreted as compatible, thereby confirming that the IHR provisions including border closures and limits on freedom of movement, mandated vaccination, and other lockdown measures are not negated by this statement.

    As Article 26 states: “The Parties recognize that the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations should be interpreted so as to be compatible.”

    Some would consider this subterfuge – The Director-General recently labeled as liars those who claimed the Agreement included these powers, whilst failing to acknowledge the accompanying IHR amendments. The WHO could do better in avoiding misleading messaging, especially when this involves denigration of the public.

    Article 32 (Withdrawal) requires that, once adopted, Parties cannot withdraw for a total of 3 years (giving notice after a minimum of 2 years). Financial obligations undertaken under the agreement continue beyond that time.

    Finally, the Agreement will come into force, assuming a two-thirds majority in the WHA is achieved (Article 19, WHO Constitution), 30 days after the fortieth country has ratified it.

    Further reading:

    WHO Pandemic Agreement Intergovernmental Negotiating Board website:

    https://inb.who.int/

    International Health Regulations Working Group website:

    https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/index.html

    On background to the WHO texts:

    Amendments to WHO’s International Health Regulations: An Annotated Guide
    An Unofficial Q&A on International Health Regulations
    On urgency and burden of pandemics:

    https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/228/rational-policy-over-panic

    Disease X and Davos: This is Not the Way to Evaluate and Formulate Public Health Policy
    Before Preparing for Pandemics, We Need Better Evidence of Risk
    Revised Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement:

    Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
    For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.

    Authors

    David Bell
    David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.

    View all posts
    Thi Thuy Van Dinh
    Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh (LLM, PhD) worked on international law in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Subsequently, she managed multilateral organization partnerships for Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund and led environmental health technology development efforts for low-resource settings.

    View all posts
    Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work.

    https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-pandemic-agreement-a-guide/

    https://www.minds.com/donshafi911/blog/the-who-pandemic-agreement-a-guide-1621719398509187077
    The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Guide By David Bell, Thi Thuy Van Dinh March 22, 2024 Government, Society 30 minute read The World Health Organization (WHO) and its 194 Member States have been engaged for over two years in the development of two ‘instruments’ or agreements with the intent of radically changing the way pandemics and other health emergencies are managed. One, consisting of draft amendments to the existing International health Regulations (IHR), seeks to change the current IHR non-binding recommendations into requirements or binding recommendations, by having countries “undertake” to implement those given by the WHO in future declared health emergencies. It covers all ‘public health emergencies of international concern’ (PHEIC), with a single person, the WHO Director-General (DG) determining what a PHEIC is, where it extends, and when it ends. It specifies mandated vaccines, border closures, and other directives understood as lockdowns among the requirements the DG can impose. It is discussed further elsewhere and still under negotiation in Geneva. A second document, previously known as the (draft) Pandemic Treaty, then Pandemic Accord, and more recently the Pandemic Agreement, seeks to specify governance, supply chains, and various other interventions aimed at preventing, preparing for, and responding to, pandemics (pandemic prevention, preparedness and response – PPPR). It is currently being negotiated by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB). Both texts will be subject to a vote at the May 2024 World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland. These votes are intended, by those promoting these projects, to bring governance of future multi-country healthcare emergencies (or threats thereof) under the WHO umbrella. The latest version of the draft Pandemic Agreement (here forth the ‘Agreement’) was released on 7th March 2024. However, it is still being negotiated by various committees comprising representatives of Member States and other interested entities. It has been through multiple iterations over two years, and looks like it. With the teeth of the pandemic response proposals in the IHR, the Agreement looks increasingly irrelevant, or at least unsure of its purpose, picking up bits and pieces in a half-hearted way that the IHR amendments do not, or cannot, include. However, as discussed below, it is far from irrelevant. Historical Perspective These aim to increase the centralization of decision-making within the WHO as the “directing and coordinating authority.” This terminology comes from the WHO’s 1946 Constitution, developed in the aftermath of the Second World War as the world faced the outcomes of European fascism and the similar approaches widely imposed through colonialist regimes. The WHO would support emerging countries, with rapidly expanding and poorly resourced populations struggling under high disease burdens, and coordinate some areas of international support as these sovereign countries requested it. The emphasis of action was on coordinating rather than directing. In the 80 years prior to the WHO’s existence, international public health had grown within a more directive mindset, with a series of meetings by colonial and slave-owning powers from 1851 to manage pandemics, culminating in the inauguration of the Office Internationale d’Hygiene Publique in Paris in 1907, and later the League of Nations Health Office. World powers imposed health dictates on those less powerful, in other parts of the world and increasingly on their own population through the eugenics movement and similar approaches. Public health would direct, for the greater good, as a tool of those who wish to direct the lives of others. The WHO, governed by the WHA, was to be very different. Newly independent States and their former colonial masters were ostensibly on an equal footing within the WHA (one country – one vote), and the WHO’s work overall was to be an example of how human rights could dominate the way society works. The model for international public health, as exemplified in the Declaration of Alma Ata in 1978, was to be horizontal rather than vertical, with communities and countries in the driving seat. With the evolution of the WHO in recent decades from a core funding model (countries give money, the WHO decides under the WHA guidance how to spend it) to a model based on specified funding (funders, both public and increasingly private, instruct the WHO on how to spend it), the WHO has inevitably changed to become a public-private partnership required to serve the interests of funders rather than populations. As most funding comes from a few countries with major Pharma industrial bases, or private investors and corporations in the same industry, the WHO has been required to emphasize the use of pharmaceuticals and downplay evidence and knowledge where these clash (if it wants to keep all its staff funded). It is helpful to view the draft Agreement, and the IHR amendments, in this context. Why May 2024? The WHO, together with the World Bank, G20, and other institutions have been emphasizing the urgency of putting the new pandemic instruments in place earnestly, before the ‘next pandemic.’ This is based on claims that the world was unprepared for Covid-19, and that the economic and health harm would be somehow avoidable if we had these agreements in place. They emphasize, contrary to evidence that Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) origins involve laboratory manipulation, that the main threats we face are natural, and that these are increasing exponentially and present an “existential” threat to humanity. The data on which the WHO, the World Bank, and G20 base these claims demonstrates the contrary, with reported natural outbreaks having increased as detection technologies have developed, but reducing in mortality rate, and in numbers, over the past 10 to 20 years.. A paper cited by the World Bank to justify urgency and quoted as suggesting a 3x increase in risk in the coming decade actually suggests that a Covid-19-like event would occur roughly every 129 years, and a Spanish-flu repetition every 292 to 877 years. Such predictions are unable to take into account the rapidly changing nature of medicine and improved sanitation and nutrition (most deaths from Spanish flu would not have occurred if modern antibiotics had been available), and so may still overestimate risk. Similarly, the WHO’s own priority disease list for new outbreaks only includes two diseases of proven natural origin that have over 1,000 historical deaths attributed to them. It is well demonstrated that the risk and expected burden of pandemics is misrepresented by major international agencies in current discussions. The urgency for May 2024 is clearly therefore inadequately supported, firstly because neither the WHO nor others have demonstrated how the harms accrued through Covid-19 would be reduced through the measures proposed, and secondly because the burden and risk is misrepresented. In this context, the state of the Agreement is clearly not where it should be as a draft international legally binding agreement intended to impose considerable financial and other obligations on States and populations. This is particularly problematic as the proposed expenditure; the proposed budget is over $31 billion per year, with over $10 billion more on other One Health activities. Much of this will have to be diverted from addressing other diseases burdens that impose far greater burden. This trade-off, essential to understand in public health policy development, has not yet been clearly addressed by the WHO. The WHO DG stated recently that the WHO does not want the power to impose vaccine mandates or lockdowns on anyone, and does not want this. This begs the question of why either of the current WHO pandemic instruments is being proposed, both as legally binding documents. The current IHR (2005) already sets out such approaches as recommendations the DG can make, and there is nothing non-mandatory that countries cannot do now without pushing new treaty-like mechanisms through a vote in Geneva. Based on the DG’s claims, they are essentially redundant, and what new non-mandatory clauses they contain, as set out below, are certainly not urgent. Clauses that are mandatory (Member States “shall”) must be considered within national decision-making contexts and appear against the WHO’s stated intent. Common sense would suggest that the Agreement, and the accompanying IHR amendments, be properly thought through before Member States commit. The WHO has already abandoned the legal requirement for a 4-month review time for the IHR amendments (Article 55.2 IHR), which are also still under negotiation just 2 months before the WHA deadline. The Agreement should also have at least such a period for States to properly consider whether to agree – treaties normally take many years to develop and negotiate and no valid arguments have been put forward as to why these should be different. The Covid-19 response resulted in an unprecedented transfer of wealth from those of lower income to the very wealthy few, completely contrary to the way in which the WHO was intended to affect human society. A considerable portion of these pandemic profits went to current sponsors of the WHO, and these same corporate entities and investors are set to further benefit from the new pandemic agreements. As written, the Pandemic Agreement risks entrenching such centralization and profit-taking, and the accompanying unprecedented restrictions on human rights and freedoms, as a public health norm. To continue with a clearly flawed agreement simply because of a previously set deadline, when no clear population benefit is articulated and no true urgency demonstrated, would therefore be a major step backward in international public health. Basic principles of proportionality, human agency, and community empowerment, essential for health and human rights outcomes, are missing or paid lip-service. The WHO clearly wishes to increase its funding and show it is ‘doing something,’ but must first articulate why the voluntary provisions of the current IHR are insufficient. It is hoped that by systematically reviewing some key clauses of the agreement here, it will become clear why a rethink of the whole approach is necessary. The full text is found below. The commentary below concentrates on selected draft provisions of the latest publicly available version of the draft agreement that seem to be unclear or potentially problematic. Much of the remaining text is essentially pointless as it reiterates vague intentions to be found in other documents or activities which countries normally undertake in the course of running health services, and have no place in a focused legally-binding international agreement. REVISED Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement. 7th March, 2024 Preamble Recognizing that the World Health Organization…is the directing and coordinating authority on international health work. This is inconsistent with a recent statement by the WHO DG that the WHO has no interest or intent to direct country health responses. To reiterate it here suggests that the DG is not representing the true position regarding the Agreement. “Directing authority” is however in line with the proposed IHR Amendments (and the WHO’s Constitution), under which countries will “undertake” ahead of time to follow the DG’s recommendations (which thereby become instructions). As the HR amendments make clear, this is intended to apply even to a perceived threat rather than actual harm. Recalling the constitution of the World Health Organization…highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition. This statement recalls fundamental understandings of public health, and is of importance here as it raises the question of why the WHO did not strongly condemn prolonged school closures, workplace closures, and other impoverishing policies during the Covid-19 response. In 2019, WHO made clear that these dangers should prevent actions we now call ‘lockdowns’ from being imposed. Deeply concerned by the gross inequities at national and international levels that hindered timely and equitable access to medical and other Covid-19 pandemic-related products, and the serious shortcomings in pandemic preparedness. In terms of health equity (as distinct from commodity of ‘vaccine’ equity), inequity in the Covid-19 response was not in failing to provide a vaccine against former variants to immune, young people in low-income countries who were at far higher risk from endemic diseases, but in the disproportionate harm to them of uniformly-imposed NPIs that reduced current and future income and basic healthcare, as was noted by the WHO in 2019 Pandemic Influenza recommendations. The failure of the text to recognize this suggests that lessons from Covid-19 have not informed this draft Agreement. The WHO has not yet demonstrated how pandemic ‘preparedness,’ in the terms they use below, would have reduced impact, given that there is poor correlation between strictness or speed of response and eventual outcomes. Reiterating the need to work towards…an equitable approach to mitigate the risk that pandemics exacerbate existing inequities in access to health services, As above – in the past century, the issue of inequity has been most pronounced in pandemic response, rather than the impact of the virus itself (excluding the physiological variation in risk). Most recorded deaths from acute pandemics, since the Spanish flu, were during Covid-19, in which the virus hit mainly sick elderly, but response impacted working-age adults and children heavily and will continue to have effect, due to increased poverty and debt; reduced education and child marriage, in future generations. These have disproportionately affected lower-income people, and particularly women. The lack of recognition of this in this document, though they are recognized by the World Bank and UN agencies elsewhere, must raise real questions on whether this Agreement has been thoroughly thought through, and the process of development been sufficiently inclusive and objective. Chapter I. Introduction Article 1. Use of terms (i) “pathogen with pandemic potential” means any pathogen that has been identified to infect a human and that is: novel (not yet characterized) or known (including a variant of a known pathogen), potentially highly transmissible and/or highly virulent with the potential to cause a public health emergency of international concern. This provides a very wide scope to alter provisions. Any pathogen that can infect humans and is potentially highly transmissible or virulent, though yet uncharacterized means virtually any coronavirus, influenza virus, or a plethora of other relatively common pathogen groups. The IHR Amendments intend that the DG alone can make this call, over the advice of others, as occurred with monkeypox in 2022. (j) “persons in vulnerable situations” means individuals, groups or communities with a disproportionate increased risk of infection, severity, disease or mortality. This is a good definition – in Covid-19 context, would mean the sick elderly, and so is relevant to targeting a response. “Universal health coverage” means that all people have access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship. While the general UHC concept is good, it is time a sensible (rather than patently silly) definition was adopted. Society cannot afford the full range of possible interventions and remedies for all, and clearly there is a scale of cost vs benefit that prioritizes certain ones over others. Sensible definitions make action more likely, and inaction harder to justify. One could argue that none should have the full range until all have good basic care, but clearly the earth will not support ‘the full range’ for 8 billion people. Article 2. Objective This Agreement is specifically for pandemics (a poorly defined term but essentially a pathogen that spreads rapidly across national borders). In contrast, the IHR amendments accompanying it are broader in scope – for any public health emergencies of international concern. Article 3. Principles 2. the sovereign right of States to adopt, legislate and implement legislation The amendments to the IHR require States to undertake to follow WHO instructions ahead of time, before such instruction and context are known. These two documents must be understood, as noted later in the Agreement draft, as complementary. 3. equity as the goal and outcome of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, ensuring the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people. This definition of equity here needs clarification. In the pandemic context, the WHO emphasized commodity (vaccine) equity during the Covid-19 response. Elimination of differences implied equal access to Covid-19 vaccines in countries with large aging, obese highly vulnerable populations (e.g. the USA or Italy), and those with young populations at minimal risk and with far more pressing health priorities (e.g. Niger or Uganda). Alternatively, but equally damaging, equal access to different age groups within a country when the risk-benefit ratio is clearly greatly different. This promotes worse health outcomes by diverting resources from where they are most useful, as it ignores heterogeneity of risk. Again, an adult approach is required in international agreements, rather than feel-good sentences, if they are going to have a positive impact. 5. …a more equitable and better prepared world to prevent, respond to and recover from pandemics As with ‘3’ above, this raises a fundamental problem: What if health equity demands that some populations divert resources to childhood nutrition and endemic diseases rather than the latest pandemic, as these are likely of far higher burden to many younger but lower-income populations? This would not be equity in the definition implied here, but would clearly lead to better and more equal health outcomes. The WHO must decide whether it is about uniform action, or minimizing poor health, as these are clearly very different. They are the difference between the WHO’s commodity equity, and true health equity. Chapter II. The world together equitably: achieving equity in, for and through pandemic prevention, preparedness and response Equity in health should imply a reasonably equal chance of overcoming or avoiding preventable sickness. The vast majority of sickness and death is due to either non-communicable diseases often related to lifestyle, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus, undernutrition in childhood, and endemic infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. Achieving health equity would primarily mean addressing these. In this chapter of the draft Pandemic Agreement, equity is used to imply equal access to specific health commodities, particularly vaccines, for intermittent health emergencies, although these exert a small fraction of the burden of other diseases. It is, specifically, commodity-equity, and not geared to equalizing overall health burden but to enabling centrally-coordinated homogenous responses to unusual events. Article 4. Pandemic prevention and surveillance 2. The Parties shall undertake to cooperate: (b) in support of…initiatives aimed at preventing pandemics, in particular those that improve surveillance, early warning and risk assessment; .…and identify settings and activities presenting a risk of emergence and re-emergence of pathogens with pandemic potential. (c-h) [Paragraphs on water and sanitation, infection control, strengthening of biosafety, surveillance and prevention of vector-born diseases, and addressing antimicrobial resistance.] The WHO intends the Agreement to have force under international law. Therefore, countries are undertaking to put themselves under force of international law in regards to complying with the agreement’s stipulations. The provisions under this long article mostly cover general health stuff that countries try to do anyway. The difference will be that countries will be assessed on progress. Assessment can be fine if in context, less fine if it consists of entitled ‘experts’ from wealthy countries with little local knowledge or context. Perhaps such compliance is best left to national authorities, who are more in use with local needs and priorities. The justification for the international bureaucracy being built to support this, while fun for those involved, is unclear and will divert resources from actual health work. 6. The Conference of the Parties may adopt, as necessary, guidelines, recommendations and standards, including in relation to pandemic prevention capacities, to support the implementation of this Article. Here and later, the COP is invoked as a vehicle to decide on what will actually be done. The rules are explained later (Articles 21-23). While allowing more time is sensible, it begs the question of why it is not better to wait and discuss what is needed in the current INB process, before committing to a legally-binding agreement. This current article says nothing not already covered by the IHR2005 or other ongoing programs. Article 5. One Health approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response Nothing specific or new in this article. It seems redundant (it is advocating a holistic approach mentioned elsewhere) and so presumably is just to get the term ‘One Health’ into the agreement. (One could ask, why bother?) Some mainstream definitions of One Health (e.g. Lancet) consider that it means non-human species are on a par with humans in terms of rights and importance. If this is meant here, clearly most Member States would disagree. So we may assume that it is just words to keep someone happy (a little childish in an international document, but the term ‘One Health’ has been trending, like ‘equity,’ as if the concept of holistic approaches to public health were new). Article 6. Preparedness, health system resilience and recovery 2. Each Party commits…[to] : (a) routine and essential health services during pandemics with a focus on primary health care, routine immunization and mental health care, and with particular attention to persons in vulnerable situations (b) developing, strengthening and maintaining health infrastructure (c) developing post-pandemic health system recovery strategies (d) developing, strengthening and maintaining: health information systems This is good, and (a) seems to require avoidance of lockdowns (which inevitably cause the harms listed). Unfortunately other WHO documents lead one to assume this is not the intent…It does appear therefore that this is simply another list of fairly non-specific feel-good measures that have no useful place in a new legally-binding agreement, and which most countries are already undertaking. (e) promoting the use of social and behavioural sciences, risk communication and community engagement for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This requires clarification, as the use of behavioral science during the Covid-19 response involved deliberate inducement of fear to promote behaviors that people would not otherwise follow (e.g. Spi-B). It is essential here that the document clarifies how behavioral science should be used ethically in healthcare. Otherwise, this is also a quite meaningless provision. Article 7. Health and care workforce This long Article discusses health workforce, training, retention, non-discrimination, stigma, bias, adequate remuneration, and other standard provisions for workplaces. It is unclear why it is included in a legally binding pandemic agreement, except for: 4. [The Parties]…shall invest in establishing, sustaining, coordinating and mobilizing a skilled and trained multidisciplinary global public health emergency workforce…Parties having established emergency health teams should inform WHO thereof and make best efforts to respond to requests for deployment… Emergency health teams established (within capacity etc.) – are something countries already do, when they have capacity. There is no reason to have this as a legally-binding instrument, and clearly no urgency to do so. Article 8. Preparedness monitoring and functional reviews 1. The Parties shall, building on existing and relevant tools, develop and implement an inclusive, transparent, effective and efficient pandemic prevention, preparedness and response monitoring and evaluation system. 2. Each Party shall assess, every five years, with technical support from the WHO Secretariat upon request, the functioning and readiness of, and gaps in, its pandemic prevention, preparedness and response capacity, based on the relevant tools and guidelines developed by WHO in partnership with relevant organizations at international, regional and sub-regional levels. Note that this is being required of countries that are already struggling to implement monitoring systems for major endemic diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, and nutritional deficiencies. They will be legally bound to divert resources to pandemic prevention. While there is some overlap, it will inevitably divert resources from currently underfunded programs for diseases of far higher local burdens, and so (not theoretically, but inevitably) raise mortality. Poor countries are being required to put resources into problems deemed significant by richer countries. Article 9. Research and development Various general provisions about undertaking background research that countries are generally doing anyway, but with an ’emerging disease’ slant. Again, the INB fails to justify why this diversion of resources from researching greater disease burdens should occur in all countries (why not just those with excess resources?). Article 10. Sustainable and geographically diversified production Mostly non-binding but suggested cooperation on making pandemic-related products available, including support for manufacturing in “inter-pandemic times” (a fascinating rendering of ‘normal’), when they would only be viable through subsidies. Much of this is probably unimplementable, as it would not be practical to maintain facilities in most or all countries on stand-by for rare events, at cost of resources otherwise useful for other priorities. The desire to increase production in ‘developing’ countries will face major barriers and costs in terms of maintaining quality of production, particularly as many products will have limited use outside of rare outbreak situations. Article 11. Transfer of technology and know-how This article, always problematic for large pharmaceutical corporations sponsoring much WHO outbreak activities, is now watered down to weak requirements to ‘consider,’ promote,’ provide, within capabilities’ etc. Article 12. Access and benefit sharing This Article is intended to establish the WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS System). PABS is intended to “ensure rapid, systematic and timely access to biological materials of pathogens with pandemic potential and the genetic sequence data.” This system is of potential high relevance and needs to be interpreted in the context that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing the recent Covid-19 outbreak, was highly likely to have escaped from a laboratory. PABS is intended to expand the laboratory storage, transport, and handling of such viruses, under the oversight of the WHO, an organization outside of national jurisdiction with no significant direct experience in handling biological materials. 3. When a Party has access to a pathogen [it shall]: (a) share with WHO any pathogen sequence information as soon as it is available to the Party; (b) as soon as biological materials are available to the Party, provide the materials to one or more laboratories and/or biorepositories participating in WHO-coordinated laboratory networks (CLNs), Subsequent clauses state that benefits will be shared, and seek to prevent recipient laboratories from patenting materials received from other countries. This has been a major concern of low-and middle-income countries previously, who perceive that institutions in wealthy countries patent and benefit from materials derived from less-wealthy populations. It remains to be seen whether provisions here will be sufficient to address this. The article then becomes yet more concerning: 6. WHO shall conclude legally binding standard PABS contracts with manufacturers to provide the following, taking into account the size, nature and capacities of the manufacturer: (a) annual monetary contributions to support the PABS System and relevant capacities in countries; the determination of the annual amount, use, and approach for monitoring and accountability, shall be finalized by the Parties; (b) real-time contributions of relevant diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines produced by the manufacturer, 10% free of charge and 10% at not-for-profit prices during public health emergencies of international concern or pandemics, … It is clearly intended that the WHO becomes directly involved in setting up legally binding manufacturing contracts, despite the WHO being outside of national jurisdictional oversight, within the territories of Member States. The PABS system, and therefore its staff and dependent entities, are also to be supported in part by funds from the manufacturers whom they are supposed to be managing. The income of the organization will be dependent on maintaining positive relationships with these private entities in a similar way in which many national regulatory agencies are dependent upon funds from pharmaceutical companies whom their staff ostensibly regulate. In this case, the regulator will be even further removed from public oversight. The clause on 10% (why 10?) products being free of charge, and similar at cost, while ensuring lower-priced commodities irrespective of actual need (the outbreak may be confined to wealthy countries). The same entity, the WHO, will determine whether the triggering emergency exists, determine the response, and manage the contracts to provide the commodities, without direct jurisdictional oversight regarding the potential for corruption or conflict of interest. It is a remarkable system to suggest, irrespective of political or regulatory environment. 8. The Parties shall cooperate…public financing of research and development, prepurchase agreements, or regulatory procedures, to encourage and facilitate as many manufacturers as possible to enter into standard PABS contracts as early as possible. The article envisions that public funding will be used to build the process, ensuring essentially no-risk private profit. 10. To support operationalization of the PABS System, WHO shall…make such contracts public, while respecting commercial confidentiality. The public may know whom contracts are made with, but not all details of the contracts. There will therefore be no independent oversight of the clauses agreed between the WHO, a body outside of national jurisdiction and dependent of commercial companies for funding some of its work and salaries, and these same companies, on ‘needs’ that the WHO itself will have sole authority, under the proposed amendments to the IHR, to determine. The Article further states that the WHO shall use its own product regulatory system (prequalification) and Emergency Use Listing Procedure to open and stimulate markets for the manufacturers of these products. It is doubtful that any national government could make such an overall agreement, yet in May 2024 they will be voting to provide this to what is essentially a foreign, and partly privately financed, entity. Article 13. Supply chain and logistics The WHO will become convenor of a ‘Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network’ for commercially-produced products, to be supplied under WHO contracts when and where the WHO determines, whilst also having the role of ensuring safety of such products. Having mutual support coordinated between countries is good. Having this run by an organization that is significantly funded directly by those gaining from the sale of these same commodities seems reckless and counterintuitive. Few countries would allow this (or at least plan for it). For this to occur safely, the WHO would logically have to forgo all private investment, and greatly restrict national specified funding contributions. Otherwise, the conflicts of interest involved would destroy confidence in the system. There is no suggestion of such divestment from the WHO, but rather, as in Article 12, private sector dependency, directly tied to contracts, will increase. Article 13bis: National procurement- and distribution-related provisions While suffering the same (perhaps unavoidable) issues regarding commercial confidentiality, this alternate Article 13 seems far more appropriate, keeping commercial issues under national jurisdiction and avoiding the obvious conflict of interests that underpin funding for WHO activities and staffing. Article 14. Regulatory systems strengthening This entire Article reflects initiatives and programs already in place. Nothing here appears likely to add to current effort. Article 15. Liability and compensation management 1. Each Party shall consider developing, as necessary and in accordance with applicable law, national strategies for managing liability in its territory related to pandemic vaccines…no-fault compensation mechanisms… 2. The Parties…shall develop recommendations for the establishment and implementation of national, regional and/or global no-fault compensation mechanisms and strategies for managing liability during pandemic emergencies, including with regard to individuals that are in a humanitarian setting or vulnerable situations. This is quite remarkable, but also reflects some national legislation, in removing any fault or liability specifically from vaccine manufacturers, for harms done in pushing out vaccines to the public. During the Covid-19 response, genetic therapeutics being developed by BioNtech and Moderna were reclassified as vaccines, on the basis that an immune response is stimulated after they have modified intracellular biochemical pathways as a medicine normally does. This enabled specific trials normally required for carcinogenicity and teratogenicity to be bypassed, despite raised fetal abnormality rates in animal trials. It will enable the CEPI 100-day vaccine program, supported with private funding to support private mRNA vaccine manufacturers, to proceed without any risk to the manufacturer should there be subsequent public harm. Together with an earlier provision on public funding of research and manufacturing readiness, and the removal of former wording requiring intellectual property sharing in Article 11, this ensures vaccine manufacturers and their investors make profit in effective absence of risk. These entities are currently heavily invested in support for WHO, and were strongly aligned with the introduction of newly restrictive outbreak responses that emphasized and sometimes mandated their products during the Covid-19 outbreak. Article 16. International collaboration and cooperation A somewhat pointless article. It suggests that countries cooperate with each other and the WHO to implement the other agreements in the Agreement. Article 17. Whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches A list of essentially motherhood provisions related to planning for a pandemic. However, countries will legally be required to maintain a ‘national coordination multisectoral body’ for PPPR. This will essentially be an added burden on budgets, and inevitably divert further resources from other priorities. Perhaps just strengthening current infectious disease and nutritional programs would be more impactful. (Nowhere in this Agreement is nutrition discussed (essential for resilience to pathogens) and minimal wording is included on sanitation and clean water (other major reasons for reduction in infectious disease mortality over past centuries). However, the ‘community ownership’ wording is interesting (“empower and enable community ownership of, and contribution to, community readiness for and resilience [for PPPR]”), as this directly contradicts much of the rest of the Agreement, including the centralization of control under the Conference of Parties, requirements for countries to allocate resources to pandemic preparedness over other community priorities, and the idea of inspecting and assessing adherence to the centralized requirements of the Agreement. Either much of the rest of the Agreement is redundant, or this wording is purely for appearance and not to be followed (and therefore should be removed). Article 18. Communication and public awareness 1. Each Party shall promote timely access to credible and evidence-based information …with the aim of countering and addressing misinformation or disinformation… 2. The Parties shall, as appropriate, promote and/or conduct research and inform policies on factors that hinder or strengthen adherence to public health and social measures in a pandemic, as well as trust in science and public health institutions and agencies. The key word is as appropriate, given that many agencies, including the WHO, have overseen or aided policies during the Covid-19 response that have greatly increased poverty, child marriage, teenage pregnancy, and education loss. As the WHO has been shown to be significantly misrepresenting pandemic risk in the process of advocating for this Agreement and related instruments, its own communications would also fall outside the provision here related to evidence-based information, and fall within normal understandings of misinformation. It could not therefore be an arbiter of correctness of information here, so the Article is not implementable. Rewritten to recommend accurate evidence-based information being promoted, it would make good sense, but this is not an issue requiring a legally binding international agreement. Article 19. Implementation and support 3. The WHO Secretariat…organize the technical and financial assistance necessary to address such gaps and needs in implementing the commitments agreed upon under the Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations (2005). As the WHO is dependent on donor support, its ability to address gaps in funding within Member States is clearly not something it can guarantee. The purpose of this article is unclear, repeating in paragraphs 1 and 2 the earlier intent for countries to generally support each other. Article 20. Sustainable financing 1. The Parties commit to working together…In this regard, each Party, within the means and resources at its disposal, shall: (a) prioritize and maintain or increase, as necessary, domestic funding for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, without undermining other domestic public health priorities including for: (i) strengthening and sustaining capacities for the prevention, preparedness and response to health emergencies and pandemics, in particular the core capacities of the International Health Regulations (2005);… This is silly wording, as countries obviously have to prioritize within budgets, so that moving funds to one area means removing from another. The essence of public health policy is weighing and making such decisions; this reality seems to be ignored here through wishful thinking. (a) is clearly redundant, as the IHR (2005) already exists and countries have agreed to support it. 3. A Coordinating Financial Mechanism (the “Mechanism”) is hereby established to support the implementation of both the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations (2005) This will be in parallel to the Pandemic Fund recently commenced by the World Bank – an issue not lost on INB delegates and so likely to change here in the final version. It will also be additive to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and other health financing mechanisms, and so require another parallel international bureaucracy, presumably based in Geneva. It is intended to have its own capacity to “conduct relevant analyses on needs and gaps, in addition to tracking cooperation efforts,” so it will not be a small undertaking. Chapter III. Institutional and final provisions Article 21. Conference of the Parties 1. A Conference of the Parties is hereby established. 2. The Conference of the Parties shall keep under regular review, every three years, the implementation of the WHO Pandemic Agreement and take the decisions necessary to promote its effective implementation. This sets up the governing body to oversee this Agreement (another body requiring a secretariat and support). It is intended to meet within a year of the Agreement coming into force, and then set its own rules on meeting thereafter. It is likely that many provisions outlined in this draft of the Agreement will be deferred to the COP for further discussion. Articles 22 – 37 These articles cover the functioning of the Conference of Parties (COP) and various administrative issues. Of note, ‘block votes’ will be allowed from regional bodies (e.g. the EU). The WHO will provide the secretariat. Under Article 24 is noted: 3. Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement shall be interpreted as providing the Secretariat of the World Health Organization, including the WHO Director-General, any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the domestic laws or policies of any Party, or to mandate or otherwise impose any requirements that Parties take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures, or implement lockdowns. These provisions are explicitly stated in the proposed amendments to the IHR, to be considered alongside this agreement. Article 26 notes that the IHR is to be interpreted as compatible, thereby confirming that the IHR provisions including border closures and limits on freedom of movement, mandated vaccination, and other lockdown measures are not negated by this statement. As Article 26 states: “The Parties recognize that the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations should be interpreted so as to be compatible.” Some would consider this subterfuge – The Director-General recently labeled as liars those who claimed the Agreement included these powers, whilst failing to acknowledge the accompanying IHR amendments. The WHO could do better in avoiding misleading messaging, especially when this involves denigration of the public. Article 32 (Withdrawal) requires that, once adopted, Parties cannot withdraw for a total of 3 years (giving notice after a minimum of 2 years). Financial obligations undertaken under the agreement continue beyond that time. Finally, the Agreement will come into force, assuming a two-thirds majority in the WHA is achieved (Article 19, WHO Constitution), 30 days after the fortieth country has ratified it. Further reading: WHO Pandemic Agreement Intergovernmental Negotiating Board website: https://inb.who.int/ International Health Regulations Working Group website: https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/index.html On background to the WHO texts: Amendments to WHO’s International Health Regulations: An Annotated Guide An Unofficial Q&A on International Health Regulations On urgency and burden of pandemics: https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/228/rational-policy-over-panic Disease X and Davos: This is Not the Way to Evaluate and Formulate Public Health Policy Before Preparing for Pandemics, We Need Better Evidence of Risk Revised Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement: Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author. Authors David Bell David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA. View all posts Thi Thuy Van Dinh Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh (LLM, PhD) worked on international law in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Subsequently, she managed multilateral organization partnerships for Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund and led environmental health technology development efforts for low-resource settings. View all posts Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-pandemic-agreement-a-guide/ https://www.minds.com/donshafi911/blog/the-who-pandemic-agreement-a-guide-1621719398509187077
    BROWNSTONE.ORG
    The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Guide ⋆ Brownstone Institute
    The commentary below concentrates on selected draft provisions of the latest publicly available version of the draft agreement that seem to be unclear or potentially problematic.
    Like
    1
    0 Comments 0 Shares 28821 Views
  • Why Does the WHO Make False Claims Regarding Proposals to Seize States’ Sovereignty?
    By David Bell, Thi Thuy Van Dinh December 11, 2023 Government, Law, Public Health 15 minute read
    The Director General (DG) of the World Health Organization (WHO) states:

    No country will cede any sovereignty to WHO,

    referring to the WHO’s new pandemic agreement and proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR), currently being negotiated. His statements are clear and unequivocal, and wholly inconsistent with the texts he is referring to.

    A rational examination of the texts in question shows that:

    The documents propose a transfer of decision-making power to the WHO regarding basic aspects of societal function, which countries undertake to enact.
    The WHO DG will have sole authority to decide when and where they are applied.
    The proposals are intended to be binding under international law.
    Continued claims that sovereignty is not lost, echoed by politicians and media, therefore raise important questions concerning motivations, competence, and ethics.

    The intent of the texts is a transfer of decision-making currently vested in Nations and individuals to the WHO, when its DG decides that there is a threat of a significant disease outbreak or other health emergency likely to cross multiple national borders. It is unusual for Nations to undertake to follow external entities regarding the basic rights and healthcare of their citizens, more so when this has major economic and geopolitical implications.

    The question of whether sovereignty is indeed being transferred, and the legal status of such an agreement, is therefore of vital importance, particularly to the legislators of democratic States. They have an absolute duty to be sure of their ground. We systematically examine that ground here.

    The Proposed IHR Amendments and Sovereignty in Health Decision-Making

    Amending the 2005 IHR may be a straightforward way to quickly deploy and enforce “new normal” health control measures. The current text applies to virtually the entire global population, counting 196 States Parties including all 194 WHO Member States. Approval may or may not require a formal vote of the World Health Assembly (WHA), as the recent 2022 amendment was adopted through consensus. If the same approval mechanism is to be used in May 2024, many countries and the public may remain unaware of the broad scope of the new text and its implications to national and individual sovereignty.

    The IHR are a set of recommendations under a treaty process that has force under international law. They seek to provide the WHO with some moral authority to coordinate and lead responses when an international health emergency, such as pandemic, occurs. Most are non-binding, and these contain very specific examples of measures that the WHO can recommend, including (Article 18):

    require medical examinations;
    review proof of vaccination or other prophylaxis;
    require vaccination or other prophylaxis;
    place suspect persons under public health observation;
    implement quarantine or other health measures for suspect persons;
    implement isolation and treatment where necessary of affected persons;
    implement tracing of contacts of suspect or affected persons;
    refuse entry of suspect and affected persons;
    refuse entry of unaffected persons to affected areas; and
    implement exit screening and/or restrictions on persons from affected areas.
    These measures, when implemented together, are generally referred to since early 2020 as ‘lockdowns’ and ‘mandates.’ ‘Lockdown’ was previously a term reserved for people incarcerated as criminals, as it removes basic universally accepted human rights and such measures were considered by the WHO to be detrimental to public health. However, since 2020 it has become the default standard for public health authorities to manage epidemics, despite its contradictions to multiple stipulations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):

    Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind including no arbitrary detention (Article 9).
    No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence (Article 12).
    Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, and Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country (Article 13).
    Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers (Article 19).
    Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association (Article 20).
    The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government (Article 21).
    Everyone has the right to work (Article 23).
    Everyone has the right to education (Article 26).
    Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized (Article 28).
    Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein (Article 30).
    These UDHR stipulations are the basis of the modern concept of individual sovereignty, and the relationship between authorities and their populations. Considered the highest codification of the rights and freedoms of individuals in the 20th century, they may soon be dismantled behind closed doors in a meeting room in Geneva.

    The proposed amendments will change the “recommendations” of the current document to requirements through three mechanisms on

    Removing the term ‘non-binding’ (Article 1),
    Inserting the phrase that Member States will “undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations” and recognize WHO, not as an organization under the control of countries, but as the “coordinating authority” (New Article 13A).
    States Parties recognize WHO as the guidance and coordinating authority of international public health response during public health Emergency of International Concern and undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations in their international public health response.

    As Article 18 makes clear above, these include multiple actions directly restricting individual liberty. If transfer of decision-making power (sovereignty) is not intended here, then the current status of the IHR as ‘recommendations’ could remain and countries would not be undertaking to follow the WHO’s requirements.

    States Parties undertake to enact what previously were merely recommendations, without delay, including requirements of WHO regarding non-State entities under their jurisdiction (Article 42):
    Health measures taken pursuant to these Regulations, including the recommendations made under Articles 15 and 16, shall be initiated and completed without delay by all State Parties and applied in a transparent, equitable and non-discriminatory manner. State Parties shall also take measures to ensure Non-State Actors operating in their respective territories comply with such measures.

    Articles 15 and 16 mentioned here allow the WHO to require a State to provide resources “health products, technologies, and know-how,” and to allow the WHO to deploy personnel into the country (i.e., have control over entry across national borders for those they choose). They also repeat the requirement for the country to require the implementation of medical countermeasures (e.g., testing, vaccines, quarantine) on their population where WHO demands it.

    Of note, the proposed Article 1 amendment (removing ‘non-binding’) is actually redundant if New Article 13A and/or the changes in Article 42 remain. This can (and likely will) be removed from the final text, giving an appearance of compromise without changing the transfer of sovereignty.

    All of the public health measures in Article 18, and additional ones such as limiting freedom of speech to reduce public exposure to alternative viewpoints (Annex 1, New 5 (e); “…counter misinformation and disinformation”) clash directly with the UDHR. Although freedom of speech is currently the exclusive purview of national authorities and its restriction is generally seen as negative and abusive, United Nations institutions, including the WHO, have been advocating for censoring unofficial views in order to protect what they call “information integrity.”

    It seems outrageous from a human rights perspective that the amendments will enable the WHO to dictate countries to require individual medical examinations and vaccinations whenever it declares a pandemic. While the Nuremberg Code and Declaration of Helsinki refer specifically to human experimentation (e.g. clinical trials of vaccines) and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights also to the provider-patient relationship, they can reasonably be extended to public health measures that impose restrictions or changes to human behavior, and specifically to any measures requiring injection, medication, or medical examination which involve a direct provider-person interaction.

    If vaccines or drugs are still under trial or not fully tested, then the issue of being the subject of an experiment is also real. There is a clear intent to employ the CEPI ‘100 day’ vaccine program, which by definition cannot complete meaningful safety or efficacy trials within that time span.

    Forced examination or medication, outside of a situation where the recipient is clearly not mentally competent to comply or reject when provided with information, is unethical. Requiring compliance in order to access what are considered basic human rights under the UDHR would constitute coercion. If this does not fit the WHO’s definition of infringement on individual sovereignty, and on national sovereignty, then the DG and his supporters need to publicly explain what definition they are using.

    The Proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement as a Tool to Manage Transfer of Sovereignty

    The proposed pandemic agreement will set humanity in a new era strangely organized around pandemics: pre-pandemic, pandemic, and inter-pandemic. A new governance structure under WHO auspices will oversee the IHR amendments and related initiatives. It will rely on new funding requirements, including the WHO’s ability to demand additional funding and materials from countries and to run a supply network to support its work in health emergencies (Article 12):

    In the event of a pandemic, real-time access by WHO to a minimum of 20% (10% as a donation and 10% at affordable prices to WHO) of the production of safe, efficacious and effective pandemic-related products for distribution based on public health risks and needs, with the understanding that each Party that has manufacturing facilities that produce pandemic-related products in its jurisdiction shall take all necessary steps to facilitate the export of such pandemic-related products, in accordance with timetables to be agreed between WHO and manufacturers.

    And Article 20 (1):

    …provide support and assistance to other Parties, upon request, to facilitate the containment of spill-over at the source.

    The entire structure will be financed by a new funding stream separate from current WHO funding – an additional requirement on taxpayers over current national commitments (Article 20 (2)). The funding will also include an endowment of voluntary contributions of “all relevant sectors that benefit from international work to strengthen pandemic preparation, preparedness and response” and donations from philanthropic organizations (Article 20 (2)b).

    Currently, countries decide on foreign aid on the basis of national priorities, apart from limited funding that they have agreed to allocate to organizations such as WHO under existing obligations or treaties. The proposed agreement is remarkable not just in greatly increasing the amount countries must give as treaty requirements, but in setting up a parallel funding structure disconnected from other disease priorities (quite the opposite of previous ideas on integration in health financing). It also gives power to an external group, not directly accountable, to demand or acquire further resources whenever it deems necessary.

    In a further encroachment into what is normally within the legal jurisdiction of Nation States, the agreement will require countries to establish (Article 15) “…, no-fault vaccine injury compensation mechanism(s),…”, consecrating effective immunity for pharmaceutical companies for harm to citizens resulting from use of products that the WHO recommends under an emergency use authorization, or indeed requires countries to mandate onto their citizens.

    As is becoming increasingly acceptable for those in power, ratifying countries will agree to limit the right of their public to voice opposition to the WHO’s measures and claims regarding such an emergency (Article 18):

    …and combat false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through effective international collaboration and cooperation…

    As we have seen during the Covid-19 response, the definition of misleading information can be dependent on political or commercial expediency, including factual information on vaccine efficacy and safety and orthodox immunology that could impair the sale of health commodities. This is why open democracies put such emphasis on defending free speech, even at the risk of sometimes being misleading. In signing on to this agreement, governments will be agreeing to abrogate that principle regarding their own citizens when instructed by the WHO.

    The scope of this proposed agreement (and the IHR amendments) is broader than pandemics, greatly expanding the scope under which a transfer of decision-making powers can be demanded. Other environmental threats to health, such as changes in climate, can be declared emergencies at the DG’s discretion, if broad definitions of ‘One Health’ are adopted as recommended.

    It is difficult to think of another international instrument where such powers over national resources are passed to an unelected external organization, and it is even more challenging to envision how this is seen as anything other than a loss of sovereignty. The only justification for this claim would appear to be if the draft agreement is to be signed on the basis of deceit – that there is no intention to treat it other than as an irrelevant piece of paper or something that should only apply to less powerful States (i.e. a colonialist tool).

    Will the IHR Amendments and the Proposed Pandemic Agreement be Legally Binding?

    Both texts are intended to be legally binding. The IHR already has such status, so the impact of the proposed changes on the need for new acceptance by countries are complicated national jurisdictional issues. There is a current mechanism for rejection of new amendments. However, unless a high number of countries will actively voice their oppositions and rejections, the adoption of the current published version dated February 2023 will likely lead to a future shadowed by the permanent risks of the WHO’s lockdown and lockstep dictates.

    The proposed pandemic agreement is also clearly intended to be legally binding. WHO discusses this issue on the website of the International Negotiating Body (INB) that is working on the text. The same legally binding intent is specifically stated by the G20 Bali Leaders Declaration in 2022:

    We support the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that will draft and negotiate a legally binding instrument that should contain both legally binding and non-legally binding elements to strengthen pandemic PPR…,

    repeated in the 2023 G20 New Delhi Leaders Declaration:

    …an ambitious, legally binding WHO convention, agreement or other international instruments on pandemic PPR (WHO CA+) by May 2024,

    and by the Council of the European Union:

    A convention, agreement or other international instrument is legally binding under international Law. An agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response adopted under the World Health Organization (WHO) would enable countries around the globe to strengthen national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics.

    The IHR already has standing under international law.

    While seeking such status, WHO officials who previously described the proposed agreement as a ‘treaty” are now insisting neither instrument impacts sovereignty. The implication that it is States’ representatives at the WHA that will agree to the transfer, rather than the WHO, is a nuance irrelevant to its claims regarding their subsequent effect.

    The WHO’s position raises a real question of whether its leadership is truly ignorant of what is proposed, or is actively seeking to mislead countries and the public in order to increase the probability of acceptance. The latest version dated 30 October 2023 requires 40 ratifications for the future agreement to enter into force, after a two-thirds vote in favor within the WHA. Opposition by a considerable number of countries will therefore be needed to derail this project. As it is backed by powerful governments and institutions, financial mechanisms including IMF and World Bank instruments and bilateral aids are likely to make opposition from lower-income countries difficult to sustain.

    The Implications of Ignoring the Issue of Sovereignty

    The relevant question regarding these two WHO instruments should really be not whether sovereignty is threatened, but why any sovereignty would be forfeited by democratic States to an organization that is (i) significantly privately funded and bound to obey the dictates of corporations and self-proclaimed philanthropists and (ii) jointly governed by Member States, half of which don’t even claim to be open representative democracies.

    If it is indeed true that sovereignty is being knowingly forfeited by governments without the knowledge and consent of their peoples, and based on false claims from governments and the WHO, then the implications are extremely serious. It would imply that leaders were working directly against their peoples’ or national interest, and in support of external interests. Most countries have specific fundamental laws dealing with such practice. So, it is really important for those defending these projects to either explain their definitions of sovereignty and democratic process, or explicitly seek informed public consent.

    The other question to be asked is why public health authorities and media are repeating the WHO’s assurances of the benign nature of the pandemic instruments. It asserts that claims of reduced sovereignty are ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation,’ which they assert elsewhere are major killers of humankind. While such claims are somewhat ludicrous and appear intended to denigrate dissenters, the WHO is clearly guilty of that which it claims is such a crime. If its leadership cannot demonstrate how its claims regarding these pandemic instruments are not deliberately misleading, its leadership would appear ethically compelled to resign.

    The Need for Clarification

    The WHO lists three major pandemics in the past century – influenza outbreaks in the late 1950s and 1960s, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The first two killed less than die each year today from tuberculosis, whilst the reported deaths from Covid-19 never reached the level of cancer or cardiovascular disease and remained almost irrelevant in low-income countries compared to endemic infectious diseases including tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDs.

    No other non-influenza outbreak recorded by the WHO that fits the definition of a pandemic (e.g., rapid spread across international borders for a limited time of a pathogen not normally causing significant harm) has caused greater mortality in total than a few days of tuberculosis (about 4,000/day) or more life-years lost than a few days of malaria (about 1,500 children under 5 years old every day).

    So, if it is indeed the case that our authorities and their supporters within the public health community consider that powers currently vested within national jurisdictions should be given over to external bodies on the basis of this level of recorded harm, it would be best to have a public conversation as to whether this is sufficient basis for abandoning democratic ideals in favor of a more fascist or otherwise authoritarian approach. We are, after all, talking about restricting basic human rights essential for a democracy to function.

    Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
    For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.

    Authors

    David Bell
    David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.

    View all posts
    Thi Thuy Van Dinh
    Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh (LLM, PhD) worked on international law in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Subsequently, she managed multilateral organization partnerships for Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund and led environmental health technology development efforts for low-resource settings.

    View all posts
    Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work.

    https://brownstone.org/articles/why-does-the-who-make-false-claims-regarding-proposals-to-seize-states-sovereignty/
    Why Does the WHO Make False Claims Regarding Proposals to Seize States’ Sovereignty? By David Bell, Thi Thuy Van Dinh December 11, 2023 Government, Law, Public Health 15 minute read The Director General (DG) of the World Health Organization (WHO) states: No country will cede any sovereignty to WHO, referring to the WHO’s new pandemic agreement and proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR), currently being negotiated. His statements are clear and unequivocal, and wholly inconsistent with the texts he is referring to. A rational examination of the texts in question shows that: The documents propose a transfer of decision-making power to the WHO regarding basic aspects of societal function, which countries undertake to enact. The WHO DG will have sole authority to decide when and where they are applied. The proposals are intended to be binding under international law. Continued claims that sovereignty is not lost, echoed by politicians and media, therefore raise important questions concerning motivations, competence, and ethics. The intent of the texts is a transfer of decision-making currently vested in Nations and individuals to the WHO, when its DG decides that there is a threat of a significant disease outbreak or other health emergency likely to cross multiple national borders. It is unusual for Nations to undertake to follow external entities regarding the basic rights and healthcare of their citizens, more so when this has major economic and geopolitical implications. The question of whether sovereignty is indeed being transferred, and the legal status of such an agreement, is therefore of vital importance, particularly to the legislators of democratic States. They have an absolute duty to be sure of their ground. We systematically examine that ground here. The Proposed IHR Amendments and Sovereignty in Health Decision-Making Amending the 2005 IHR may be a straightforward way to quickly deploy and enforce “new normal” health control measures. The current text applies to virtually the entire global population, counting 196 States Parties including all 194 WHO Member States. Approval may or may not require a formal vote of the World Health Assembly (WHA), as the recent 2022 amendment was adopted through consensus. If the same approval mechanism is to be used in May 2024, many countries and the public may remain unaware of the broad scope of the new text and its implications to national and individual sovereignty. The IHR are a set of recommendations under a treaty process that has force under international law. They seek to provide the WHO with some moral authority to coordinate and lead responses when an international health emergency, such as pandemic, occurs. Most are non-binding, and these contain very specific examples of measures that the WHO can recommend, including (Article 18): require medical examinations; review proof of vaccination or other prophylaxis; require vaccination or other prophylaxis; place suspect persons under public health observation; implement quarantine or other health measures for suspect persons; implement isolation and treatment where necessary of affected persons; implement tracing of contacts of suspect or affected persons; refuse entry of suspect and affected persons; refuse entry of unaffected persons to affected areas; and implement exit screening and/or restrictions on persons from affected areas. These measures, when implemented together, are generally referred to since early 2020 as ‘lockdowns’ and ‘mandates.’ ‘Lockdown’ was previously a term reserved for people incarcerated as criminals, as it removes basic universally accepted human rights and such measures were considered by the WHO to be detrimental to public health. However, since 2020 it has become the default standard for public health authorities to manage epidemics, despite its contradictions to multiple stipulations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind including no arbitrary detention (Article 9). No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence (Article 12). Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, and Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country (Article 13). Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers (Article 19). Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association (Article 20). The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government (Article 21). Everyone has the right to work (Article 23). Everyone has the right to education (Article 26). Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized (Article 28). Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein (Article 30). These UDHR stipulations are the basis of the modern concept of individual sovereignty, and the relationship between authorities and their populations. Considered the highest codification of the rights and freedoms of individuals in the 20th century, they may soon be dismantled behind closed doors in a meeting room in Geneva. The proposed amendments will change the “recommendations” of the current document to requirements through three mechanisms on Removing the term ‘non-binding’ (Article 1), Inserting the phrase that Member States will “undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations” and recognize WHO, not as an organization under the control of countries, but as the “coordinating authority” (New Article 13A). States Parties recognize WHO as the guidance and coordinating authority of international public health response during public health Emergency of International Concern and undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations in their international public health response. As Article 18 makes clear above, these include multiple actions directly restricting individual liberty. If transfer of decision-making power (sovereignty) is not intended here, then the current status of the IHR as ‘recommendations’ could remain and countries would not be undertaking to follow the WHO’s requirements. States Parties undertake to enact what previously were merely recommendations, without delay, including requirements of WHO regarding non-State entities under their jurisdiction (Article 42): Health measures taken pursuant to these Regulations, including the recommendations made under Articles 15 and 16, shall be initiated and completed without delay by all State Parties and applied in a transparent, equitable and non-discriminatory manner. State Parties shall also take measures to ensure Non-State Actors operating in their respective territories comply with such measures. Articles 15 and 16 mentioned here allow the WHO to require a State to provide resources “health products, technologies, and know-how,” and to allow the WHO to deploy personnel into the country (i.e., have control over entry across national borders for those they choose). They also repeat the requirement for the country to require the implementation of medical countermeasures (e.g., testing, vaccines, quarantine) on their population where WHO demands it. Of note, the proposed Article 1 amendment (removing ‘non-binding’) is actually redundant if New Article 13A and/or the changes in Article 42 remain. This can (and likely will) be removed from the final text, giving an appearance of compromise without changing the transfer of sovereignty. All of the public health measures in Article 18, and additional ones such as limiting freedom of speech to reduce public exposure to alternative viewpoints (Annex 1, New 5 (e); “…counter misinformation and disinformation”) clash directly with the UDHR. Although freedom of speech is currently the exclusive purview of national authorities and its restriction is generally seen as negative and abusive, United Nations institutions, including the WHO, have been advocating for censoring unofficial views in order to protect what they call “information integrity.” It seems outrageous from a human rights perspective that the amendments will enable the WHO to dictate countries to require individual medical examinations and vaccinations whenever it declares a pandemic. While the Nuremberg Code and Declaration of Helsinki refer specifically to human experimentation (e.g. clinical trials of vaccines) and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights also to the provider-patient relationship, they can reasonably be extended to public health measures that impose restrictions or changes to human behavior, and specifically to any measures requiring injection, medication, or medical examination which involve a direct provider-person interaction. If vaccines or drugs are still under trial or not fully tested, then the issue of being the subject of an experiment is also real. There is a clear intent to employ the CEPI ‘100 day’ vaccine program, which by definition cannot complete meaningful safety or efficacy trials within that time span. Forced examination or medication, outside of a situation where the recipient is clearly not mentally competent to comply or reject when provided with information, is unethical. Requiring compliance in order to access what are considered basic human rights under the UDHR would constitute coercion. If this does not fit the WHO’s definition of infringement on individual sovereignty, and on national sovereignty, then the DG and his supporters need to publicly explain what definition they are using. The Proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement as a Tool to Manage Transfer of Sovereignty The proposed pandemic agreement will set humanity in a new era strangely organized around pandemics: pre-pandemic, pandemic, and inter-pandemic. A new governance structure under WHO auspices will oversee the IHR amendments and related initiatives. It will rely on new funding requirements, including the WHO’s ability to demand additional funding and materials from countries and to run a supply network to support its work in health emergencies (Article 12): In the event of a pandemic, real-time access by WHO to a minimum of 20% (10% as a donation and 10% at affordable prices to WHO) of the production of safe, efficacious and effective pandemic-related products for distribution based on public health risks and needs, with the understanding that each Party that has manufacturing facilities that produce pandemic-related products in its jurisdiction shall take all necessary steps to facilitate the export of such pandemic-related products, in accordance with timetables to be agreed between WHO and manufacturers. And Article 20 (1): …provide support and assistance to other Parties, upon request, to facilitate the containment of spill-over at the source. The entire structure will be financed by a new funding stream separate from current WHO funding – an additional requirement on taxpayers over current national commitments (Article 20 (2)). The funding will also include an endowment of voluntary contributions of “all relevant sectors that benefit from international work to strengthen pandemic preparation, preparedness and response” and donations from philanthropic organizations (Article 20 (2)b). Currently, countries decide on foreign aid on the basis of national priorities, apart from limited funding that they have agreed to allocate to organizations such as WHO under existing obligations or treaties. The proposed agreement is remarkable not just in greatly increasing the amount countries must give as treaty requirements, but in setting up a parallel funding structure disconnected from other disease priorities (quite the opposite of previous ideas on integration in health financing). It also gives power to an external group, not directly accountable, to demand or acquire further resources whenever it deems necessary. In a further encroachment into what is normally within the legal jurisdiction of Nation States, the agreement will require countries to establish (Article 15) “…, no-fault vaccine injury compensation mechanism(s),…”, consecrating effective immunity for pharmaceutical companies for harm to citizens resulting from use of products that the WHO recommends under an emergency use authorization, or indeed requires countries to mandate onto their citizens. As is becoming increasingly acceptable for those in power, ratifying countries will agree to limit the right of their public to voice opposition to the WHO’s measures and claims regarding such an emergency (Article 18): …and combat false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through effective international collaboration and cooperation… As we have seen during the Covid-19 response, the definition of misleading information can be dependent on political or commercial expediency, including factual information on vaccine efficacy and safety and orthodox immunology that could impair the sale of health commodities. This is why open democracies put such emphasis on defending free speech, even at the risk of sometimes being misleading. In signing on to this agreement, governments will be agreeing to abrogate that principle regarding their own citizens when instructed by the WHO. The scope of this proposed agreement (and the IHR amendments) is broader than pandemics, greatly expanding the scope under which a transfer of decision-making powers can be demanded. Other environmental threats to health, such as changes in climate, can be declared emergencies at the DG’s discretion, if broad definitions of ‘One Health’ are adopted as recommended. It is difficult to think of another international instrument where such powers over national resources are passed to an unelected external organization, and it is even more challenging to envision how this is seen as anything other than a loss of sovereignty. The only justification for this claim would appear to be if the draft agreement is to be signed on the basis of deceit – that there is no intention to treat it other than as an irrelevant piece of paper or something that should only apply to less powerful States (i.e. a colonialist tool). Will the IHR Amendments and the Proposed Pandemic Agreement be Legally Binding? Both texts are intended to be legally binding. The IHR already has such status, so the impact of the proposed changes on the need for new acceptance by countries are complicated national jurisdictional issues. There is a current mechanism for rejection of new amendments. However, unless a high number of countries will actively voice their oppositions and rejections, the adoption of the current published version dated February 2023 will likely lead to a future shadowed by the permanent risks of the WHO’s lockdown and lockstep dictates. The proposed pandemic agreement is also clearly intended to be legally binding. WHO discusses this issue on the website of the International Negotiating Body (INB) that is working on the text. The same legally binding intent is specifically stated by the G20 Bali Leaders Declaration in 2022: We support the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that will draft and negotiate a legally binding instrument that should contain both legally binding and non-legally binding elements to strengthen pandemic PPR…, repeated in the 2023 G20 New Delhi Leaders Declaration: …an ambitious, legally binding WHO convention, agreement or other international instruments on pandemic PPR (WHO CA+) by May 2024, and by the Council of the European Union: A convention, agreement or other international instrument is legally binding under international Law. An agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response adopted under the World Health Organization (WHO) would enable countries around the globe to strengthen national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics. The IHR already has standing under international law. While seeking such status, WHO officials who previously described the proposed agreement as a ‘treaty” are now insisting neither instrument impacts sovereignty. The implication that it is States’ representatives at the WHA that will agree to the transfer, rather than the WHO, is a nuance irrelevant to its claims regarding their subsequent effect. The WHO’s position raises a real question of whether its leadership is truly ignorant of what is proposed, or is actively seeking to mislead countries and the public in order to increase the probability of acceptance. The latest version dated 30 October 2023 requires 40 ratifications for the future agreement to enter into force, after a two-thirds vote in favor within the WHA. Opposition by a considerable number of countries will therefore be needed to derail this project. As it is backed by powerful governments and institutions, financial mechanisms including IMF and World Bank instruments and bilateral aids are likely to make opposition from lower-income countries difficult to sustain. The Implications of Ignoring the Issue of Sovereignty The relevant question regarding these two WHO instruments should really be not whether sovereignty is threatened, but why any sovereignty would be forfeited by democratic States to an organization that is (i) significantly privately funded and bound to obey the dictates of corporations and self-proclaimed philanthropists and (ii) jointly governed by Member States, half of which don’t even claim to be open representative democracies. If it is indeed true that sovereignty is being knowingly forfeited by governments without the knowledge and consent of their peoples, and based on false claims from governments and the WHO, then the implications are extremely serious. It would imply that leaders were working directly against their peoples’ or national interest, and in support of external interests. Most countries have specific fundamental laws dealing with such practice. So, it is really important for those defending these projects to either explain their definitions of sovereignty and democratic process, or explicitly seek informed public consent. The other question to be asked is why public health authorities and media are repeating the WHO’s assurances of the benign nature of the pandemic instruments. It asserts that claims of reduced sovereignty are ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation,’ which they assert elsewhere are major killers of humankind. While such claims are somewhat ludicrous and appear intended to denigrate dissenters, the WHO is clearly guilty of that which it claims is such a crime. If its leadership cannot demonstrate how its claims regarding these pandemic instruments are not deliberately misleading, its leadership would appear ethically compelled to resign. The Need for Clarification The WHO lists three major pandemics in the past century – influenza outbreaks in the late 1950s and 1960s, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The first two killed less than die each year today from tuberculosis, whilst the reported deaths from Covid-19 never reached the level of cancer or cardiovascular disease and remained almost irrelevant in low-income countries compared to endemic infectious diseases including tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDs. No other non-influenza outbreak recorded by the WHO that fits the definition of a pandemic (e.g., rapid spread across international borders for a limited time of a pathogen not normally causing significant harm) has caused greater mortality in total than a few days of tuberculosis (about 4,000/day) or more life-years lost than a few days of malaria (about 1,500 children under 5 years old every day). So, if it is indeed the case that our authorities and their supporters within the public health community consider that powers currently vested within national jurisdictions should be given over to external bodies on the basis of this level of recorded harm, it would be best to have a public conversation as to whether this is sufficient basis for abandoning democratic ideals in favor of a more fascist or otherwise authoritarian approach. We are, after all, talking about restricting basic human rights essential for a democracy to function. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author. Authors David Bell David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA. View all posts Thi Thuy Van Dinh Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh (LLM, PhD) worked on international law in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Subsequently, she managed multilateral organization partnerships for Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund and led environmental health technology development efforts for low-resource settings. View all posts Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work. https://brownstone.org/articles/why-does-the-who-make-false-claims-regarding-proposals-to-seize-states-sovereignty/
    BROWNSTONE.ORG
    Why Does the WHO Make False Claims Regarding Proposals to Seize States’ Sovereignty? ⋆ Brownstone Institute
    If it is indeed the case that our authorities and their supporters within the public health community consider that powers currently vested within national jurisdictions should be given over to external bodies on the basis of this level of recorded harm, it would be best to have a public conversation as to whether this is sufficient basis for abandoning democratic ideals in favor of a more fascist or otherwise authoritarian approach.
    0 Comments 0 Shares 17479 Views
  • The WHO Wants to Rule the World
    Ramesh Thakur
    The World Health Organisation (WHO) will present two new texts for adoption by its governing body, the World Health Assembly comprising delegates from 194 member states, in Geneva on 27 May–1 June. The new pandemic treaty needs a two-thirds majority for approval and, if and once adopted, will come into effect after 40 ratifications.

    The amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) can be adopted by a simple majority and will be binding on all states unless they recorded reservations by the end of last year. Because they will be changes to an existing agreement that states have already signed, the amendments do not require any follow-up ratification. The WHO describes the IHR as ‘an instrument of international law that is legally-binding’ on its 196 states parties, including the 194 WHO member states, even if they voted against it. Therein lies its promise and its threat.

    The new regime will change the WHO from a technical advisory organisation into a supra-national public health authority exercising quasi-legislative and executive powers over states; change the nature of the relationship between citizens, business enterprises, and governments domestically, and also between governments and other governments and the WHO internationally; and shift the locus of medical practice from the doctor-patient consultation in the clinic to public health bureaucrats in capital cities and WHO headquarters in Geneva and its six regional offices.

    From net zero to mass immigration and identity politics, the ‘expertocracy’ elite is in alliance with the global technocratic elite against majority national sentiment. The Covid years gave the elites a valuable lesson in how to exercise effective social control and they mean to apply it across all contentious issues.

    The changes to global health governance architecture must be understood in this light. It represents the transformation of the national security, administrative, and surveillance state into a globalised biosecurity state. But they are encountering pushback in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and most recently Ireland. We can but hope that the resistance will spread to rejecting the WHO power grab.

    Addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai on 12 February, WHO Director-General (DG) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attacked ‘the litany of lies and conspiracy theories’ about the agreement that ‘are utterly, completely, categorically false. The pandemic agreement will not give WHO any power over any state or any individual, for that matter.’ He insisted that critics are ‘either uninformed or lying.’ Could it be instead that, relying on aides, he himself has either not read or not understood the draft? The alternative explanation for his spray at the critics is that he is gaslighting us all.

    The Gostin, Klock, and Finch Paper

    In the Hastings Center Report “Making the World Safer and Fairer in Pandemics,” published on 23 December, Lawrence Gostin, Kevin Klock, and Alexandra Finch attempt to provide the justification to underpin the proposed new IHR and treaty instruments as ‘transformative normative and financial reforms that could reimagine pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.’

    The three authors decry the voluntary compliance under the existing ‘amorphous and unenforceable’ IHR regulations as ‘a critical shortcoming.’ And they concede that ‘While advocates have pressed for health-related human rights to be included in the pandemic agreement, the current draft does not do so.’ Directly contradicting the DG’s denial as quoted above, they describe the new treaty as ‘legally binding’. This is repeated several pages later:

    …the best way to contain transnational outbreaks is through international cooperation, led multilaterally through the WHO. That may require all states to forgo some level of sovereignty in exchange for enhanced safety and fairness.

    What gives their analysis significance is that, as explained in the paper itself, Gostin is ‘actively involved in WHO processes for a pandemic agreement and IHR reform’ as the director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law and a member of the WHO Review Committee on IHR amendments.

    The WHO as the World’s Guidance and Coordinating Authority

    The IHR amendments will expand the situations that constitute a public health emergency, grant the WHO additional emergency powers, and extend state duties to build ‘core capacities’ of surveillance to detect, assess, notify, and report events that could constitute an emergency.

    Under the new accords, the WHO would function as the guidance and coordinating authority for the world. The DG will become more powerful than the UN Secretary-General. The existing language of ‘should’ is replaced in many places by the imperative ‘shall,’ of non-binding recommendations with countries will ‘undertake to follow’ the guidance. And ‘full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons’ will be changed to principles of ‘equity’ and ‘inclusivity’ with different requirements for rich and poor countries, bleeding financial resources and pharmaceutical products from industrialised to developing countries.

    The WHO is first of all an international bureaucracy and only secondly a collective body of medical and health experts. Its Covid performance was not among its finest. Its credibility was badly damaged by tardiness in raising the alarm; by its acceptance and then rejection of China’s claim that there was no risk of human-human transmission; by the failure to hold China accountable for destroying evidence of the pandemic’s origins; by the initial investigation that whitewashed the origins of the virus; by flip-flops on masks and lockdowns; by ignoring the counterexample of Sweden that rejected lockdowns with no worse health outcomes and far better economic, social, and educational outcomes; and by the failure to stand up for children’s developmental, educational, social, and mental health rights and welfare.

    With a funding model where 87 percent of the budget comes from voluntary contributions from the rich countries and private donors like the Gates Foundation, and 77 percent is for activities specified by them, the WHO has effectively ‘become a system of global public health patronage’, write Ben and Molly Kingsley of the UK children’s rights campaign group UsForThem. Human Rights Watch says the process has been ‘disproportionately guided by corporate demands and the policy positions of high-income governments seeking to protect the power of private actors in health including the pharmaceutical industry.’ The victims of this Catch-22 lack of accountability will be the peoples of the world.

    Much of the new surveillance network in a model divided into pre-, in, and post-pandemic periods will be provided by private and corporate interests that will profit from the mass testing and pharmaceutical interventions. According to Forbes, the net worth of Bill Gates jumped by one-third from $96.5 billion in 2019 to $129 billion in 2022: philanthropy can be profitable. Article 15.2 of the draft pandemic treaty requires states to set up ‘no fault vaccine-injury compensation schemes,’ conferring immunity on Big Pharma against liability, thereby codifying the privatisation of profits and the socialisation of risks.

    The changes would confer extraordinary new powers on the WHO’s DG and regional directors and mandate governments to implement their recommendations. This will result in a major expansion of the international health bureaucracy under the WHO, for example new implementation and compliance committees; shift the centre of gravity from the common deadliest diseases (discussed below) to relatively rare pandemic outbreaks (five including Covid in the last 120 years); and give the WHO authority to direct resources (money, pharmaceutical products, intellectual property rights) to itself and to other governments in breach of sovereign and copyright rights.

    Considering the impact of the amendments on national decision-making and mortgaging future generations to internationally determined spending obligations, this calls for an indefinite pause in the process until parliaments have done due diligence and debated the potentially far-reaching obligations.

    Yet disappointingly, relatively few countries have expressed reservations and few parliamentarians seem at all interested. We may pay a high price for the rise of careerist politicians whose primary interest is self-advancement, ministers who ask bureaucrats to draft replies to constituents expressing concern that they often sign without reading either the original letter or the reply in their name, and officials who disdain the constraints of democratic decision-making and accountability. Ministers relying on technical advice from staffers when officials are engaged in a silent coup against elected representatives give power without responsibility to bureaucrats while relegating ministers to being in office but not in power, with political accountability sans authority.

    US President Donald Trump and Australian and UK Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson were representative of national leaders who had lacked the science literacy, intellectual heft, moral clarity, and courage of conviction to stand up to their technocrats. It was a period of Yes, Prime Minister on steroids, with Sir Humphrey Appleby winning most of the guerrilla campaign waged by the permanent civil service against the transient and clueless Prime Minister Jim Hacker.

    At least some Australian, American, British, and European politicians have recently expressed concern at the WHO-centred ‘command and control’ model of a public health system, and the public spending and redistributive implications of the two proposed international instruments. US Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) warned on 5 February that ‘far too little scrutiny has been given, far too few questions asked as to what this legally binding agreement or treaty means to health policy in the United States and elsewhere.’

    Like Smith and Wenstrup, the most common criticism levelled has been that this represents a power grab at the cost of national sovereignty. Speaking in parliament in November, Australia’s Liberal Senator Alex Antic dubbed the effort a ‘WHO d’etat’.

    A more accurate reading may be that it represents collusion between the WHO and the richest countries, home to the biggest pharmaceutical companies, to dilute accountability for decisions, taken in the name of public health, that profit a narrow elite. The changes will lock in the seamless rule of the technocratic-managerial elite at both the national and the international levels. Yet the WHO edicts, although legally binding in theory, will be unenforceable against the most powerful countries in practice.

    Moreover, the new regime aims to eliminate transparency and critical scrutiny by criminalising any opinion that questions the official narrative from the WHO and governments, thereby elevating them to the status of dogma. The pandemic treaty calls for governments to tackle the ‘infodemics’ of false information, misinformation, disinformation, and even ‘too much information’ (Article 1c). This is censorship. Authorities have no right to be shielded from critical questioning of official information. Freedom of information is a cornerstone of an open and resilient society and a key means to hold authorities to public scrutiny and accountability.

    The changes are an effort to entrench and institutionalise the model of political, social, and messaging control trialled with great success during Covid. The foundational document of the international human rights regime is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pandemic management during Covid and in future emergencies threaten some of its core provisions regarding privacy, freedom of opinion and expression, and rights to work, education, peaceful assembly, and association.

    Worst of all, they will create a perverse incentive: the rise of an international bureaucracy whose defining purpose, existence, powers, and budgets will depend on more frequent declarations of actual or anticipated pandemic outbreaks.

    It is a basic axiom of politics that power that can be abused, will be abused – some day, somewhere, by someone. The corollary holds that power once seized is seldom surrendered back voluntarily to the people. Lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, travel restrictions, and all the other shenanigans and theatre of the Covid era will likely be repeated on whim. Professor Angus Dalgliesh of London’s St George’s Medical School warns that the WHO ‘wants to inflict this incompetence on us all over again but this time be in total control.’

    Covid in the Context of Africa’s Disease Burden

    In the Hastings Center report referred to earlier, Gostin, Klock, and Finch claim that ‘lower-income countries experienced larger losses and longer-lasting economic setbacks.’ This is a casual elision that shifts the blame for harmful downstream effects away from lockdowns in the futile quest to eradicate the virus, to the virus itself. The chief damage to developing countries was caused by the worldwide shutdown of social life and economic activities and the drastic reduction in international trade.

    The discreet elision aroused my curiosity on the authors’ affiliations. It came as no surprise to read that they lead the O’Neill Institute–Foundation for the National Institutes of Health project on an international instrument for pandemic prevention and preparedness.

    Gostin et al. grounded the urgency for the new accords in the claim that ‘Zoonotic pathogens…are occurring with increasing frequency, enhancing the risk of new pandemics’ and cite research to suggest a threefold increase in ‘extreme pandemics’ over the next decade. In a report entitled “Rational Policy Over Panic,” published by Leeds University in February, a team that included our own David Bell subjected claims of increasing pandemic frequency and disease burden behind the drive to adopt the new treaty and amend the existing IHR to critical scrutiny.

    Specifically, they examined and found wanting a number of assumptions and several references in eight G20, World Bank, and WHO policy documents. On the one hand, the reported increase in natural outbreaks is best explained by technologically more sophisticated diagnostic testing equipment, while the disease burden has been effectively reduced with improved surveillance, response mechanisms, and other public health interventions. Consequently there is no real urgency to rush into the new accords. Instead, governments should take all the time they need to situate pandemic risk in the wider healthcare context and formulate policy tailored to the more accurate risk and interventions matrix.


    The lockdowns were responsible for reversals of decades worth of gains in critical childhood immunisations. UNICEF and WHO estimate that 7.6 million African children under 5 missed out on vaccination in 2021 and another 11 million were under-immunised, ‘making up over 40 percent of the under-immunised and missed children globally.’ How many quality adjusted life years does that add up to, I wonder? But don’t hold your breath that anyone will be held accountable for crimes against African children.

    Earlier this month the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group argued that lockdowns were a ‘class-based and unscientific instrument.’ It accused the WHO of trying to reintroduce ‘classical Western colonialism through the backdoor’ in the form of the new pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments. Medical knowledge and innovations do not come solely from Western capitals and Geneva, but from people and groups who have captured the WHO agenda.

    Lockdowns had caused significant harm to low-income countries, the group said, yet the WHO wanted legal authority to compel member states to comply with its advice in future pandemics, including with respect to vaccine passports and border closures. Instead of bowing to ‘health imperialism,’ it would be preferable for African countries to set their own priorities in alleviating the disease burden of their major killer diseases like cholera, malaria, and yellow fever.

    Europe and the US, comprising a little under ten and over four percent of world population, account for nearly 18 and 17 percent, respectively, of all Covid-related deaths in the world. By contrast Asia, with nearly 60 percent of the world’s people, accounts for 23 percent of all Covid-related deaths. Meantime Africa, with more than 17 percent of global population, has recorded less than four percent of global Covid deaths (Table 1).

    According to a report on the continent’s disease burden published last year by the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Africa’s leading causes of death in 2021 were malaria (593,000 deaths), tuberculosis (501,000), and HIV/AIDS (420,000). The report does not provide the numbers for diarrhoeal deaths for Africa. There are 1.6 million such deaths globally per year, including 440,000 children under 5. And we know that most diarrhoeal deaths occur in Africa and South Asia.

    If we perform a linear extrapolation of 2021 deaths to estimate ballpark figures for the three years 2020–22 inclusive for numbers of Africans killed by these big three, approximately 1.78 million died from malaria, 1.5 million from TB, and 1.26 million from HIV/AIDS. (I exclude 2023 as Covid had faded by then, as can be seen in Table 1). By comparison, the total number of Covid-related deaths across Africa in the three years was 259,000.

    Whether or not the WHO is pursuing a policy of health colonialism, therefore, the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group has a point regarding the grossly exaggerated threat of Covid in the total picture of Africa’s disease burden.

    A shorter version of this was published in The Australian on 11 March

    Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
    For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.

    Author

    Ramesh Thakur, a Brownstone Institute Senior Scholar, is a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, and emeritus professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

    View all posts
    Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work.

    https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-wants-to-rule-the-world/
    The WHO Wants to Rule the World Ramesh Thakur The World Health Organisation (WHO) will present two new texts for adoption by its governing body, the World Health Assembly comprising delegates from 194 member states, in Geneva on 27 May–1 June. The new pandemic treaty needs a two-thirds majority for approval and, if and once adopted, will come into effect after 40 ratifications. The amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) can be adopted by a simple majority and will be binding on all states unless they recorded reservations by the end of last year. Because they will be changes to an existing agreement that states have already signed, the amendments do not require any follow-up ratification. The WHO describes the IHR as ‘an instrument of international law that is legally-binding’ on its 196 states parties, including the 194 WHO member states, even if they voted against it. Therein lies its promise and its threat. The new regime will change the WHO from a technical advisory organisation into a supra-national public health authority exercising quasi-legislative and executive powers over states; change the nature of the relationship between citizens, business enterprises, and governments domestically, and also between governments and other governments and the WHO internationally; and shift the locus of medical practice from the doctor-patient consultation in the clinic to public health bureaucrats in capital cities and WHO headquarters in Geneva and its six regional offices. From net zero to mass immigration and identity politics, the ‘expertocracy’ elite is in alliance with the global technocratic elite against majority national sentiment. The Covid years gave the elites a valuable lesson in how to exercise effective social control and they mean to apply it across all contentious issues. The changes to global health governance architecture must be understood in this light. It represents the transformation of the national security, administrative, and surveillance state into a globalised biosecurity state. But they are encountering pushback in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and most recently Ireland. We can but hope that the resistance will spread to rejecting the WHO power grab. Addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai on 12 February, WHO Director-General (DG) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attacked ‘the litany of lies and conspiracy theories’ about the agreement that ‘are utterly, completely, categorically false. The pandemic agreement will not give WHO any power over any state or any individual, for that matter.’ He insisted that critics are ‘either uninformed or lying.’ Could it be instead that, relying on aides, he himself has either not read or not understood the draft? The alternative explanation for his spray at the critics is that he is gaslighting us all. The Gostin, Klock, and Finch Paper In the Hastings Center Report “Making the World Safer and Fairer in Pandemics,” published on 23 December, Lawrence Gostin, Kevin Klock, and Alexandra Finch attempt to provide the justification to underpin the proposed new IHR and treaty instruments as ‘transformative normative and financial reforms that could reimagine pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.’ The three authors decry the voluntary compliance under the existing ‘amorphous and unenforceable’ IHR regulations as ‘a critical shortcoming.’ And they concede that ‘While advocates have pressed for health-related human rights to be included in the pandemic agreement, the current draft does not do so.’ Directly contradicting the DG’s denial as quoted above, they describe the new treaty as ‘legally binding’. This is repeated several pages later: …the best way to contain transnational outbreaks is through international cooperation, led multilaterally through the WHO. That may require all states to forgo some level of sovereignty in exchange for enhanced safety and fairness. What gives their analysis significance is that, as explained in the paper itself, Gostin is ‘actively involved in WHO processes for a pandemic agreement and IHR reform’ as the director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law and a member of the WHO Review Committee on IHR amendments. The WHO as the World’s Guidance and Coordinating Authority The IHR amendments will expand the situations that constitute a public health emergency, grant the WHO additional emergency powers, and extend state duties to build ‘core capacities’ of surveillance to detect, assess, notify, and report events that could constitute an emergency. Under the new accords, the WHO would function as the guidance and coordinating authority for the world. The DG will become more powerful than the UN Secretary-General. The existing language of ‘should’ is replaced in many places by the imperative ‘shall,’ of non-binding recommendations with countries will ‘undertake to follow’ the guidance. And ‘full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons’ will be changed to principles of ‘equity’ and ‘inclusivity’ with different requirements for rich and poor countries, bleeding financial resources and pharmaceutical products from industrialised to developing countries. The WHO is first of all an international bureaucracy and only secondly a collective body of medical and health experts. Its Covid performance was not among its finest. Its credibility was badly damaged by tardiness in raising the alarm; by its acceptance and then rejection of China’s claim that there was no risk of human-human transmission; by the failure to hold China accountable for destroying evidence of the pandemic’s origins; by the initial investigation that whitewashed the origins of the virus; by flip-flops on masks and lockdowns; by ignoring the counterexample of Sweden that rejected lockdowns with no worse health outcomes and far better economic, social, and educational outcomes; and by the failure to stand up for children’s developmental, educational, social, and mental health rights and welfare. With a funding model where 87 percent of the budget comes from voluntary contributions from the rich countries and private donors like the Gates Foundation, and 77 percent is for activities specified by them, the WHO has effectively ‘become a system of global public health patronage’, write Ben and Molly Kingsley of the UK children’s rights campaign group UsForThem. Human Rights Watch says the process has been ‘disproportionately guided by corporate demands and the policy positions of high-income governments seeking to protect the power of private actors in health including the pharmaceutical industry.’ The victims of this Catch-22 lack of accountability will be the peoples of the world. Much of the new surveillance network in a model divided into pre-, in, and post-pandemic periods will be provided by private and corporate interests that will profit from the mass testing and pharmaceutical interventions. According to Forbes, the net worth of Bill Gates jumped by one-third from $96.5 billion in 2019 to $129 billion in 2022: philanthropy can be profitable. Article 15.2 of the draft pandemic treaty requires states to set up ‘no fault vaccine-injury compensation schemes,’ conferring immunity on Big Pharma against liability, thereby codifying the privatisation of profits and the socialisation of risks. The changes would confer extraordinary new powers on the WHO’s DG and regional directors and mandate governments to implement their recommendations. This will result in a major expansion of the international health bureaucracy under the WHO, for example new implementation and compliance committees; shift the centre of gravity from the common deadliest diseases (discussed below) to relatively rare pandemic outbreaks (five including Covid in the last 120 years); and give the WHO authority to direct resources (money, pharmaceutical products, intellectual property rights) to itself and to other governments in breach of sovereign and copyright rights. Considering the impact of the amendments on national decision-making and mortgaging future generations to internationally determined spending obligations, this calls for an indefinite pause in the process until parliaments have done due diligence and debated the potentially far-reaching obligations. Yet disappointingly, relatively few countries have expressed reservations and few parliamentarians seem at all interested. We may pay a high price for the rise of careerist politicians whose primary interest is self-advancement, ministers who ask bureaucrats to draft replies to constituents expressing concern that they often sign without reading either the original letter or the reply in their name, and officials who disdain the constraints of democratic decision-making and accountability. Ministers relying on technical advice from staffers when officials are engaged in a silent coup against elected representatives give power without responsibility to bureaucrats while relegating ministers to being in office but not in power, with political accountability sans authority. US President Donald Trump and Australian and UK Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson were representative of national leaders who had lacked the science literacy, intellectual heft, moral clarity, and courage of conviction to stand up to their technocrats. It was a period of Yes, Prime Minister on steroids, with Sir Humphrey Appleby winning most of the guerrilla campaign waged by the permanent civil service against the transient and clueless Prime Minister Jim Hacker. At least some Australian, American, British, and European politicians have recently expressed concern at the WHO-centred ‘command and control’ model of a public health system, and the public spending and redistributive implications of the two proposed international instruments. US Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) warned on 5 February that ‘far too little scrutiny has been given, far too few questions asked as to what this legally binding agreement or treaty means to health policy in the United States and elsewhere.’ Like Smith and Wenstrup, the most common criticism levelled has been that this represents a power grab at the cost of national sovereignty. Speaking in parliament in November, Australia’s Liberal Senator Alex Antic dubbed the effort a ‘WHO d’etat’. A more accurate reading may be that it represents collusion between the WHO and the richest countries, home to the biggest pharmaceutical companies, to dilute accountability for decisions, taken in the name of public health, that profit a narrow elite. The changes will lock in the seamless rule of the technocratic-managerial elite at both the national and the international levels. Yet the WHO edicts, although legally binding in theory, will be unenforceable against the most powerful countries in practice. Moreover, the new regime aims to eliminate transparency and critical scrutiny by criminalising any opinion that questions the official narrative from the WHO and governments, thereby elevating them to the status of dogma. The pandemic treaty calls for governments to tackle the ‘infodemics’ of false information, misinformation, disinformation, and even ‘too much information’ (Article 1c). This is censorship. Authorities have no right to be shielded from critical questioning of official information. Freedom of information is a cornerstone of an open and resilient society and a key means to hold authorities to public scrutiny and accountability. The changes are an effort to entrench and institutionalise the model of political, social, and messaging control trialled with great success during Covid. The foundational document of the international human rights regime is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pandemic management during Covid and in future emergencies threaten some of its core provisions regarding privacy, freedom of opinion and expression, and rights to work, education, peaceful assembly, and association. Worst of all, they will create a perverse incentive: the rise of an international bureaucracy whose defining purpose, existence, powers, and budgets will depend on more frequent declarations of actual or anticipated pandemic outbreaks. It is a basic axiom of politics that power that can be abused, will be abused – some day, somewhere, by someone. The corollary holds that power once seized is seldom surrendered back voluntarily to the people. Lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, travel restrictions, and all the other shenanigans and theatre of the Covid era will likely be repeated on whim. Professor Angus Dalgliesh of London’s St George’s Medical School warns that the WHO ‘wants to inflict this incompetence on us all over again but this time be in total control.’ Covid in the Context of Africa’s Disease Burden In the Hastings Center report referred to earlier, Gostin, Klock, and Finch claim that ‘lower-income countries experienced larger losses and longer-lasting economic setbacks.’ This is a casual elision that shifts the blame for harmful downstream effects away from lockdowns in the futile quest to eradicate the virus, to the virus itself. The chief damage to developing countries was caused by the worldwide shutdown of social life and economic activities and the drastic reduction in international trade. The discreet elision aroused my curiosity on the authors’ affiliations. It came as no surprise to read that they lead the O’Neill Institute–Foundation for the National Institutes of Health project on an international instrument for pandemic prevention and preparedness. Gostin et al. grounded the urgency for the new accords in the claim that ‘Zoonotic pathogens…are occurring with increasing frequency, enhancing the risk of new pandemics’ and cite research to suggest a threefold increase in ‘extreme pandemics’ over the next decade. In a report entitled “Rational Policy Over Panic,” published by Leeds University in February, a team that included our own David Bell subjected claims of increasing pandemic frequency and disease burden behind the drive to adopt the new treaty and amend the existing IHR to critical scrutiny. Specifically, they examined and found wanting a number of assumptions and several references in eight G20, World Bank, and WHO policy documents. On the one hand, the reported increase in natural outbreaks is best explained by technologically more sophisticated diagnostic testing equipment, while the disease burden has been effectively reduced with improved surveillance, response mechanisms, and other public health interventions. Consequently there is no real urgency to rush into the new accords. Instead, governments should take all the time they need to situate pandemic risk in the wider healthcare context and formulate policy tailored to the more accurate risk and interventions matrix. The lockdowns were responsible for reversals of decades worth of gains in critical childhood immunisations. UNICEF and WHO estimate that 7.6 million African children under 5 missed out on vaccination in 2021 and another 11 million were under-immunised, ‘making up over 40 percent of the under-immunised and missed children globally.’ How many quality adjusted life years does that add up to, I wonder? But don’t hold your breath that anyone will be held accountable for crimes against African children. Earlier this month the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group argued that lockdowns were a ‘class-based and unscientific instrument.’ It accused the WHO of trying to reintroduce ‘classical Western colonialism through the backdoor’ in the form of the new pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments. Medical knowledge and innovations do not come solely from Western capitals and Geneva, but from people and groups who have captured the WHO agenda. Lockdowns had caused significant harm to low-income countries, the group said, yet the WHO wanted legal authority to compel member states to comply with its advice in future pandemics, including with respect to vaccine passports and border closures. Instead of bowing to ‘health imperialism,’ it would be preferable for African countries to set their own priorities in alleviating the disease burden of their major killer diseases like cholera, malaria, and yellow fever. Europe and the US, comprising a little under ten and over four percent of world population, account for nearly 18 and 17 percent, respectively, of all Covid-related deaths in the world. By contrast Asia, with nearly 60 percent of the world’s people, accounts for 23 percent of all Covid-related deaths. Meantime Africa, with more than 17 percent of global population, has recorded less than four percent of global Covid deaths (Table 1). According to a report on the continent’s disease burden published last year by the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Africa’s leading causes of death in 2021 were malaria (593,000 deaths), tuberculosis (501,000), and HIV/AIDS (420,000). The report does not provide the numbers for diarrhoeal deaths for Africa. There are 1.6 million such deaths globally per year, including 440,000 children under 5. And we know that most diarrhoeal deaths occur in Africa and South Asia. If we perform a linear extrapolation of 2021 deaths to estimate ballpark figures for the three years 2020–22 inclusive for numbers of Africans killed by these big three, approximately 1.78 million died from malaria, 1.5 million from TB, and 1.26 million from HIV/AIDS. (I exclude 2023 as Covid had faded by then, as can be seen in Table 1). By comparison, the total number of Covid-related deaths across Africa in the three years was 259,000. Whether or not the WHO is pursuing a policy of health colonialism, therefore, the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group has a point regarding the grossly exaggerated threat of Covid in the total picture of Africa’s disease burden. A shorter version of this was published in The Australian on 11 March Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author. Author Ramesh Thakur, a Brownstone Institute Senior Scholar, is a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, and emeritus professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. View all posts Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-wants-to-rule-the-world/
    BROWNSTONE.ORG
    The WHO Wants to Rule the World ⋆ Brownstone Institute
    The World Health Organisation (WHO) will present two new texts for adoption by its governing body, the World Health Assembly comprising delegates from 194 member states, in Geneva on 27 May–1 June.
    0 Comments 0 Shares 17135 Views
  • Spring has sprung in Virginia as some warmer days have brought buds and flower blooms that are surviving the cold nights. My first bloom of the new year is a yellow daffodil opening in the orange glow of the setting sun.

    #Daffodil #Flower #Gardening #Spring2024 #Spring
    Spring has sprung in Virginia as some warmer days have brought buds and flower blooms that are surviving the cold nights. My first bloom of the new year is a yellow daffodil opening in the orange glow of the setting sun. #Daffodil #Flower #Gardening #Spring2024 #Spring
    0 Comments 0 Shares 2190 Views
  • Will Disease X be Leaked in 2025?

    All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

    To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

    Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

    New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

    ***

    The WHO’s pandemic treaty is the gateway to a global, top-down totalitarian regime, a one world government. The reason we can be sure there will be additional pandemics, whether manufactured using either fear and hype alone or an actual bioweapon created for this very purpose, is because the takeover plan, aka The Great Reset, is based on the premise that we need global biosecurity surveillance and centralized response

    A new contagion will likely be born in 2025, and media are already preparing us for it

    January 15-19, 2024, global leaders met at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Davos summit where the key topic of discussion was “Preparing for Disease X,” a hypothetical new pandemic predicted to kill 20 times more people than COVID-19

    In August 2023, a new vaccine research facility was set up in Wiltshire, England, to begin work on a vaccine against the unknown “Disease X”

    The U.S. Congress introduced the “Disease X Act of 2023” (H.R.3832) in June 2023. The bill calls for the establishment of a BARDA program to develop “medical countermeasures for viral threats with pandemic potential.” The bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Health in early June 2023 but has not yet been passed

    *



    The COVID-19 pandemic allowed for an unprecedented shift in power and wealth distribution across the world and, as predicted, it was not to be a one-off event. A new contagion will likely be born in 2025, and media are already preparing us for it.

    January 15-19, 2024, global leaders met at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Davos summit where the key topic of discussion was “Preparing for Disease X,”1 a hypothetical new pandemic predicted to emerge in 2025 and kill 20 times more people than COVID-19.2 As reported by the Mirror:3

    “The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a potential Disease X since 2017, a term indicating an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international epidemic …

    Public speakers at the ‘Preparing for Disease X’ event next Wednesday [January 17, 2024] include Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, Brazilian minister of health Nisia Trindade Lima, and Michel Demaré, chair of the board at AstraZeneca.

    In their first post-pandemic meeting held in November 2022, the WHO brought over 300 scientists to consider which of over 25 virus families and bacteria could potentially create another pandemic.

    The list the team came up with included: the Ebola virus, the Marburg virus disease, Covid-19, SARS, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Others included lassa fever, nipah and henipaviral diseases, zift Valley fever, and zika — as well as the unknown pathogen that would cause ‘Disease X.’”

    I’ve interviewed Meryl Nass about how the WHO is trying to take over aspects of everyone’s lives. She just published an important piece over the weekend, Why Is Davos So Interested in Disease? about how the WEF and the WHO have become partners to terrify the world.

    Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq., political director for the Organic Consumers Association, did some digging into the participants of this WEF event, and the two things they all have in common are 1) dumping the AstraZeneca COVID shot on the developing world (primarily India and Brazil) after rich countries rejected it due to its admitted blood clotting risk, and 2) pushing for the implementation of medical AI systems that will eliminate doctors along with patient choice and privacy.

    Practice Runs or Responsible Planning?

    In a January 11, 2024, tweet, Fox News analyst and former assistant secretary for public affairs for the U.S. Treasury Department, Monica Crowley, wrote:4

    “From the same people who brought you COVID-19 now comes Disease X: Next week in Davos, the unelected globalists at the World Economic Forum will hold a panel on a future pandemic 20x deadlier than COVID …

    Just in time for the election, a new contagion to allow them to implement a new WHO treaty, lock down again, restrict free speech and destroy more freedoms. Sound far-fetched? So did what happened in 2020. When your enemies tell you what they’re planning and what they’re planning FOR, believe them. And get ready.”

    Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine, dismissed such warnings, telling Fortune magazine5 that “Coordination of public health response is not conspiracy, it’s simply responsible planning.”

    I’d be willing to believe him if it wasn’t for a now-obvious trend: Whatever the globalists claim will happen actually does happen at a remarkable frequency, and their prognostic capabilities become easier to explain when you consider that most lethal pandemics have been caused by manmade viruses, the products of gain-of-function research. It’s pretty easy to predict a new viral outbreak if you have said virus waiting in the wings.

    With that in mind, recent research from China certainly raises concern, to say the least. According to a January 3, 2024, preprint,6 a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus — described as a “cell culture-adapted mutant” called GX_P2V that was first cultured in 2017 — was found to kill 100% of the humanized mice (ACE2-transgenic mice) infected with it.7

    The primary cause of death was brain inflammation. According to the authors, “this is the first report showing that a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100% mortality in hACE2 mice, suggesting a risk for GX_P2V to spill over into humans.”

    However, if this virus mutated as a result of passaging through cell cultures, then it’s not likely to emerge in the wild. It’s another unnatural lab creation, so rather than saying it may spill over from pangolins to humans, it would be more accurate to admit that it may pose a (rather serious) risk to humans were a lab escape to occur.

    COVID Dress Rehearsals

    In 2017, Johns Hopkins Center of Health Security held a coronavirus pandemic simulation called the SPARS Pandemic 2025-2028 scenario.8 Importantly, the exercise stressed “communication dilemmas concerning medical countermeasures that could plausibly emerge” in a pandemic scenario.

    Then, in October 2019, less than three months before the COVID-19 outbreak, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with Johns Hopkins and the World Economic Forum hosted Event 201.

    The name itself suggests it may have been a continuation of the SPARS Pandemic exercise. College courses are numbered based on their prerequisites. A 101 course does not require any prior knowledge whereas 201 courses require prior familiarity with the topic at hand.

    As in the SPARS Pandemic scenario, Event 201 involved an outbreak of a highly infectious coronavirus, and the primary (if not sole) focus of the exercise was, again, how to control information and keep “misinformation” in check, not how to effectively discover and share remedies.

    Social media censorship played a prominent role in the Event 201 plan, and in the real-world events of 2020 through the present, accurate information about vaccine development, production and injury has indeed been effectively suppressed around the world, thanks to social media companies and Google’s censoring of opposing viewpoints.

    In March 2021, an outbreak of “an unusual strain of monkeypox virus” was simulated.9 In late July the following year, the WHO director-general declared that a multi-country outbreak of monkeypox constituted a public health emergency of international concern,10 against his own advisory group.

    ‘Catastrophic Contagion’ Exercise

    Considering both of these simulations, SPARS (“Event 101”?) and Event 201, foreshadowed what eventually occurred in real life during COVID, when Gates hosts yet another pandemic exercise, it’s worth paying attention to the details.

    October 23, 2022, Gates, Johns Hopkins and the WHO cohosted “a global challenge exercise” dubbed “Catastrophic Contagion,”11,12 involving a fictional pathogen called “severe epidemic enterovirus respiratory syndrome 2025” (SEERS-25).

    Enterovirus D6813 is typically associated with cold and flu-like illness in infants, children and teens. In rare cases, it’s also been known to cause viral meningitis and acute flaccid myelitis, a neurological condition resulting in muscle weakness and loss of reflexes in one or more extremities.

    Enteroviruses A71 and A6 are known to cause hand, foot and mouth disease,14 while poliovirus, the prototypical enterovirus, causes polio (poliomyelitis), a potentially life-threatening type of paralysis that primarily affects children under age 5. So, the virus they modeled in this simulation appears to be something similar to enterovirus D68, but worse.

    Vaccine Drug Trials Begin for Deadly Nipah Virus

    One known virus that bears some resemblance to the fictional SEERS-25 is the Nipah virus. This virus has a kill rate of about 75%,15 and survivors oftentimes face long-term neurological issues stemming from the infection. Nipah is also said to affect children to a greater degree than adults.16

    Incidentally, human trials for a vaccine against the deadly Nipah virus were recently launched.17Volunteers received their first shots in early January 2024. The experimental injection uses the same viral vector technology used to produce AstraZeneca’s COVID shot.

    The trial is reportedly being carried out by the University of Oxford in an undisclosed area where Nipah is actively infecting victims. (India seems to be indicated, as an outbreak in Kerala killed two people and hospitalized three in September 2023.18)

    The disease is thought to spread via interaction with infected animals such as goats, pigs, cats and horses. It may also spread via tainted blood products and food. Symptoms can emerge anywhere from a few days after exposure to as long as 45 days.

    Initial symptoms include fever, headache and respiratory illness, which can rapidly progress to encephalitis (brain swelling), seizures and coma within just a couple of days. According to the WHO, pigs are known to be “highly contagious” during the incubation period, and it’s possible that humans may be as well, although that has yet to be confirmed.

    Training African Leaders to Go Along with the Narrative

    Tellingly, the Catastrophic Contagion exercise focused on getting leadership in African countries involved and trained in following the script. African nations went “off script” more often than others during the COVID pandemic, and didn’t follow in the footsteps of developed nations when it came to pushing the jabs.

    As a result, vaccine makers now face the problem of having a huge control group, as the COVID jab uptake on the African continent was only 6%,19 yet it fared far better than developed nations in terms of COVID-19 infections and related deaths.20

    The Catastrophic Contagion exercise predicts SEERS-25 will kill 20 million people worldwide, including 15 million children, and many who survive the infection will be left with paralysis and/or brain damage. In other words, the “cue” given is that the next pandemic may target children rather than the elderly, as was the case with COVID-19.

    Vaccine Against Unknown ‘X’ Pathogen Is Already in the Works


    In August 2023, a new vaccine research facility was set up in Wiltshire, England, fully staffed with more 200 scientists, to begin work on a vaccine against the unknown “Disease X.” As reported by Metro:21

    “It took 362 days to develop the Covid-19 vaccine. But the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre team wants to reduce that time to 100 days. Scientists at the facility will develop a range of prototype vaccines and tests.

    The new lab is a part of a global effort to respond to global health threats. The UK and other G7 countries signed up to the ‘100 Days Mission’ in 2021. The government has invested £65 million into the lab.

    Professor Dame Jenny Harries, the head of the UK Health Security Agency, said the new facility would ‘ensure that we prepare so that if we have a new Disease X, a new pathogen, we have as much of that work in advance as possible.’”

    In the U.S., Congress also introduced the “Disease X Act of 2023” (H.R.383222) back in June 2023. The bill calls for the establishment of a BARDA program to develop “medical countermeasures for viral threats with pandemic potential.” The bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Health in early June 2023 but has not yet been passed.

    The Disease X Act amends a section of the Public Health Service Act with two new clauses that call for “the identification and development of platform manufacturing technologies needed for advanced development and manufacturing of medical countermeasures for viral families which have significant potential to cause a pandemic,” and “advanced research and development of flexible medical countermeasures against priority respiratory virus families and other respiratory viral pathogens with a significant potential to cause a pandemic, with both pathogen-specific and pathogen-agnostic approaches …”

    Needless to say, since it’s impossible to customize vaccines using the conventional method of growing viruses in eggs or some other cell media in 100 days, it seems inevitable that all these efforts are about the expansion of gene-based technologies. This, despite the fact that the mRNA technology used for the COVID jabs has proven to be disastrous from a safety standpoint, and ineffective to boot.

    Why Manufactured Pandemics Will Continue

    At this point, it’s quite clear that “biosecurity” is the chosen means by which the globalist cabal intends to seize power over the world. The WHO is working on securing sole power over pandemic response globally through its international pandemic treaty which, if implemented, will eradicate the sovereignty of all member nations.

    The WHO’s pandemic treaty is the gateway to a global, top-down totalitarian regime, a one world government. Ultimately, the WHO intends to dictate all health care. But to secure that power, they will need more pandemics. COVID-19 alone was not enough to get everyone onboard with a centralized pandemic response unit, and they probably knew that from the start.

    So, the reason we can be sure there will be additional pandemics, whether manufactured using either fear and hype alone or an actual bioweapon created for this very purpose, is because the takeover plan, aka The Great Reset, is based on the premise that we need global biosecurity surveillance and centralized response.

    Biosecurity, in turn, is the justification for an international vaccine passport, which the G20 has signed on to, and that passport will also be your digital identification. That digital ID, then, will be tied to your social credit score, personal carbon footprint tracker, medical records, educational records, work records, social media presence, purchase records, your bank accounts and a programmable central bank digital currency (CBDC).

    Once all these pieces are fully connected, you’ll be in a digital prison, and the ruling cabal — whether officially a one world government by then or not — will have total control over your life from cradle to grave.

    We’re Already Suffering Under a Pseudo-One World Government

    We actually already have a pseudo-one world government, in the form of Bill Gates’ nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). They are making health care decisions that should be left to individual nations and/or states, and they’re making decisions that will line their own pockets, regardless of what happens to the public health-wise.

    They coordinate and synchronize pandemic communication during simulated practice runs, and then, when the real-world situation emerges that fits the bill, the preplanned script is played out more or less verbatim.

    Between the G20 declaration to implement an international vaccine passport under the auspice of the WHO, and the WHO’s pandemic treaty, everything is lined up to take control of the next pandemic, and in so doing, further securing the foundation for a one world government.

    As discussed in my 2021 article, “COVID-19 Dress Rehearsals and Proof of the Plan,” the pandemic measures rolled out for COVID-19 were the culmination of decades of careful planning to radically and permanently alter the governance and social structures of the world.

    The medical system has been used in the past to drive forward a New World Order agenda — now rebranded as “The Great Reset” — and it’s now being used to implement the final stages of that longstanding plan. COVID-19 was a real-world practice run, and showed just how effectively a pandemic can be used to shift the balance of power, and strip the global population of its wealth and individual freedoms.

    So, there’s no doubt in my mind that additional pandemics will be declared, because they’re the means to the globalists’ ends. To prevent this global coup, we need everyone to speak and share the truth to the point that you’re able. Only then will our voices outnumber the voices of the propaganda machine.

    Door To Freedom (doortofreedom.org), an organization founded by Dr. Meryl Nass, has a poster that explains how the pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations (IHR) amendments will change life as we know it and strip us of every vestige of freedom. Please download this poster and share it with everyone you know. Also put it up on public billboards and places where communities share information.

    *

    Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

    Notes

    1, 21 Metro January 15, 2024

    2, 3 Mirror January 13, 2024

    4 Twitter/X Monica Crowley January 11, 2024

    5 Fortune January 12, 2024

    6 ResearchGate January 2024 DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.03.574008

    7 MSN January 15, 2024

    8 SPARS Pandemic Scenario

    9 NTI Paper November 2021

    10 UN News July 23, 2022

    11 Catastrophic Contagion

    12 Catastrophic Contagion Videos

    13 CDC Enterovirus D68

    14 CDC Enteroviruses

    15 Forbes September 15, 2023

    16 Intractable & Rare Diseases Research February 2019; 8(1): 1-8

    17 Forbes January 11, 2024

    18 BBC September 14, 2023

    19 First Post November 19, 2021

    20 Yahoo News November 19, 2021

    22 HR 3832 The Disease X Act of 2023

    Featured image source

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/will-disease-x-leaked-2025/5847210

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/will-disease-x-be-leaked-in-2025-all.html
    Will Disease X be Leaked in 2025? All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth” *** The WHO’s pandemic treaty is the gateway to a global, top-down totalitarian regime, a one world government. The reason we can be sure there will be additional pandemics, whether manufactured using either fear and hype alone or an actual bioweapon created for this very purpose, is because the takeover plan, aka The Great Reset, is based on the premise that we need global biosecurity surveillance and centralized response A new contagion will likely be born in 2025, and media are already preparing us for it January 15-19, 2024, global leaders met at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Davos summit where the key topic of discussion was “Preparing for Disease X,” a hypothetical new pandemic predicted to kill 20 times more people than COVID-19 In August 2023, a new vaccine research facility was set up in Wiltshire, England, to begin work on a vaccine against the unknown “Disease X” The U.S. Congress introduced the “Disease X Act of 2023” (H.R.3832) in June 2023. The bill calls for the establishment of a BARDA program to develop “medical countermeasures for viral threats with pandemic potential.” The bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Health in early June 2023 but has not yet been passed * The COVID-19 pandemic allowed for an unprecedented shift in power and wealth distribution across the world and, as predicted, it was not to be a one-off event. A new contagion will likely be born in 2025, and media are already preparing us for it. January 15-19, 2024, global leaders met at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Davos summit where the key topic of discussion was “Preparing for Disease X,”1 a hypothetical new pandemic predicted to emerge in 2025 and kill 20 times more people than COVID-19.2 As reported by the Mirror:3 “The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a potential Disease X since 2017, a term indicating an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international epidemic … Public speakers at the ‘Preparing for Disease X’ event next Wednesday [January 17, 2024] include Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, Brazilian minister of health Nisia Trindade Lima, and Michel Demaré, chair of the board at AstraZeneca. In their first post-pandemic meeting held in November 2022, the WHO brought over 300 scientists to consider which of over 25 virus families and bacteria could potentially create another pandemic. The list the team came up with included: the Ebola virus, the Marburg virus disease, Covid-19, SARS, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Others included lassa fever, nipah and henipaviral diseases, zift Valley fever, and zika — as well as the unknown pathogen that would cause ‘Disease X.’” I’ve interviewed Meryl Nass about how the WHO is trying to take over aspects of everyone’s lives. She just published an important piece over the weekend, Why Is Davos So Interested in Disease? about how the WEF and the WHO have become partners to terrify the world. Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq., political director for the Organic Consumers Association, did some digging into the participants of this WEF event, and the two things they all have in common are 1) dumping the AstraZeneca COVID shot on the developing world (primarily India and Brazil) after rich countries rejected it due to its admitted blood clotting risk, and 2) pushing for the implementation of medical AI systems that will eliminate doctors along with patient choice and privacy. Practice Runs or Responsible Planning? In a January 11, 2024, tweet, Fox News analyst and former assistant secretary for public affairs for the U.S. Treasury Department, Monica Crowley, wrote:4 “From the same people who brought you COVID-19 now comes Disease X: Next week in Davos, the unelected globalists at the World Economic Forum will hold a panel on a future pandemic 20x deadlier than COVID … Just in time for the election, a new contagion to allow them to implement a new WHO treaty, lock down again, restrict free speech and destroy more freedoms. Sound far-fetched? So did what happened in 2020. When your enemies tell you what they’re planning and what they’re planning FOR, believe them. And get ready.” Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine, dismissed such warnings, telling Fortune magazine5 that “Coordination of public health response is not conspiracy, it’s simply responsible planning.” I’d be willing to believe him if it wasn’t for a now-obvious trend: Whatever the globalists claim will happen actually does happen at a remarkable frequency, and their prognostic capabilities become easier to explain when you consider that most lethal pandemics have been caused by manmade viruses, the products of gain-of-function research. It’s pretty easy to predict a new viral outbreak if you have said virus waiting in the wings. With that in mind, recent research from China certainly raises concern, to say the least. According to a January 3, 2024, preprint,6 a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus — described as a “cell culture-adapted mutant” called GX_P2V that was first cultured in 2017 — was found to kill 100% of the humanized mice (ACE2-transgenic mice) infected with it.7 The primary cause of death was brain inflammation. According to the authors, “this is the first report showing that a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100% mortality in hACE2 mice, suggesting a risk for GX_P2V to spill over into humans.” However, if this virus mutated as a result of passaging through cell cultures, then it’s not likely to emerge in the wild. It’s another unnatural lab creation, so rather than saying it may spill over from pangolins to humans, it would be more accurate to admit that it may pose a (rather serious) risk to humans were a lab escape to occur. COVID Dress Rehearsals In 2017, Johns Hopkins Center of Health Security held a coronavirus pandemic simulation called the SPARS Pandemic 2025-2028 scenario.8 Importantly, the exercise stressed “communication dilemmas concerning medical countermeasures that could plausibly emerge” in a pandemic scenario. Then, in October 2019, less than three months before the COVID-19 outbreak, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with Johns Hopkins and the World Economic Forum hosted Event 201. The name itself suggests it may have been a continuation of the SPARS Pandemic exercise. College courses are numbered based on their prerequisites. A 101 course does not require any prior knowledge whereas 201 courses require prior familiarity with the topic at hand. As in the SPARS Pandemic scenario, Event 201 involved an outbreak of a highly infectious coronavirus, and the primary (if not sole) focus of the exercise was, again, how to control information and keep “misinformation” in check, not how to effectively discover and share remedies. Social media censorship played a prominent role in the Event 201 plan, and in the real-world events of 2020 through the present, accurate information about vaccine development, production and injury has indeed been effectively suppressed around the world, thanks to social media companies and Google’s censoring of opposing viewpoints. In March 2021, an outbreak of “an unusual strain of monkeypox virus” was simulated.9 In late July the following year, the WHO director-general declared that a multi-country outbreak of monkeypox constituted a public health emergency of international concern,10 against his own advisory group. ‘Catastrophic Contagion’ Exercise Considering both of these simulations, SPARS (“Event 101”?) and Event 201, foreshadowed what eventually occurred in real life during COVID, when Gates hosts yet another pandemic exercise, it’s worth paying attention to the details. October 23, 2022, Gates, Johns Hopkins and the WHO cohosted “a global challenge exercise” dubbed “Catastrophic Contagion,”11,12 involving a fictional pathogen called “severe epidemic enterovirus respiratory syndrome 2025” (SEERS-25). Enterovirus D6813 is typically associated with cold and flu-like illness in infants, children and teens. In rare cases, it’s also been known to cause viral meningitis and acute flaccid myelitis, a neurological condition resulting in muscle weakness and loss of reflexes in one or more extremities. Enteroviruses A71 and A6 are known to cause hand, foot and mouth disease,14 while poliovirus, the prototypical enterovirus, causes polio (poliomyelitis), a potentially life-threatening type of paralysis that primarily affects children under age 5. So, the virus they modeled in this simulation appears to be something similar to enterovirus D68, but worse. Vaccine Drug Trials Begin for Deadly Nipah Virus One known virus that bears some resemblance to the fictional SEERS-25 is the Nipah virus. This virus has a kill rate of about 75%,15 and survivors oftentimes face long-term neurological issues stemming from the infection. Nipah is also said to affect children to a greater degree than adults.16 Incidentally, human trials for a vaccine against the deadly Nipah virus were recently launched.17Volunteers received their first shots in early January 2024. The experimental injection uses the same viral vector technology used to produce AstraZeneca’s COVID shot. The trial is reportedly being carried out by the University of Oxford in an undisclosed area where Nipah is actively infecting victims. (India seems to be indicated, as an outbreak in Kerala killed two people and hospitalized three in September 2023.18) The disease is thought to spread via interaction with infected animals such as goats, pigs, cats and horses. It may also spread via tainted blood products and food. Symptoms can emerge anywhere from a few days after exposure to as long as 45 days. Initial symptoms include fever, headache and respiratory illness, which can rapidly progress to encephalitis (brain swelling), seizures and coma within just a couple of days. According to the WHO, pigs are known to be “highly contagious” during the incubation period, and it’s possible that humans may be as well, although that has yet to be confirmed. Training African Leaders to Go Along with the Narrative Tellingly, the Catastrophic Contagion exercise focused on getting leadership in African countries involved and trained in following the script. African nations went “off script” more often than others during the COVID pandemic, and didn’t follow in the footsteps of developed nations when it came to pushing the jabs. As a result, vaccine makers now face the problem of having a huge control group, as the COVID jab uptake on the African continent was only 6%,19 yet it fared far better than developed nations in terms of COVID-19 infections and related deaths.20 The Catastrophic Contagion exercise predicts SEERS-25 will kill 20 million people worldwide, including 15 million children, and many who survive the infection will be left with paralysis and/or brain damage. In other words, the “cue” given is that the next pandemic may target children rather than the elderly, as was the case with COVID-19. Vaccine Against Unknown ‘X’ Pathogen Is Already in the Works In August 2023, a new vaccine research facility was set up in Wiltshire, England, fully staffed with more 200 scientists, to begin work on a vaccine against the unknown “Disease X.” As reported by Metro:21 “It took 362 days to develop the Covid-19 vaccine. But the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre team wants to reduce that time to 100 days. Scientists at the facility will develop a range of prototype vaccines and tests. The new lab is a part of a global effort to respond to global health threats. The UK and other G7 countries signed up to the ‘100 Days Mission’ in 2021. The government has invested £65 million into the lab. Professor Dame Jenny Harries, the head of the UK Health Security Agency, said the new facility would ‘ensure that we prepare so that if we have a new Disease X, a new pathogen, we have as much of that work in advance as possible.’” In the U.S., Congress also introduced the “Disease X Act of 2023” (H.R.383222) back in June 2023. The bill calls for the establishment of a BARDA program to develop “medical countermeasures for viral threats with pandemic potential.” The bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Health in early June 2023 but has not yet been passed. The Disease X Act amends a section of the Public Health Service Act with two new clauses that call for “the identification and development of platform manufacturing technologies needed for advanced development and manufacturing of medical countermeasures for viral families which have significant potential to cause a pandemic,” and “advanced research and development of flexible medical countermeasures against priority respiratory virus families and other respiratory viral pathogens with a significant potential to cause a pandemic, with both pathogen-specific and pathogen-agnostic approaches …” Needless to say, since it’s impossible to customize vaccines using the conventional method of growing viruses in eggs or some other cell media in 100 days, it seems inevitable that all these efforts are about the expansion of gene-based technologies. This, despite the fact that the mRNA technology used for the COVID jabs has proven to be disastrous from a safety standpoint, and ineffective to boot. Why Manufactured Pandemics Will Continue At this point, it’s quite clear that “biosecurity” is the chosen means by which the globalist cabal intends to seize power over the world. The WHO is working on securing sole power over pandemic response globally through its international pandemic treaty which, if implemented, will eradicate the sovereignty of all member nations. The WHO’s pandemic treaty is the gateway to a global, top-down totalitarian regime, a one world government. Ultimately, the WHO intends to dictate all health care. But to secure that power, they will need more pandemics. COVID-19 alone was not enough to get everyone onboard with a centralized pandemic response unit, and they probably knew that from the start. So, the reason we can be sure there will be additional pandemics, whether manufactured using either fear and hype alone or an actual bioweapon created for this very purpose, is because the takeover plan, aka The Great Reset, is based on the premise that we need global biosecurity surveillance and centralized response. Biosecurity, in turn, is the justification for an international vaccine passport, which the G20 has signed on to, and that passport will also be your digital identification. That digital ID, then, will be tied to your social credit score, personal carbon footprint tracker, medical records, educational records, work records, social media presence, purchase records, your bank accounts and a programmable central bank digital currency (CBDC). Once all these pieces are fully connected, you’ll be in a digital prison, and the ruling cabal — whether officially a one world government by then or not — will have total control over your life from cradle to grave. We’re Already Suffering Under a Pseudo-One World Government We actually already have a pseudo-one world government, in the form of Bill Gates’ nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). They are making health care decisions that should be left to individual nations and/or states, and they’re making decisions that will line their own pockets, regardless of what happens to the public health-wise. They coordinate and synchronize pandemic communication during simulated practice runs, and then, when the real-world situation emerges that fits the bill, the preplanned script is played out more or less verbatim. Between the G20 declaration to implement an international vaccine passport under the auspice of the WHO, and the WHO’s pandemic treaty, everything is lined up to take control of the next pandemic, and in so doing, further securing the foundation for a one world government. As discussed in my 2021 article, “COVID-19 Dress Rehearsals and Proof of the Plan,” the pandemic measures rolled out for COVID-19 were the culmination of decades of careful planning to radically and permanently alter the governance and social structures of the world. The medical system has been used in the past to drive forward a New World Order agenda — now rebranded as “The Great Reset” — and it’s now being used to implement the final stages of that longstanding plan. COVID-19 was a real-world practice run, and showed just how effectively a pandemic can be used to shift the balance of power, and strip the global population of its wealth and individual freedoms. So, there’s no doubt in my mind that additional pandemics will be declared, because they’re the means to the globalists’ ends. To prevent this global coup, we need everyone to speak and share the truth to the point that you’re able. Only then will our voices outnumber the voices of the propaganda machine. Door To Freedom (doortofreedom.org), an organization founded by Dr. Meryl Nass, has a poster that explains how the pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations (IHR) amendments will change life as we know it and strip us of every vestige of freedom. Please download this poster and share it with everyone you know. Also put it up on public billboards and places where communities share information. * Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. Notes 1, 21 Metro January 15, 2024 2, 3 Mirror January 13, 2024 4 Twitter/X Monica Crowley January 11, 2024 5 Fortune January 12, 2024 6 ResearchGate January 2024 DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.03.574008 7 MSN January 15, 2024 8 SPARS Pandemic Scenario 9 NTI Paper November 2021 10 UN News July 23, 2022 11 Catastrophic Contagion 12 Catastrophic Contagion Videos 13 CDC Enterovirus D68 14 CDC Enteroviruses 15 Forbes September 15, 2023 16 Intractable & Rare Diseases Research February 2019; 8(1): 1-8 17 Forbes January 11, 2024 18 BBC September 14, 2023 19 First Post November 19, 2021 20 Yahoo News November 19, 2021 22 HR 3832 The Disease X Act of 2023 Featured image source https://www.globalresearch.ca/will-disease-x-leaked-2025/5847210 https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/will-disease-x-be-leaked-in-2025-all.html
    WWW.GLOBALRESEARCH.CA
    Will Disease X be Leaked in 2025?
    All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel …
    0 Comments 0 Shares 25890 Views
  • Dissecting “Disease X” And The Pandemic Agreement
    Derrick Broze
    (TLAV) At the World Economic Forum‘s recent annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, a panel called “Preparing for Disease X” caught the eyes of researchers who are skeptical of the organization and their claimed mission of helping humanity and the planet. The panel included the World Health Organization’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus; Shyam Bishen, member of the WEF Executive Committee; and Nisia Trindade Lima, Brazil’s Minister of Health, among others.

    “‘Disease X’ is a placeholder for unknown disease,” Tedros explained to the panel. “You may even call COVID as the first Disease X, and it may happen again.”

    WHO Director-General Tedros referenced the WHO’s Pandemic agreement discussions, stating that countries need to unite against a “common enemy”.

    “This is a common global interest, and very narrow national interest can get in the way,” Tedro stated. “Of course, national interest is natural, but it’s the narrow national interest that can be difficult and is affecting the negotiations even as we speak.”

    The WHO’s 194 member nations are slated to meet in May to adopt some version of the WHO’s pandemic treaty and the International Health Regulations (IHR). Recent drafts of the proposed treaty indicate that it poses a threat to national sovereignty and decision making. Fears of loss of sovereignty have led some nations to push back against the agreement.

    On Monday the United Nations noted that the Pandemic Agreement may not be finalized in May as planned. The news came from a WHO “Informal Session” on the agreement and IHR. During the session Tedros stated that time was “very short” to find consensus. Tedros specifically blamed “conspiracy theories” for the lack of progress on the agreement.

    “The IHR working group are operating amidst a torrent of fake news, lies, and conspiracy theories. There are those who claim the pandemic agreement and IHR will cede sovereignty to WHO and give the WHO Secretary the power to impose lockdowns or vaccine mandates on countries,” Tedros stated. “You know this is fake news, lies, and conspiracy theories. You know these claims are completely false. You know the agreement will give the WHO no such powers. We cannot allow this historic agreement, this milestone in global health, to be sabotaged by those who spread lies.”

    Tedros claimed the agreement “will not and can not” cede the sovereignty of member states over to the WHO. However, the language of the most recent draft makes it clear that member nations are expected to be bound by the provisions within the agreement. As you will see in a moment, documents from the 2017 G20 meeting make it clear the IHR are intended to be followed by member nations of the WHO.

    What is Disease X?

    The phrase “Disease X” has been going viral since the announcement of the WEF panel. The corporate media and the fact checkers have already done their part to assure the masses that it’s only “right wing extremists” who are worried about the talk of this unknown pathogen that could allegedly be “20 times” more deadly than the COVID-19 panic.

    One of the reasons the internet is ablaze with talk of “Disease X” is because the public remembers the Event 201 exercise which took place in October 2019 and simulated a coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world 5 months before the world learned of what they would later call COVID-19. As TLAV has extensively reported, many elements of the Event 201 exercise became reality in 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, many people were banned from social media platforms for asking questions about Event 201.

    Interestingly, Event 201 is also considered to be a test for “Disease X”, and, as noted by WHO Secretary Tedros, COVID-19 could be considered the first Disease X. Now, after the WEF panel discussing the allegedly upcoming “Disease X”, onlookers are wondering if the world should be prepared for another scamdemic.

    So, where did the use of this phrase begin and what does it mean for 2024? This is a brief rundown of some of the various discussions of “Disease X”.

    WEF 2017

    In January 2017, the World Economic Forum announced the creation of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI. The launch of CEPI at the 2017 WEF meeting involved the Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — both of whom had major roles in the response to COVID-19, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

    At the WEF 2019 meeting — one year before COVID-19 emerged — there was also discussion of “Disease X” on a panel titled “Disease X: Confronting a New Era of Biological Threats”. The panel was moderated by Jeffrey M. Drazen, Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, and included panelists Seth F. Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome Trust, with closing remarks by Wang Chen, President of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

    G20 2017: 5C Health Emergency Simulation Exercise

    The G20 held a pandemic simulation exercise known as ‘5C Health Emergency Simulation Exercise’ in Berlin, Germany in May 2017. The name “5C” refers to the five C-topics around which the exercise revolved: communication, collaboration, contributions, coordination and compliance. The simulation involved a fictional novel respiratory virus, the Mountain Associated Respiratory Syndrome (MARS) virus.

    At the same meeting, the G20 released a statement titled “Berlin Declaration of the G20 Health Ministers: Together Today for a Healthy Tomorrow”, which made it clear that the World Health Organization expects member states to comply with the International Health Regulations (IHR).

    In the Berlin Declaration, under the section focused on “compliance” it calls for stronger tools to force compliance from member states. It reads, “However, countries’ compliance with the IHR and with temporary recommendations issued under the IHR needs to be enhanced.” The document also states that “countries not fulfilling their obligations might be perceived by the international community to be violating international law and thus risk reputational damage”.

    As the G20 noted in their declaration, the IHR were passed by the WHO in 2005 and went into effect in 2007. They are considered an “international legal instrument” that is binding on all WHO Member States.

    “We acknowledge that efficient global health crisis management can only be ensured through compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR). We will act accordingly within our obligations under the IHR and support the leadership and coordination of WHO in the event of health crises of international concern,” the document states.

    It also says the signatories “affirm WHO’s central role as health cluster lead in particular within the United Nations (UN)”. All “stakeholders” are expected to be “involved in preventing, preparing for and responding to current and future health crises, guided by the leadership of WHO”.

    Further, the document states that the “international community needs to fully support the WHO in order for the organization to be able to fulfill its role”.

    It is these sorts of statements which have stoked fears of the WHO interfering with the sovereignty of member states.

    2018: WHO Research Development Blueprint

    In February 2018, the WHO launched the “2018 R&D Blueprint” to focus on diseases which are claimed to represent the highest likelihood of causing a future pandemic. Around this time the WHO added Disease X to the shortlist as a placeholder for a “knowable unknown” pathogen. The WHO said the name “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease”. The WHO called for more financing and preparedness for the apparently inevitable future pandemic.

    Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN “experience has taught us more often than not the thing that is gonna hit us is something that we did not anticipate”.

    October 2018: The Trudeau Institute War Game

    In addition to Event 201, previous simulations of pandemics have also been touted as preparation for the future event known as “Disease X”. One such simulation took place in October 2018 in Saranac Lake, New York, at a gathering organized by the Trudeau Institute and the State University of New York Upstate Medical University titled, ‘‘Translational Immunology Supporting Biomedical Countermeasure Development for Emerging Vector-Borne Viral Diseases.”

    At this gathering a group of biomedical scientists conducted a “war game” for the fictional Disease X. The attendees included basic scientists, physician-scientists, science support professionals, and organizations and institutions with “experience and expertise in identifying and working to solve major global health problems”.

    Keynote speakers included representatives from the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

    The scientists concluded that the key to preventing a “global health disaster” resulting from Disease X is to pull “existing public health organizations together in a coordinated, vigorous and sustained effort” to deliver a “safe and effective vaccine”. They called for “leveraging pre-developed vaccine platforms such as injectable formulations of DNA, self-replicating RNA, recombinant proteins and viral vectors”.

    March 2020: COVID-19

    After the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic we continued to see references to Disease X from numerous scientific journals and health organizations. In March 2020, The Lancet published a study titled “Disease X: accelerating the development of medical countermeasures for the next pandemic“. A couple months later a paper titled “The Next Pandemic: Prepare for ‘Disease X’” was published in the West Journal of Emerging Medicine.

    2021: Disease X Medical Countermeasure Program

    By 2021, John Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security launched the Disease X Medical Countermeasure Program. The program was said to “leverage technologies and vaccine platforms most suitable to the viral families that are likely to cause future catastrophic disease outbreaks”.

    2022: WHO Updates Their “Research & Development Blueprint”

    In November 2022, the WHO announced the launch of a global scientific process to update the list of “priority pathogens” to guide global investment, research, and development (R&D), especially in vaccines, tests, and treatments.

    The WHO convened over 300 scientists to consider the evidence on over 25 virus families and bacteria, including “Disease X.” The scientists made recommendations for which priority pathogens needed further research and investment.

    2023: Disease X Act of 2023

    In June 2023, Congresswoman Lori Trahan of Massachusetts introduced the “Disease X Act of 2023” calling for expanding “the priorities of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to specifically include viral threats that have the potential to cause a pandemic”. BARDA was created in 2006 as a response to the claims of anthrax attacks in the United States. The agency has been compared to the controversial Department of Advanced Research and Projects Agency, or DARPA.

    Trahan’s bill calls for establishing a Disease X Medical Countermeasures Program at BARDA by allowing the HHS to award contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements to “promote the development of Disease X medical countermeasures for viral families with pandemic potential”. The bill also calls for directing BARDA to “accelerate and support the advanced research, development, and procurement of countermeasures and products to address Disease X threats”.

    May 2024: The WHO Pandemic Agreement

    With only 3 months until the WHO’s official meeting to vote on the Pandemic Agreement, the clock is ticking for the Predator Class and their biomedical agenda. Will they succeed in forcing the agreement down the throats of skeptical nations? If so, will Disease X magically appear? Will the agreement actually lead to the loss of sovereignty?

    The language in the agreement appears to be clear that nations will be expected to follow the guidelines and recommendations of the WHO during a claimed pandemic. Whether nations will comply and how exactly the WHO could enforce such measures remains to be seen, but the 2017 G20 Berlin Declaration specifically mentions peer pressure from other nations. This could come in the form of public statements or even financial pressure.

    One thing is for certain: those who are paying attention need to know that 2024 is going to be a big year for the Predator Class as they finally attempt to cement their collectivist philosophy in a binding international agreement. Do whatever you can to spread the word and resist their attempts to strip nations and individuals of the right to decide how to respond to claimed health threats.

    https://thefreethoughtproject.com/health/dissecting-disease-x-and-the-pandemic-agreement

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/dissecting-disease-x-and-pandemic.html
    Dissecting “Disease X” And The Pandemic Agreement Derrick Broze (TLAV) At the World Economic Forum‘s recent annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, a panel called “Preparing for Disease X” caught the eyes of researchers who are skeptical of the organization and their claimed mission of helping humanity and the planet. The panel included the World Health Organization’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus; Shyam Bishen, member of the WEF Executive Committee; and Nisia Trindade Lima, Brazil’s Minister of Health, among others. “‘Disease X’ is a placeholder for unknown disease,” Tedros explained to the panel. “You may even call COVID as the first Disease X, and it may happen again.” WHO Director-General Tedros referenced the WHO’s Pandemic agreement discussions, stating that countries need to unite against a “common enemy”. “This is a common global interest, and very narrow national interest can get in the way,” Tedro stated. “Of course, national interest is natural, but it’s the narrow national interest that can be difficult and is affecting the negotiations even as we speak.” The WHO’s 194 member nations are slated to meet in May to adopt some version of the WHO’s pandemic treaty and the International Health Regulations (IHR). Recent drafts of the proposed treaty indicate that it poses a threat to national sovereignty and decision making. Fears of loss of sovereignty have led some nations to push back against the agreement. On Monday the United Nations noted that the Pandemic Agreement may not be finalized in May as planned. The news came from a WHO “Informal Session” on the agreement and IHR. During the session Tedros stated that time was “very short” to find consensus. Tedros specifically blamed “conspiracy theories” for the lack of progress on the agreement. “The IHR working group are operating amidst a torrent of fake news, lies, and conspiracy theories. There are those who claim the pandemic agreement and IHR will cede sovereignty to WHO and give the WHO Secretary the power to impose lockdowns or vaccine mandates on countries,” Tedros stated. “You know this is fake news, lies, and conspiracy theories. You know these claims are completely false. You know the agreement will give the WHO no such powers. We cannot allow this historic agreement, this milestone in global health, to be sabotaged by those who spread lies.” Tedros claimed the agreement “will not and can not” cede the sovereignty of member states over to the WHO. However, the language of the most recent draft makes it clear that member nations are expected to be bound by the provisions within the agreement. As you will see in a moment, documents from the 2017 G20 meeting make it clear the IHR are intended to be followed by member nations of the WHO. What is Disease X? The phrase “Disease X” has been going viral since the announcement of the WEF panel. The corporate media and the fact checkers have already done their part to assure the masses that it’s only “right wing extremists” who are worried about the talk of this unknown pathogen that could allegedly be “20 times” more deadly than the COVID-19 panic. One of the reasons the internet is ablaze with talk of “Disease X” is because the public remembers the Event 201 exercise which took place in October 2019 and simulated a coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world 5 months before the world learned of what they would later call COVID-19. As TLAV has extensively reported, many elements of the Event 201 exercise became reality in 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, many people were banned from social media platforms for asking questions about Event 201. Interestingly, Event 201 is also considered to be a test for “Disease X”, and, as noted by WHO Secretary Tedros, COVID-19 could be considered the first Disease X. Now, after the WEF panel discussing the allegedly upcoming “Disease X”, onlookers are wondering if the world should be prepared for another scamdemic. So, where did the use of this phrase begin and what does it mean for 2024? This is a brief rundown of some of the various discussions of “Disease X”. WEF 2017 In January 2017, the World Economic Forum announced the creation of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI. The launch of CEPI at the 2017 WEF meeting involved the Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — both of whom had major roles in the response to COVID-19, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. At the WEF 2019 meeting — one year before COVID-19 emerged — there was also discussion of “Disease X” on a panel titled “Disease X: Confronting a New Era of Biological Threats”. The panel was moderated by Jeffrey M. Drazen, Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, and included panelists Seth F. Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome Trust, with closing remarks by Wang Chen, President of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. G20 2017: 5C Health Emergency Simulation Exercise The G20 held a pandemic simulation exercise known as ‘5C Health Emergency Simulation Exercise’ in Berlin, Germany in May 2017. The name “5C” refers to the five C-topics around which the exercise revolved: communication, collaboration, contributions, coordination and compliance. The simulation involved a fictional novel respiratory virus, the Mountain Associated Respiratory Syndrome (MARS) virus. At the same meeting, the G20 released a statement titled “Berlin Declaration of the G20 Health Ministers: Together Today for a Healthy Tomorrow”, which made it clear that the World Health Organization expects member states to comply with the International Health Regulations (IHR). In the Berlin Declaration, under the section focused on “compliance” it calls for stronger tools to force compliance from member states. It reads, “However, countries’ compliance with the IHR and with temporary recommendations issued under the IHR needs to be enhanced.” The document also states that “countries not fulfilling their obligations might be perceived by the international community to be violating international law and thus risk reputational damage”. As the G20 noted in their declaration, the IHR were passed by the WHO in 2005 and went into effect in 2007. They are considered an “international legal instrument” that is binding on all WHO Member States. “We acknowledge that efficient global health crisis management can only be ensured through compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR). We will act accordingly within our obligations under the IHR and support the leadership and coordination of WHO in the event of health crises of international concern,” the document states. It also says the signatories “affirm WHO’s central role as health cluster lead in particular within the United Nations (UN)”. All “stakeholders” are expected to be “involved in preventing, preparing for and responding to current and future health crises, guided by the leadership of WHO”. Further, the document states that the “international community needs to fully support the WHO in order for the organization to be able to fulfill its role”. It is these sorts of statements which have stoked fears of the WHO interfering with the sovereignty of member states. 2018: WHO Research Development Blueprint In February 2018, the WHO launched the “2018 R&D Blueprint” to focus on diseases which are claimed to represent the highest likelihood of causing a future pandemic. Around this time the WHO added Disease X to the shortlist as a placeholder for a “knowable unknown” pathogen. The WHO said the name “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease”. The WHO called for more financing and preparedness for the apparently inevitable future pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN “experience has taught us more often than not the thing that is gonna hit us is something that we did not anticipate”. October 2018: The Trudeau Institute War Game In addition to Event 201, previous simulations of pandemics have also been touted as preparation for the future event known as “Disease X”. One such simulation took place in October 2018 in Saranac Lake, New York, at a gathering organized by the Trudeau Institute and the State University of New York Upstate Medical University titled, ‘‘Translational Immunology Supporting Biomedical Countermeasure Development for Emerging Vector-Borne Viral Diseases.” At this gathering a group of biomedical scientists conducted a “war game” for the fictional Disease X. The attendees included basic scientists, physician-scientists, science support professionals, and organizations and institutions with “experience and expertise in identifying and working to solve major global health problems”. Keynote speakers included representatives from the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The scientists concluded that the key to preventing a “global health disaster” resulting from Disease X is to pull “existing public health organizations together in a coordinated, vigorous and sustained effort” to deliver a “safe and effective vaccine”. They called for “leveraging pre-developed vaccine platforms such as injectable formulations of DNA, self-replicating RNA, recombinant proteins and viral vectors”. March 2020: COVID-19 After the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic we continued to see references to Disease X from numerous scientific journals and health organizations. In March 2020, The Lancet published a study titled “Disease X: accelerating the development of medical countermeasures for the next pandemic“. A couple months later a paper titled “The Next Pandemic: Prepare for ‘Disease X’” was published in the West Journal of Emerging Medicine. 2021: Disease X Medical Countermeasure Program By 2021, John Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security launched the Disease X Medical Countermeasure Program. The program was said to “leverage technologies and vaccine platforms most suitable to the viral families that are likely to cause future catastrophic disease outbreaks”. 2022: WHO Updates Their “Research & Development Blueprint” In November 2022, the WHO announced the launch of a global scientific process to update the list of “priority pathogens” to guide global investment, research, and development (R&D), especially in vaccines, tests, and treatments. The WHO convened over 300 scientists to consider the evidence on over 25 virus families and bacteria, including “Disease X.” The scientists made recommendations for which priority pathogens needed further research and investment. 2023: Disease X Act of 2023 In June 2023, Congresswoman Lori Trahan of Massachusetts introduced the “Disease X Act of 2023” calling for expanding “the priorities of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to specifically include viral threats that have the potential to cause a pandemic”. BARDA was created in 2006 as a response to the claims of anthrax attacks in the United States. The agency has been compared to the controversial Department of Advanced Research and Projects Agency, or DARPA. Trahan’s bill calls for establishing a Disease X Medical Countermeasures Program at BARDA by allowing the HHS to award contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements to “promote the development of Disease X medical countermeasures for viral families with pandemic potential”. The bill also calls for directing BARDA to “accelerate and support the advanced research, development, and procurement of countermeasures and products to address Disease X threats”. May 2024: The WHO Pandemic Agreement With only 3 months until the WHO’s official meeting to vote on the Pandemic Agreement, the clock is ticking for the Predator Class and their biomedical agenda. Will they succeed in forcing the agreement down the throats of skeptical nations? If so, will Disease X magically appear? Will the agreement actually lead to the loss of sovereignty? The language in the agreement appears to be clear that nations will be expected to follow the guidelines and recommendations of the WHO during a claimed pandemic. Whether nations will comply and how exactly the WHO could enforce such measures remains to be seen, but the 2017 G20 Berlin Declaration specifically mentions peer pressure from other nations. This could come in the form of public statements or even financial pressure. One thing is for certain: those who are paying attention need to know that 2024 is going to be a big year for the Predator Class as they finally attempt to cement their collectivist philosophy in a binding international agreement. Do whatever you can to spread the word and resist their attempts to strip nations and individuals of the right to decide how to respond to claimed health threats. https://thefreethoughtproject.com/health/dissecting-disease-x-and-the-pandemic-agreement https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/dissecting-disease-x-and-pandemic.html
    Like
    1
    0 Comments 1 Shares 17367 Views
  • Explore this fully editable one page goal setting plan PowerPoint template to develop an organizational goal-setting plan that showcases the desired outcomes and defines what needs to be done, by when, and why to achieve those goals. You can use this PPT template to track and measure the progress of the goal achievement. Download Now: https://bit.ly/465w0bW
    #onepage #goalsetting2024 #goalplan #goalplanning #powerpointpresentation #powerpointtemplates #powerpointdesign #presentation #presentationdesign #Pptslides #ppt #pptdesign #slides #kridhagraphics
    Explore this fully editable one page goal setting plan PowerPoint template to develop an organizational goal-setting plan that showcases the desired outcomes and defines what needs to be done, by when, and why to achieve those goals. You can use this PPT template to track and measure the progress of the goal achievement. Download Now: https://bit.ly/465w0bW #onepage #goalsetting2024 #goalplan #goalplanning #powerpointpresentation #powerpointtemplates #powerpointdesign #presentation #presentationdesign #Pptslides #ppt #pptdesign #slides #kridhagraphics
    BIT.LY
    One Page Goal Setting Plan PowerPoint Template | PPT Templates
    Features: A4 Format You can change the color of the icons You can change the size, color and orientation of the shape Replace the text as per your need Replace an image as per your requirement
    0 Comments 0 Shares 3222 Views
  • WEF Admits Disease X Will Be Leaked in 2025
    Sean Adl-Tabatabai
    Fact checked
    January 23, 2024 30 Comments
    WEF admits Disease X will be unleashed in 2025.
    The World Economic Forum (WEF) has declared that ‘Disease X’ will be unleashed onto the public by the year 2025 – and the consequences will be devastating for humanity.



    Last week, global elites met at the WEF Davos summit where the key topic of discussion was “Preparing for Disease X,”1 a hypothetical new deadly pandemic predicted to emerge in 2025 and kill 20 times more people than COVID-19.2 As reported by the Mirror:3



    BYPASS THE CENSORS

    Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.

    You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

    “The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a potential Disease X since 2017, a term indicating an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international epidemic …

    Public speakers at the ‘Preparing for Disease X’ event next Wednesday [January 17, 2024] include Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, Brazilian minister of health Nisia Trindade Lima, and Michel Demaré, chair of the board at AstraZeneca.

    In their first post-pandemic meeting held in November 2022, the WHO brought over 300 scientists to consider which of over 25 virus families and bacteria could potentially create another pandemic.

    The list the team came up with included: the Ebola virus, the Marburg virus disease, Covid-19, SARS, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Others included lassa fever, nipah and henipaviral diseases, zift Valley fever, and zika — as well as the unknown pathogen that would cause ‘Disease X.’”

    Mercola.com reports: I’ve interviewed Meryl Nass about how the WHO is trying to take over aspects of everyone’s lives. She just published an important piece over the weekend, Why Is Davos So Interested in Disease? about how the WEF and the WHO have become partners to terrify the world.

    Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq., political director for the Organic Consumers Association, did some digging into the participants of this WEF event, and the two things they all have in common are 1) dumping the AstraZeneca COVID shot on the developing world (primarily India and Brazil) after rich countries rejected it due to its admitted blood clotting risk, and 2) pushing for the implementation of medical AI systems that will eliminate doctors along with patient choice and privacy.

    Practice Runs or Responsible Planning?

    In a January 11, 2024, tweet, Fox News analyst and former assistant secretary for public affairs for the U.S. Treasury Department, Monica Crowley, wrote:4

    “From the same people who brought you COVID-19 now comes Disease X: Next week in Davos, the unelected globalists at the World Economic Forum will hold a panel on a future pandemic 20x deadlier than COVID …

    Just in time for the election, a new contagion to allow them to implement a new WHO treaty, lock down again, restrict free speech and destroy more freedoms. Sound far-fetched? So did what happened in 2020. When your enemies tell you what they’re planning and what they’re planning FOR, believe them. And get ready.”

    Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine, dismissed such warnings, telling Fortune magazine5 that “Coordination of public health response is not conspiracy, it’s simply responsible planning.”

    I’d be willing to believe him if it wasn’t for a now-obvious trend: Whatever the globalists claim will happen actually does happen at a remarkable frequency, and their prognostic capabilities become easier to explain when you consider that most lethal pandemics have been caused by manmade viruses, the products of gain-of-function research. It’s pretty easy to predict a new viral outbreak if you have said virus waiting in the wings.

    With that in mind, recent research from China certainly raises concern, to say the least. According to a January 3, 2024, preprint,6 a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus — described as a “cell culture-adapted mutant” called GX_P2V that was first cultured in 2017 — was found to kill 100% of the humanized mice (ACE2-transgenic mice) infected with it.7

    JOIN THE FIGHT: BECOME A CITIZEN JOURNALIST TODAY!

    The primary cause of death was brain inflammation. According to the authors, “this is the first report showing that a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100% mortality in hACE2 mice, suggesting a risk for GX_P2V to spill over into humans.”

    However, if this virus mutated as a result of passaging through cell cultures, then it’s not likely to emerge in the wild. It’s another unnatural lab creation, so rather than saying it may spill over from pangolins to humans, it would be more accurate to admit that it may pose a (rather serious) risk to humans were a lab escape to occur.

    COVID Dress Rehearsals

    In 2017, Johns Hopkins Center of Health Security held a coronavirus pandemic simulation called the SPARS Pandemic 2025-2028 scenario.8 Importantly, the exercise stressed “communication dilemmas concerning medical countermeasures that could plausibly emerge” in a pandemic scenario.

    Then, in October 2019, less than three months before the COVID-19 outbreak, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with Johns Hopkins and the World Economic Forum hosted Event 201.

    The name itself suggests it may have been a continuation of the SPARS Pandemic exercise. College courses are numbered based on their prerequisites. A 101 course does not require any prior knowledge whereas 201 courses require prior familiarity with the topic at hand.

    As in the SPARS Pandemic scenario, Event 201 involved an outbreak of a highly infectious coronavirus, and the primary (if not sole) focus of the exercise was, again, how to control information and keep “misinformation” in check, not how to effectively discover and share remedies.

    Social media censorship played a prominent role in the Event 201 plan, and in the real-world events of 2020 through the present, accurate information about vaccine development, production and injury has indeed been effectively suppressed around the world, thanks to social media companies and Google’s censoring of opposing viewpoints.

    In March 2021, an outbreak of “an unusual strain of monkeypox virus” was simulated.9 In late July the following year, the WHO director-general declared that a multi-country outbreak of monkeypox constituted a public health emergency of international concern,10 against his own advisory group.

    ‘Catastrophic Contagion’ Exercise

    Considering both of these simulations, SPARS (“Event 101”?) and Event 201, foreshadowed what eventually occurred in real life during COVID, when Gates hosts yet another pandemic exercise, it’s worth paying attention to the details.

    October 23, 2022, Gates, Johns Hopkins and the WHO cohosted “a global challenge exercise” dubbed “Catastrophic Contagion,”11,12 involving a fictional pathogen called “severe epidemic enterovirus respiratory syndrome 2025” (SEERS-25).

    Enterovirus D6813 is typically associated with cold and flu-like illness in infants, children and teens. In rare cases, it’s also been known to cause viral meningitis and acute flaccid myelitis, a neurological condition resulting in muscle weakness and loss of reflexes in one or more extremities.

    Enteroviruses A71 and A6 are known to cause hand, foot and mouth disease,14 while poliovirus, the prototypical enterovirus, causes polio (poliomyelitis), a potentially life-threatening type of paralysis that primarily affects children under age 5. So, the virus they modeled in this simulation appears to be something similar to enterovirus D68, but worse.

    Vaccine Drug Trials Begin for Deadly Nipah Virus

    One known virus that bears some resemblance to the fictional SEERS-25 is the Nipah virus. This virus has a kill rate of about 75%,15 and survivors oftentimes face long-term neurological issues stemming from the infection. Nipah is also said to affect children to a greater degree than adults.16

    Incidentally, human trials for a vaccine against the deadly Nipah virus were recently launched.17 Volunteers received their first shots in early January 2024. The experimental injection uses the same viral vector technology used to produce AstraZeneca’s COVID shot.

    The trial is reportedly being carried out by the University of Oxford in an undisclosed area where Nipah is actively infecting victims. (India seems to be indicated, as an outbreak in Kerala killed two people and hospitalized three in September 2023.18)

    The disease is thought to spread via interaction with infected animals such as goats, pigs, cats and horses. It may also spread via tainted blood products and food. Symptoms can emerge anywhere from a few days after exposure to as long as 45 days.

    Initial symptoms include fever, headache and respiratory illness, which can rapidly progress to encephalitis (brain swelling), seizures and coma within just a couple of days. According to the WHO, pigs are known to be “highly contagious” during the incubation period, and it’s possible that humans may be as well, although that has yet to be confirmed.

    Training African Leaders to Go Along With the Narrative

    Tellingly, the Catastrophic Contagion exercise focused on getting leadership in African countries involved and trained in following the script. African nations went “off script” more often than others during the COVID pandemic, and didn’t follow in the footsteps of developed nations when it came to pushing the jabs.

    As a result, vaccine makers now face the problem of having a huge control group, as the COVID jab uptake on the African continent was only 6%,19 yet it fared far better than developed nations in terms of COVID-19 infections and related deaths.20

    The Catastrophic Contagion exercise predicts SEERS-25 will kill 20 million people worldwide, including 15 million children, and many who survive the infection will be left with paralysis and/or brain damage. In other words, the “cue” given is that the next pandemic may target children rather than the elderly, as was the case with COVID-19.

    Vaccine Against Unknown ‘X’ Pathogen Is Already in the Works


    In August 2023, a new vaccine research facility was set up in Wiltshire, England, fully staffed with more 200 scientists, to begin work on a vaccine against the unknown “Disease X.” As reported by Metro:21

    “It took 362 days to develop the Covid-19 vaccine. But the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre team wants to reduce that time to 100 days. Scientists at the facility will develop a range of prototype vaccines and tests.

    The new lab is a part of a global effort to respond to global health threats. The UK and other G7 countries signed up to the ‘100 Days Mission’ in 2021. The government has invested £65 million into the lab.

    Professor Dame Jenny Harries, the head of the UK Health Security Agency, said the new facility would ‘ensure that we prepare so that if we have a new Disease X, a new pathogen, we have as much of that work in advance as possible.’”

    In the U.S., Congress also introduced the “Disease X Act of 2023” (H.R.383222) back in June 2023. The bill calls for the establishment of a BARDA program to develop “medical countermeasures for viral threats with pandemic potential.” The bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Health in early June 2023 but has not yet been passed.

    The Disease X Act amends a section of the Public Health Service Act with two new clauses that call for “the identification and development of platform manufacturing technologies needed for advanced development and manufacturing of medical countermeasures for viral families which have significant potential to cause a pandemic,” and “advanced research and development of flexible medical countermeasures against priority respiratory virus families and other respiratory viral pathogens with a significant potential to cause a pandemic, with both pathogen-specific and pathogen-agnostic approaches …”

    Needless to say, since it’s impossible to customize vaccines using the conventional method of growing viruses in eggs or some other cell media in 100 days, it seems inevitable that all these efforts are about the expansion of gene-based technologies. This, despite the fact that the mRNA technology used for the COVID jabs has proven to be disastrous from a safety standpoint, and ineffective to boot.

    Why Manufactured Pandemics Will Continue

    At this point, it’s quite clear that “biosecurity” is the chosen means by which the globalist cabal intends to seize power over the world. The WHO is working on securing sole power over pandemic response globally through its international pandemic treaty which, if implemented, will eradicate the sovereignty of all member nations.

    The WHO’s pandemic treaty is the gateway to a global, top-down totalitarian regime, a one world government. Ultimately, the WHO intends to dictate all health care. But to secure that power, they will need more pandemics. COVID-19 alone was not enough to get everyone onboard with a centralized pandemic response unit, and they probably knew that from the start.

    So, the reason we can be sure there will be additional pandemics, whether manufactured using either fear and hype alone or an actual bioweapon created for this very purpose, is because the takeover plan, aka The Great Reset, is based on the premise that we need global biosecurity surveillance and centralized response.

    Biosecurity, in turn, is the justification for an international vaccine passport, which the G20 has signed on to, and that passport will also be your digital identification. That digital ID, then, will be tied to your social credit score, personal carbon footprint tracker, medical records, educational records, work records, social media presence, purchase records, your bank accounts and a programmable central bank digital currency (CBDC).

    Once all these pieces are fully connected, you’ll be in a digital prison, and the ruling cabal — whether officially a one world government by then or not — will have total control over your life from cradle to grave.

    We’re Already Suffering Under a Pseudo-One World Government

    We actually already have a pseudo-one world government, in the form of Bill Gates’ nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). They are making health care decisions that should be left to individual nations and/or states, and they’re making decisions that will line their own pockets, regardless of what happens to the public health-wise.

    They coordinate and synchronize pandemic communication during simulated practice runs, and then, when the real-world situation emerges that fits the bill, the preplanned script is played out more or less verbatim.

    Between the G20 declaration to implement an international vaccine passport under the auspice of the WHO, and the WHO’s pandemic treaty, everything is lined up to take control of the next pandemic, and in so doing, further securing the foundation for a one world government.

    As discussed in my 2021 article, “COVID-19 Dress Rehearsals and Proof of the Plan,” the pandemic measures rolled out for COVID-19 were the culmination of decades of careful planning to radically and permanently alter the governance and social structures of the world.

    The medical system has been used in the past to drive forward a New World Order agenda — now rebranded as “The Great Reset” — and it’s now being used to implement the final stages of that longstanding plan. COVID-19 was a real-world practice run, and showed just how effectively a pandemic can be used to shift the balance of power, and strip the global population of its wealth and individual freedoms.

    So, there’s no doubt in my mind that additional pandemics will be declared, because they’re the means to the globalists’ ends. To prevent this global coup, we need everyone to speak and share the truth to the point that you’re able. Only then will our voices outnumber the voices of the propaganda machine.

    Door To Freedom (doortofreedom.org), an organization founded by Dr. Meryl Nass, has a poster that explains how the pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations (IHR) amendments will change life as we know it and strip us of every vestige of freedom. Please download this poster and share it with everyone you know. Also put it up on public billboards and places where communities share information.

    Not only a healthy way to eat but also the most sustainable, eating nose to tail provides you with some of the most nutritionally dense sources of valuable minerals and fat-soluble vitamins from organ meats. Help balance the nutritional shortcomings of muscle meats with Grass Fed Beef Organ Complex, offering five of the most valuable organs — liver, heart, kidney, pancreas and spleen — from roaming, healthy New Zealand cows with year-round access to grasslands.

    1, 21 Metro January 15, 2024
    2, 3 Mirror January 13, 2024
    4 Twitter/X Monica Crowley January 11, 2024
    5 Fortune January 12, 2024
    6 ResearchGate January 2024 DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.03.574008
    7 MSN January 15, 2024
    8 SPARS Pandemic Scenario
    9 NTI Paper November 2021
    10 UN News July 23, 2022
    11 Catastrophic Contagion
    12 Catastrophic Contagion Videos
    13 CDC Enterovirus D68
    14 CDC Enteroviruses
    15 Forbes September 15, 2023
    16 Intractable & Rare Diseases Research February 2019; 8(1): 1-8
    17 Forbes January 11, 2024
    18 BBC September 14, 2023
    19 First Post November 19, 2021
    20 Yahoo News November 19, 2021
    22 HR 3832 The Disease X Act of 2023

    https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/wef-admits-disease-x-will-be-leaked-in-2025/
    WEF Admits Disease X Will Be Leaked in 2025 Sean Adl-Tabatabai Fact checked January 23, 2024 30 Comments WEF admits Disease X will be unleashed in 2025. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has declared that ‘Disease X’ will be unleashed onto the public by the year 2025 – and the consequences will be devastating for humanity. Last week, global elites met at the WEF Davos summit where the key topic of discussion was “Preparing for Disease X,”1 a hypothetical new deadly pandemic predicted to emerge in 2025 and kill 20 times more people than COVID-19.2 As reported by the Mirror:3 BYPASS THE CENSORS Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox. You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use “The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a potential Disease X since 2017, a term indicating an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international epidemic … Public speakers at the ‘Preparing for Disease X’ event next Wednesday [January 17, 2024] include Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, Brazilian minister of health Nisia Trindade Lima, and Michel Demaré, chair of the board at AstraZeneca. In their first post-pandemic meeting held in November 2022, the WHO brought over 300 scientists to consider which of over 25 virus families and bacteria could potentially create another pandemic. The list the team came up with included: the Ebola virus, the Marburg virus disease, Covid-19, SARS, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Others included lassa fever, nipah and henipaviral diseases, zift Valley fever, and zika — as well as the unknown pathogen that would cause ‘Disease X.’” Mercola.com reports: I’ve interviewed Meryl Nass about how the WHO is trying to take over aspects of everyone’s lives. She just published an important piece over the weekend, Why Is Davos So Interested in Disease? about how the WEF and the WHO have become partners to terrify the world. Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq., political director for the Organic Consumers Association, did some digging into the participants of this WEF event, and the two things they all have in common are 1) dumping the AstraZeneca COVID shot on the developing world (primarily India and Brazil) after rich countries rejected it due to its admitted blood clotting risk, and 2) pushing for the implementation of medical AI systems that will eliminate doctors along with patient choice and privacy. Practice Runs or Responsible Planning? In a January 11, 2024, tweet, Fox News analyst and former assistant secretary for public affairs for the U.S. Treasury Department, Monica Crowley, wrote:4 “From the same people who brought you COVID-19 now comes Disease X: Next week in Davos, the unelected globalists at the World Economic Forum will hold a panel on a future pandemic 20x deadlier than COVID … Just in time for the election, a new contagion to allow them to implement a new WHO treaty, lock down again, restrict free speech and destroy more freedoms. Sound far-fetched? So did what happened in 2020. When your enemies tell you what they’re planning and what they’re planning FOR, believe them. And get ready.” Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine, dismissed such warnings, telling Fortune magazine5 that “Coordination of public health response is not conspiracy, it’s simply responsible planning.” I’d be willing to believe him if it wasn’t for a now-obvious trend: Whatever the globalists claim will happen actually does happen at a remarkable frequency, and their prognostic capabilities become easier to explain when you consider that most lethal pandemics have been caused by manmade viruses, the products of gain-of-function research. It’s pretty easy to predict a new viral outbreak if you have said virus waiting in the wings. With that in mind, recent research from China certainly raises concern, to say the least. According to a January 3, 2024, preprint,6 a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus — described as a “cell culture-adapted mutant” called GX_P2V that was first cultured in 2017 — was found to kill 100% of the humanized mice (ACE2-transgenic mice) infected with it.7 JOIN THE FIGHT: BECOME A CITIZEN JOURNALIST TODAY! The primary cause of death was brain inflammation. According to the authors, “this is the first report showing that a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100% mortality in hACE2 mice, suggesting a risk for GX_P2V to spill over into humans.” However, if this virus mutated as a result of passaging through cell cultures, then it’s not likely to emerge in the wild. It’s another unnatural lab creation, so rather than saying it may spill over from pangolins to humans, it would be more accurate to admit that it may pose a (rather serious) risk to humans were a lab escape to occur. COVID Dress Rehearsals In 2017, Johns Hopkins Center of Health Security held a coronavirus pandemic simulation called the SPARS Pandemic 2025-2028 scenario.8 Importantly, the exercise stressed “communication dilemmas concerning medical countermeasures that could plausibly emerge” in a pandemic scenario. Then, in October 2019, less than three months before the COVID-19 outbreak, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with Johns Hopkins and the World Economic Forum hosted Event 201. The name itself suggests it may have been a continuation of the SPARS Pandemic exercise. College courses are numbered based on their prerequisites. A 101 course does not require any prior knowledge whereas 201 courses require prior familiarity with the topic at hand. As in the SPARS Pandemic scenario, Event 201 involved an outbreak of a highly infectious coronavirus, and the primary (if not sole) focus of the exercise was, again, how to control information and keep “misinformation” in check, not how to effectively discover and share remedies. Social media censorship played a prominent role in the Event 201 plan, and in the real-world events of 2020 through the present, accurate information about vaccine development, production and injury has indeed been effectively suppressed around the world, thanks to social media companies and Google’s censoring of opposing viewpoints. In March 2021, an outbreak of “an unusual strain of monkeypox virus” was simulated.9 In late July the following year, the WHO director-general declared that a multi-country outbreak of monkeypox constituted a public health emergency of international concern,10 against his own advisory group. ‘Catastrophic Contagion’ Exercise Considering both of these simulations, SPARS (“Event 101”?) and Event 201, foreshadowed what eventually occurred in real life during COVID, when Gates hosts yet another pandemic exercise, it’s worth paying attention to the details. October 23, 2022, Gates, Johns Hopkins and the WHO cohosted “a global challenge exercise” dubbed “Catastrophic Contagion,”11,12 involving a fictional pathogen called “severe epidemic enterovirus respiratory syndrome 2025” (SEERS-25). Enterovirus D6813 is typically associated with cold and flu-like illness in infants, children and teens. In rare cases, it’s also been known to cause viral meningitis and acute flaccid myelitis, a neurological condition resulting in muscle weakness and loss of reflexes in one or more extremities. Enteroviruses A71 and A6 are known to cause hand, foot and mouth disease,14 while poliovirus, the prototypical enterovirus, causes polio (poliomyelitis), a potentially life-threatening type of paralysis that primarily affects children under age 5. So, the virus they modeled in this simulation appears to be something similar to enterovirus D68, but worse. Vaccine Drug Trials Begin for Deadly Nipah Virus One known virus that bears some resemblance to the fictional SEERS-25 is the Nipah virus. This virus has a kill rate of about 75%,15 and survivors oftentimes face long-term neurological issues stemming from the infection. Nipah is also said to affect children to a greater degree than adults.16 Incidentally, human trials for a vaccine against the deadly Nipah virus were recently launched.17 Volunteers received their first shots in early January 2024. The experimental injection uses the same viral vector technology used to produce AstraZeneca’s COVID shot. The trial is reportedly being carried out by the University of Oxford in an undisclosed area where Nipah is actively infecting victims. (India seems to be indicated, as an outbreak in Kerala killed two people and hospitalized three in September 2023.18) The disease is thought to spread via interaction with infected animals such as goats, pigs, cats and horses. It may also spread via tainted blood products and food. Symptoms can emerge anywhere from a few days after exposure to as long as 45 days. Initial symptoms include fever, headache and respiratory illness, which can rapidly progress to encephalitis (brain swelling), seizures and coma within just a couple of days. According to the WHO, pigs are known to be “highly contagious” during the incubation period, and it’s possible that humans may be as well, although that has yet to be confirmed. Training African Leaders to Go Along With the Narrative Tellingly, the Catastrophic Contagion exercise focused on getting leadership in African countries involved and trained in following the script. African nations went “off script” more often than others during the COVID pandemic, and didn’t follow in the footsteps of developed nations when it came to pushing the jabs. As a result, vaccine makers now face the problem of having a huge control group, as the COVID jab uptake on the African continent was only 6%,19 yet it fared far better than developed nations in terms of COVID-19 infections and related deaths.20 The Catastrophic Contagion exercise predicts SEERS-25 will kill 20 million people worldwide, including 15 million children, and many who survive the infection will be left with paralysis and/or brain damage. In other words, the “cue” given is that the next pandemic may target children rather than the elderly, as was the case with COVID-19. Vaccine Against Unknown ‘X’ Pathogen Is Already in the Works In August 2023, a new vaccine research facility was set up in Wiltshire, England, fully staffed with more 200 scientists, to begin work on a vaccine against the unknown “Disease X.” As reported by Metro:21 “It took 362 days to develop the Covid-19 vaccine. But the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre team wants to reduce that time to 100 days. Scientists at the facility will develop a range of prototype vaccines and tests. The new lab is a part of a global effort to respond to global health threats. The UK and other G7 countries signed up to the ‘100 Days Mission’ in 2021. The government has invested £65 million into the lab. Professor Dame Jenny Harries, the head of the UK Health Security Agency, said the new facility would ‘ensure that we prepare so that if we have a new Disease X, a new pathogen, we have as much of that work in advance as possible.’” In the U.S., Congress also introduced the “Disease X Act of 2023” (H.R.383222) back in June 2023. The bill calls for the establishment of a BARDA program to develop “medical countermeasures for viral threats with pandemic potential.” The bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Health in early June 2023 but has not yet been passed. The Disease X Act amends a section of the Public Health Service Act with two new clauses that call for “the identification and development of platform manufacturing technologies needed for advanced development and manufacturing of medical countermeasures for viral families which have significant potential to cause a pandemic,” and “advanced research and development of flexible medical countermeasures against priority respiratory virus families and other respiratory viral pathogens with a significant potential to cause a pandemic, with both pathogen-specific and pathogen-agnostic approaches …” Needless to say, since it’s impossible to customize vaccines using the conventional method of growing viruses in eggs or some other cell media in 100 days, it seems inevitable that all these efforts are about the expansion of gene-based technologies. This, despite the fact that the mRNA technology used for the COVID jabs has proven to be disastrous from a safety standpoint, and ineffective to boot. Why Manufactured Pandemics Will Continue At this point, it’s quite clear that “biosecurity” is the chosen means by which the globalist cabal intends to seize power over the world. The WHO is working on securing sole power over pandemic response globally through its international pandemic treaty which, if implemented, will eradicate the sovereignty of all member nations. The WHO’s pandemic treaty is the gateway to a global, top-down totalitarian regime, a one world government. Ultimately, the WHO intends to dictate all health care. But to secure that power, they will need more pandemics. COVID-19 alone was not enough to get everyone onboard with a centralized pandemic response unit, and they probably knew that from the start. So, the reason we can be sure there will be additional pandemics, whether manufactured using either fear and hype alone or an actual bioweapon created for this very purpose, is because the takeover plan, aka The Great Reset, is based on the premise that we need global biosecurity surveillance and centralized response. Biosecurity, in turn, is the justification for an international vaccine passport, which the G20 has signed on to, and that passport will also be your digital identification. That digital ID, then, will be tied to your social credit score, personal carbon footprint tracker, medical records, educational records, work records, social media presence, purchase records, your bank accounts and a programmable central bank digital currency (CBDC). Once all these pieces are fully connected, you’ll be in a digital prison, and the ruling cabal — whether officially a one world government by then or not — will have total control over your life from cradle to grave. We’re Already Suffering Under a Pseudo-One World Government We actually already have a pseudo-one world government, in the form of Bill Gates’ nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). They are making health care decisions that should be left to individual nations and/or states, and they’re making decisions that will line their own pockets, regardless of what happens to the public health-wise. They coordinate and synchronize pandemic communication during simulated practice runs, and then, when the real-world situation emerges that fits the bill, the preplanned script is played out more or less verbatim. Between the G20 declaration to implement an international vaccine passport under the auspice of the WHO, and the WHO’s pandemic treaty, everything is lined up to take control of the next pandemic, and in so doing, further securing the foundation for a one world government. As discussed in my 2021 article, “COVID-19 Dress Rehearsals and Proof of the Plan,” the pandemic measures rolled out for COVID-19 were the culmination of decades of careful planning to radically and permanently alter the governance and social structures of the world. The medical system has been used in the past to drive forward a New World Order agenda — now rebranded as “The Great Reset” — and it’s now being used to implement the final stages of that longstanding plan. COVID-19 was a real-world practice run, and showed just how effectively a pandemic can be used to shift the balance of power, and strip the global population of its wealth and individual freedoms. So, there’s no doubt in my mind that additional pandemics will be declared, because they’re the means to the globalists’ ends. To prevent this global coup, we need everyone to speak and share the truth to the point that you’re able. Only then will our voices outnumber the voices of the propaganda machine. Door To Freedom (doortofreedom.org), an organization founded by Dr. Meryl Nass, has a poster that explains how the pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations (IHR) amendments will change life as we know it and strip us of every vestige of freedom. Please download this poster and share it with everyone you know. Also put it up on public billboards and places where communities share information. Not only a healthy way to eat but also the most sustainable, eating nose to tail provides you with some of the most nutritionally dense sources of valuable minerals and fat-soluble vitamins from organ meats. Help balance the nutritional shortcomings of muscle meats with Grass Fed Beef Organ Complex, offering five of the most valuable organs — liver, heart, kidney, pancreas and spleen — from roaming, healthy New Zealand cows with year-round access to grasslands. 1, 21 Metro January 15, 2024 2, 3 Mirror January 13, 2024 4 Twitter/X Monica Crowley January 11, 2024 5 Fortune January 12, 2024 6 ResearchGate January 2024 DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.03.574008 7 MSN January 15, 2024 8 SPARS Pandemic Scenario 9 NTI Paper November 2021 10 UN News July 23, 2022 11 Catastrophic Contagion 12 Catastrophic Contagion Videos 13 CDC Enterovirus D68 14 CDC Enteroviruses 15 Forbes September 15, 2023 16 Intractable & Rare Diseases Research February 2019; 8(1): 1-8 17 Forbes January 11, 2024 18 BBC September 14, 2023 19 First Post November 19, 2021 20 Yahoo News November 19, 2021 22 HR 3832 The Disease X Act of 2023 https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/wef-admits-disease-x-will-be-leaked-in-2025/
    THEPEOPLESVOICE.TV
    WEF Admits Disease X Will Be Leaked in 2025
    The World Economic Forum (WEF) has declared that 'Disease X' will be unleashed onto the public by the year 2025 - and the consequences will be devastating for humanity.
    Angry
    1
    0 Comments 1 Shares 17975 Views
  • https://writinganessay.org/2023/11/04/g20-essay/
    https://writinganessay.org/2023/11/04/g20-essay/
    0 Comments 0 Shares 85 Views
  • Tara Ross - Happy Thanksgiving!

    https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-washington-thanksgiving

    #GeorgeWashington #Providence #HappyThanksgiving #Thanksgiving #Thanksgiving2023 #History
    Tara Ross - Happy Thanksgiving! https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-washington-thanksgiving #GeorgeWashington #Providence #HappyThanksgiving #Thanksgiving #Thanksgiving2023 #History
    WWW.TARAROSS.COM
    This Day in History: Happy Thanksgiving!
    At about this time in 1789, our country observes its first day of Thanksgiving and prayer. “[I]t is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God,” George Washington told the country, “to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor . . . .” The sentiment wasn’t new. Indeed, Washington often expressed his conviction that America would not exist but for the intervention of divine Providence—and that public thanks is a duty
    0 Comments 0 Shares 2187 Views
  • Rush Limbaugh - The True Story of Thanksgiving:

    https://officialrushlimbaugh.com/the-true-story-of-thanksgiving/

    #RushLimbaugh #History #Pilgrims #TurkeyDay #HappyThanksgiving #Thanksgiving #Thanksgiving2023
    Rush Limbaugh - The True Story of Thanksgiving: https://officialrushlimbaugh.com/the-true-story-of-thanksgiving/ #RushLimbaugh #History #Pilgrims #TurkeyDay #HappyThanksgiving #Thanksgiving #Thanksgiving2023
    OFFICIALRUSHLIMBAUGH.COM
    The True Story of Thanksgiving
    Rush was an important part of your lives for so many years. As you know, he loved the holidays and couldn’t wait to be with you on the radio, especially at this time. I am certain you have fond memories of driving in your car or sitting with your family listening to Rush tell the true story of Thanksgiving. Let’s continue the annual tradition!
    0 Comments 0 Shares 2643 Views
  • The Real Impact of Bitcoin Halving 2024 | The Halving Process in Bitcoin 2024 | #Bitcoinhalving #Bitcoin #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #Bitcoin2024 #BitcoinHalving2024 #BitcoinHalvingImpact #CryptoNews #CryptoAnalysis #CryptoInvesting #CryptoTrading #CryptoEducation https://youtu.be/_qpJmkTWzxM
    The Real Impact of Bitcoin Halving 2024 | The Halving Process in Bitcoin 2024 | #Bitcoinhalving #Bitcoin #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #Bitcoin2024 #BitcoinHalving2024 #BitcoinHalvingImpact #CryptoNews #CryptoAnalysis #CryptoInvesting #CryptoTrading #CryptoEducation https://youtu.be/_qpJmkTWzxM
    1 Comments 0 Shares 3940 Views
  • G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Unveil Crypto Roadmap | Global Crypto Regulation | #cryptomarket #cryptoanalysis #CryptoNews #CryptocurrencyNews #cryptoeducation #cryptoworld #cryptoadvice #cryptotrading #cryptoinvesting #G20 #G20CryptoRegulation #G20CryptoRoadmap https://youtu.be/Be9amWKMjqE
    G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Unveil Crypto Roadmap | Global Crypto Regulation | #cryptomarket #cryptoanalysis #CryptoNews #CryptocurrencyNews #cryptoeducation #cryptoworld #cryptoadvice #cryptotrading #cryptoinvesting #G20 #G20CryptoRegulation #G20CryptoRoadmap https://youtu.be/Be9amWKMjqE
    0 Comments 0 Shares 6006 Views