is-the-whos-pandemic-treaty-just-a-distraction-from-newly-proposed-amendments-to-its-international-health-regulations

Is the WHO’s ‘Pandemic Treaty’ Just a Distraction from Newly Proposed Amendments to Its International Health Regulations?


Much ado has been made of the WHO’s forthcoming “pandemic treaty,” but one researcher believes it’s a “decoy” to distract from dire changes being made to the organization’s “International Health Regulations” that will annihilate the sovereignty of countries around the world.


There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the upcoming introduction and ratification of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) so-called “pandemic treaty,” which aims to “build a more robust international health architecture… to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly coordinated fashion.” But while the treaty itself sounds like a nightmare for the sovereign power of nations, researcher and activist James Roguski claims that, for now, it’s nothing more than a “decoy” to distract people from imminent changes to the WHO’s highly impactful International Health Regulations (or IHR).

Before diving into Roguski’s point of view, note the WHO’s pandemic treaty aims to establish “a renewed collective commitment [that] would be a milestone in stepping up pandemic preparedness at the highest political level.” In a press release titled “COVID-19 shows why united action is needed for more robust international health architecture,” the WHO, a “specialized” agency of the United Nations, says that:

“The main goal of this treaty would be to foster an all-of-government and all-of-society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics. This includes greatly enhancing international cooperation to improve, for example, alert systems, data-sharing, research, and local, regional and global production and distribution of medical and public health counter measures, such as vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment.”

The WHO’s press release also notes the pandemic treaty will include “recognition” of a “One Health” approach to global, public healthcare. “Such a treaty should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and cooperation within the international system and with its rules and norms,” the release adds.

The organization adds it will “work with Heads of State and governments globally and all stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector… to ensure that the world learns the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Indeed, in a brief video posted to YouTube on September 10, 2021 (above) the Director-General of the WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says that “I believe the time is right for an international treaty or other legally binding instrument to provide the framework for a more coherent and more coordinated response to future epidemics and pandemics.” This treaty, Ghebreyesus adds, will lead to “better systems and tools. [As well as] better financing, including for global public goods such as vaccines, better global governance, and a stronger, empowered, and sustainably financed WHO.”

In another video posted to YouTube on December 2, 2021 (immediately above), the WHO offers a sort of commercial for the World Health Assembly’s decision “to negotiate global accord on pandemic preparedness and response.” (The World Health Assembly, or WHA, is the forum through which the WHO is governed by its 194 member states.)

“The world has come together before, to dispel the temptations of isolationism and nationalism; to address the challenges that could only be achieved together, in the spirit of solidarity and cooperation. For peace, prosperity, health, and security,” the narrator says in the video. He goes on to say that COVID-19 has been “a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”

“Together we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess, and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly coordinated fashion,” the narrator adds, against a background of uplifting violin music. He goes on to say, triumphantly—over images of people wearing masks and “responding” to pandemics—that:

“The 194 member states of the World Health Organization resolved to work together towards a new international instrument for pandemic preparedness and response. This renewed collective commitment is a milestone in stepping up pandemic preparedness at the highest political level. Such an agreement rooted in the World Health Organization Constitution, could strengthen existing international health instruments. Especially the International Health Regulations. And provide a firm and tested foundation on which we can build and improve.

“The agreement also has the potential to foster an all of government and all of society approach. Strengthening national, regional, and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics. This could include greatly enhancing international cooperation to improve alert systems, data sharing, research, and local, regional, and global production and distribution of medical public health countermeasures such as vaccines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment.”

“The agreement could also recognize the ‘One Health’ approach that connects the health of humans, animals, and our planet. To achieve this, WHO will support its member states in their work and facilitate the involvement of relevant stakeholders from civil society and the private sector. Pandemic preparedness needs global leadership for a global health system fit for this millennium. To make this commitment a reality, we must be guided by solidarity, fairness, transparency, inclusiveness, and equity.”

Aside from the massively Orwellian language and unsettling idea of rooting anything whatsoever in a “World Health Constitution,” there’s one other major problem with the WHO’s pandemic treaty according to Roguski. “It’s a ghost,” he says in the interview immediately below with Reiner Fuellmich. “It doesn’t exist. It’s just meant to get everybody’s attention.”

Indeed, while the Council of the European Union “adopted a decision to authorize the opening of negotiations for an international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response” with the WHO on March 3, 2022, and while Roguski has gathered a truly enormous amount of (often ancillary) information about the treaty, he says that it is ultimately a “decoy.”

The truly disconcerting “needle in the haystack” Roguski says he found is in IHR amendments published January 20, 2022, which alter the wording of several of the regulations’ articles. Roguski focuses first on Article 12, which—if the amendments are ratified—used to say that in order for the WHO Director-General to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (or PHEIC, pronounced “fake”) he or she would need to obtain agreement from the State Party as to whether or not the emergency is indeed a PHEIC. With the amendment, the Director-General would be able to declare PHEIC emergencies unilaterally.

“Currently the WHO does not have the authority to override a sovereign country’s decision to tell them to just shove off,” Roguski says. But “[the WHO] doesn’t like that… so if you remove [that] limitation on power… this creates an absolute, single dictator… The Director-General can declare an emergency any time he wants.”

Link to IHR amendments

Furthermore, Roguski points out the amendments to the IHR would change the existing period of time that each member nation has to notify the WHO of their rejection of any approved amendments; right now, that window is currently 18 months. The amendments would reduce that time period to just six months.

Roguski also says the CDC changed—in an instance of “newspeak”—the definition of “public health emergency” to “come into lockstep” with that of the WHO. This change, which was entered into the federal register on January 19, 2017—the last day of Obama‘s presidency—created a “void for vagueness” in regards to declaring a national health emergency.

The new language says what constitutes a public health emergency is:

“Any communicable disease event for which the Director-General of the World Health Organization, in accordance with Articles 15 or 16 of the International Health Regulations, has issued temporary or standing recommendations for purposes of preventing or promptly detecting the occurrence or reoccurrence of the communicable disease.”

“It’s like, if Tedros said… ‘somebody sneezed and we gotta test the sewage in the Congo…’ that’s regulatory cover for the secretary of Health and Human Services to declare in the United States, in lockstep [with the WHO]… [a] world emergency all day every day,” Roguski adds.

Making things worse, Roguski says the CDC also played newspeak with the phrases “non-invasive” and “invasive before Obama left office. Specifically, the CDC changed the definition of “invasive” in its regulations (in the federal register) to exclude swabs of the ears, nose, and throat; something Roguski says set the country up perfectly for mass PCR testing.

As for the delegates from the WHO’s 194 member country’s headed to the World Health Assembly—which will take place between May 22-28—Roguski says nearly all of them have yet to be identified. Although it is clear that the U.S. delegate will be HHS Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs Loyce Pace. (Pace serves on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 Advisory Board and is focused on “advancing racial justice, health equity, reproductive rights, and decolonizing global health.” Pace also earned a Master’s degree in international health & human rights from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.)

In conjunction with the pandemic treaty and amendments to the IHR, billionaire “philanthropist” and shorter of Tesla stock Bill Gates has been drumming up support for a Global Epidemic Response Mobilization Team—or “GERM.” In the CNBC interview excerpt below Gates describes what he foresees for the organization, including a budget of $1 billion per year.

Gates says of GERM that:

“Some disasters like fires, we do a great job; we have fire departments, we have fire hydrants, we train people. And the deaths from fires has gone way, way down. The risk of pandemics, even though when they come—not every year—but when they do, they’re gigantic. So we need to treat it like earthquakes or war or fire where we make sure that we have experts who are practicing, so you respond before it gets out and infects almost the entire population.”

In an April 22, 2022 TED Talk Gates said GERM “would be coordinated by the WHO.” He also said in an April 30, 2022 blog post that some GERM members would “sit in the WHO’s regional offices and at its headquarters in Geneva.”

As for resistance to the treaty—and, indeed, the WHO in general—there has been some. Member of the European Parliament for Germany Christine Anderson, for example, warned in a video on Twitter that the pandemic treaty “aims to give the WHO de facto governing power over its member states in the event of a pandemic, without involvement or consultation with national governments or national parliaments.”

Likewise, United States Congressman Thomas Massie has called for stoppage of any U.S. funding to the WHO. “To defend U.S. sovereignty, to protect tax-payers, and to secure the health freedom of Americans, I have cosponsored [Congressman Chip Roy‘s] bill to DEFUND U.S. contributions to the World Health Organization,” Massie wrote in a May 9, 2022 tweet.

If Roguski is correct, however, and the real threat to America’s sovereignty—as well as the sovereignty of 193 other nations—stems from the amendments to the IHR rather than the pandemic treaty per se, time is running out rapidly. While the treaty itself won’t actually be considered for adoption until 2024, as mentioned, the World Health Assembly that will vote on the IHR amendments is happening May 22-28.

For those who want to voice their concerns or otherwise take action, Roguski has provided numerous resources on his Substack. Including his own personal phone number.


Feature image: United States Mission Geneva

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