The United States and Argentina have withdrawn from the World Health Organization (“WHO”). Other countries should follow their example. Here is why!
The Noble Intentions
The WHO was established in 1946 as a specialized agency under Article 57 of the United Nations Charter, following almost a hundred years of international attempts to contain illnesses and epidemics that have spread throughout the world. This noble goal was reflected in the Constitution of the World Health Organization, which aims to promote “happiness, harmonious relations and security of all peoples” by “promoting and protecting the health of all peoples.” No wonder then that almost all of the 197 recognized countries in the world are members of the organization.
The Seeds of Corruption
Yet, from the very start, it was tainted by a certain vagueness in the goal it attempted to attain. Namely, as an organization established to foster health, it defined health in such vague terms that it could mean virtually anything. The preamble to the WHO constitution defined health as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Thus, actions to foster health could be aimed at any area of economic, social, educational, cultural, or religious activity. With such a broad definition of health, the foundation was laid early on for subsequent mission creep. “The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health” is proclaimed in the same preamble to be “one of the fundamental rights of every human being,” along with a responsibility of governments “for the health of their peoples, which can be fulfilled only by the provision of adequate health and social measures.” This proposition led, in turn, to an expectation that “complete well-being” should be provided by governments under the coordination of the WHO.
The second cornerstone of this mission creep was the establishment of a multilayer bureaucratic structure within the organization. The WHO’s supreme authority is the World Health Assembly, comprising (at most) three representatives of each member state, meeting annually or convened as needed at the request of the Executive Council or the majority of member states. The Executive Council is elected by the World Health Assembly, which nominates 34 states whose representatives will sit in the Executive Council. At the Executive Council’s request, the World Health Assembly appoints the Director-General of the WHO. In addition to these central global bodies, there are also six regional offices and a number of auxiliary, advisory, and emergency committees.
The Director-General is the top executive and administrative official of the organization. As such, he wields enormous power, playing the role of the Secretary of the World Health Assembly, the Executive Council, and all commissions, committees, or conferences assembled by these bodies. He is responsible for budgetary planning, execution, and reporting, personnel nominations, proposing the establishment of committees, etc. He also proposes the annual agenda of the World Health Assembly, which is then approved by the Executive Board and the WHA at the start of its session.
The WHO Mission Creep
The WHO operates under the WHO Constitution of 1948, based on which it developed a set of International Sanitary Regulations (“ISR”) in 1951 to help control the spread of six quarantinable diseases (cholera, plague, relapsing fever, smallpox, typhoid, and yellow fever) with minimum disruption to trade and travel. In 1969, the ISR were replaced by the International Health Regulations (“IHR”), which formalized obligations under the WHO Constitution for international disease control, thus marking a major step in the WHO’s assumption of power over member states. It introduced a binding international legal framework, global surveillance, and reporting mechanism with standardized procedures for disease control at points of entry and within national jurisdictions.
In 2005, the IHR were significantly modified, expanding the scope from the original list of specific diseases to any “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC), including epidemics, chemical, and other potential threats. They introduced a requirement to immediately assess and report public health events to the WHO according to a decision algorithm prescribed by the WHO, mandated the building and maintaining of core public health capacities ensuring detection and control of public health risks. They enhanced the WHO’s role in gathering information from sources other than governmental and in issuing temporary recommendations and coordinating international responses. Finally, they introduced human rights and equity language into the global health security sphere. All this constituted a major transfer of authority from the member states to this global bureaucratic structure.
The Method of Stripping Nations of Sovereignty by Stealth
All of these amendments were introduced top-down at the World Health Assemblies in Geneva, where representatives of the member states vote on the propositions provided by the WHO bureaucracy. These provisions then become binding on all member states except for those countries which file an explicit reservation or rejection within a specified time. There is no need for ratification, approval, or even debate on the national level. The majority of citizens of most countries are not even aware that such decisions are made. The deadline for the rejection of the last round of amendments, negotiated in 2024, expired on July 19, 2025, and they become binding on all member states on September 19, 2025.
What are some of the most controversial Amendments to the International Health Regulations that were proposed, discussed, approved, and become binding on September 19, 2025? According to some concerned analysts, it contains “over 25 highly problematic provisions” including: (1) extending WHO’s authority to unilaterally declare a public health emergency on the territory of member states; (2) giving WHO authority to define what pandemic-related information is correct and mandating member states to suppress anything it considers “misinformation” or “disinformation,” which would destroy the notions of free speech, freedom of science, informed consent, and make any “non-binding” recommendations of the WHO immune from dispute; (3) giving the WHO a right to mandate that entire states and even regions implement testing and permanent surveillance mechanisms; (4) establishing a new financial mechanism imposing financial and material requirements on member states; (5) establishing a national authority within each country to oversee the implementation of any health measures mandated under the IHR and a national focal point to monitor and report to the WHO on the implementation of these measures.
Thus, the implementation of the IHR in September 2025 will potentially mark a great transfer of power from the member states to the global WHO administration, much further from the individual citizen and much further from any democratic control. The downside risk of loss of national sovereignty, personal freedom, bodily autonomy, freedom of speech, and freedom of scientific research is unlimited, and only time will tell how much of it will materialize. The additional bad news for all the countries that did not reject the 2024 IHR amendments is that the WHO Constitution does not provide any mechanism to opt out of these regulations after July 19, 2025.
A whole new area of risk is the so-called Pandemic Agreement, which was negotiated after a long and laborious process by the Intergovernmental Working Group and agreed upon during the 78th World Health Assembly, which was announced with much pomp on May 20, 2025. However, while some of the most contentious provisions were struck from this document, it did not provide for an agreement on one of them, the Pathogen Access and Sharing system (PABS). For this specific issue, a new round of negotiations was initiated that is to be concluded and agreed upon during the 2026 WHA.
The WHO bureaucracy is thus going to be able to focus its arm-twisting of member states on this one issue, while arguing that the agreement has already been approved, even though only then will the WHO Pandemic Agreement “be open for signature and consideration of ratification, including by national legislative bodies.”
The risk here is therefore somewhat mitigated by the requirement of ratification, which is absent from the approval of the International Health Regulations (IHR) mentioned above. Nonetheless, the negotiation process and its outcomes need to be closely monitored.
Are there Reasons for Concern with the WHO Track Record?
The additional concerning information about recent developments is that the WHO is subject to multiple controversies, including its support for and promotion of abortion, its promotion of scandalous programs of youth depravation under the guise of sexual education, its controversial role during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, its perceived susceptibility to influence by China, and its funding structure which puts into question its independence and exposes it to a high risk of corruption.
WHO Promotes Abortion
As evidenced in the report of the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture on the WHO (its genesis, structure, and controversies surrounding it – in Polish) as well as in many commentaries and analyses published on its website (like this one – in English), the WHO has promoted abortion as a means to control birth rates and fertility since at least 1967, when the WHA adopted a resolution which included “unsafe abortion” among the reasons for high birth mortality of mothers in many countries. In 1979, it published a report titled “Induced Abortion: Guidelines for the Provision of Care and Services,” aiming to support medical facilities in providing abortion in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy. In 1987, the WHO launched the “Safe Motherhood Initiative” following the Nairobi Safe Motherhood Conference of the same year, which again identified “unsafe abortion” as one of the main sources of mothers’ mortality. “Safe abortion care” was included in the Initiative in the early 1990s.
The WHO, as part of the broader UN agenda, actively promotes the concepts of “reproductive and sexual rights,” an undefined, nebulous concept that endeavors to establish a woman’s “right to abortion” in the international legal landscape.
Finally, in 2022, the WHO published “Abortion Care Guidelines,” where it recommends as best practices that member states completely legalize abortion, assure that it is available on demand to women, girls, and “other pregnant persons,” and where it opposes placing limitations on abortion based on the stage of pregnancy.
The WHO announced in 2023 the start of cooperation with the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global NGO promoting the concept of “reproductive health and rights,” which they understand as including the “right to abortion.”
Youth and Children Depravation Under the Guise of Sexuality Education
In 2018, the WHO, together with another UN specialized agency, published the infamous “International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education” to assist schools in implementing sexual education programs and materials. It proposes teaching children between the ages of 9 and 12 that “many… start masturbating during puberty or sometimes even earlier” and that the practice does not cause “physical or emotional damage, but should be performed in privacy.” They suggest that children should be able to “identify gender roles” and “gender identity”, and how “identity” may differ from biological sex.
This follows the even more shocking “Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe” published by the WHO Regional Bureau for Europe, which recommends that children under the age of 4 be taught about “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body, early childhood masturbation.”
Both of these programs seek to promote an idea that human sexuality should be viewed as separate from its role in reproduction, focusing solely on the aspect of sexual pleasure, and that it should be viewed in separation from the biological reality of sex, which should be replaced by the so-called “gender identity.”
Both this particular understanding of sexual education and the promotion of abortion have a strong anti-fertility impact and therefore could be construed as part of the agenda of population control.
COVID-19 Pandemic Controversy and China Influence
The WHO was criticized for its role during the COVID pandemic crisis. Some of the criticism came from the United States Health Secretary, who accused the WHO of lack of independence and caving in to pressures from China, of suppressing early reports on human-to-human transmission, and of delayed and ineffective responses. Specifically, China is alleged to have orchestrated the outcomes of the WHO fact-finding mission to Wuhan in 2021 and preventing a second WHO mission from returning to conduct additional work. The WHO was accused of imposing ineffective measures and treatments, while suppressing experimentation with new treatments and protocols under the undue influence of the pharmaceutical industry. As a result of the botched centralized management of the COVID pandemic, the WHO has undertaken to introduce more centralization in the management of public health emergencies through the Pandemic Agreement during the 2025 WHA.
“China has sent its largest delegation ever of more that 180 people. Beijing is also increasing its funding to WHO by $100 million a year, over the next five years, Vice Premier Liu Guozhong said…” This will only increase China’s influence over the organization and lead to more concentrated funding of the organization.
Concerns with the Funding of the WHO
The question of the independence of the World Health Organization is closely connected to its funding. The organization is funded from regular contributions of member states as “regular budgetary funds,” but it can also accept gifts and donations from the United Nations, member states, private organizations, or philanthropic organizations as “extra-budgetary funds.” Such organizations can exert a decisive influence on the policies of the WHO, in a situation where “regular budgetary funds” are independent of the actions and decisions taken by the WHO, but “extra-budgetary funds” are voluntary and come from entities having an interest in how the WHO operates.
The structure of the WHO’s funding shows that such organizations may have a decisive influence on the WHO. As shown in the Ordo Iuris report on WHO, among the top 10 contributors to the $6.8 billion budget for 2024-2025, five are entities other than member states. These five entities alone account for close to 30% of the WHO’s funding. The largest contributors to the WHO budget are the USA ($768 million), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($723 million), and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance ($470 million). Other non-member state entities include the European Commission ($394 million), the World Bank ($244 million), and Rotary International ($175 million). Considering that most of these organizations are proponents of combating “unsafe abortions” and some are criticized for supporting population control, it is to be expected that the WHO should take the same positions.
Since some of the main donors of the WHO are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (funded partly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), which are proponents of universal access to vaccines, there is a concern that the WHO is not going to be impartial in assessing the pros and cons of using vaccines, and that it may promote the use of vaccines even if their safety and effectiveness are not verified, or even if the risk/benefit analysis does not justify the use of these measures.
All of the above are serious concerns and deserve careful consideration from member state governments in deciding whether or not to accept the amendments to the International Health Regulations and sign and ratify the Pandemic Agreement.
What Were the Reservations of the US and Argentina?
The United States, under the Presidency of Donald Trump, took the decision to withdraw from the WHO. Twice. The main considerations of this decision were explained in the Presidential Order of Jan 20, 2025, as the “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from improper political influence of member states.”
Argentina also notified the United Nations, as the depository of the WHO Constitution, of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization and ratified Argentina’s withdrawal during the U.S. Health Secretary’s visit to Argentina, quoting its “disastrous management during the Covid-19 pandemic with its ‘caveman quarantine’” and accusing its measures of being “not based on science but on political interests.” The U.S. Human and Health Services department supported this decision, stating additionally in a joint press release that the organization “has shifted away from its founding mission, becoming increasingly reliant on voluntary contributions and vulnerable to the influence of non-scientific agendas.”
Rejection of the 2024 IHR Amendments by the USA
In response to the Argentinian notification of leaving the WHO, the Report by the Director General to the WHA of 2025 states that, according to the UN Legal Counsel, it is not clear if the UN can accept this notification in deposit, as the WHO Constitution does not contain any provisions regarding denunciation of the Constitution or withdrawal from the WHO. He asked for guidance from the World Health Assembly on this issue, as well as on the decision of the United States to withdraw from the WHO.
The United States is the only country which has rejected the International Health Regulations by the deadline of July 19, 2025, arguing that even despite the U.S. withdrawing from the WHO in January 2025, the IHR amendments “were set to become binding on the United States.” In its notification of the rejection, the U.S. states that the IHR amendments “significantly expanded the WHO authority over international public health response,” were “developed without adequate public input,” “expand the role of the WHO, create additional authorities for the WHO for shaping pandemic declarations and promote WHO’s ability to facilitate ‘equitable access’ to health commodities,” require that “countries develop capabilities that jeopardize management and dissemination controls over public health information, potentially stifling valuable scientific debate,” and “compel countries to adopt digital health documents.” This makes the United States concerned with “unwarranted interference with our national sovereign right to make health policy.”
Unfortunately, other governments did not share this concern and did not reject the amendments.
Now, the only way to escape the tightening grip of the above-mentioned controversial policies is to exit the WHO. We can all leave now, following the United States and Argentina, or stay in at our own peril.