Inoculating Against Freedom

World Health Organization seizes unprecedented power to harm you and your families

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"Public Health" is once again being used as an excuse to take away your liberties.

As Benjamin Franklin – proving to be some sort of political prophet yet again – famously once said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

On May 27, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations' global health agency, gathered in Geneva for its annual, weeklong World Health Assembly — the forum which sets international health policy for the body's 194 member states.

On June 1, the final day of the assembly, participants succeeded in passing a series of amendments to the body's International Health Regulations (IHR) — a legally-binding framework establishing countries' rights and obligations in managing international public health emergencies.

The revised IHR, opponents warn, are setting the stage for an unprecedented globalist power-grab; concerns include sweeping new powers granted to top WHO officials, the threat of imposed vaccine passports, and the suppression of free speech under the auspices of combating "disinformation."

The Pretense

In the wake of the WHO's disastrous response to the COVID-19 outbreak, in December 2021 members of the organization — including key players in the Biden administration — began work on "reforming" the international body.

Using COVID as a pretext to empower the agency, globalist bureaucrats argued that only by expanding WHO authority could health officials effectively fight the next pandemic.

To unleash the WHO, participants began constructing two international agreements: a series of amendments to its IHR, and a first-of-its-kind global pandemic treaty. Together, the measures would augment the agency's "authority to declare public health emergencies of international concern," and expand its "authority over member states during such emergencies."

The agreements sparked massive criticism in the United States, as well as abroad, with opponents arguing that if implemented, the provisions would subvert state sovereignty and radically undermine civil liberties.

"The two proposed instruments would transform the WHO from an advisory, charitable organization into the world's governor of public health," dissenters warned in the lead-up to the May 27-June 1 assembly.

These "reforms," they said, would allow WHO officials to unilaterally declare a "public health emergency of international concern" (PHEIC) in "one or more member states." But under the proposed regime, they noted, it would not take a COVID-level crisis to activate such a pronouncement:

"Such declarations can include perceived or potential emergencies other than pandemics, including climate change, immigration, gun violence, or even 'emergencies' involving plants, animals, or ecosystems. The more egregious versions of the proposals would authorize the Director-General to dictate what must be done in response to a declared PHEIC. In other words, America's elected representatives would no longer set the nation's public health policies. Even watered down, these proposals would inappropriately cede American sovereignty to the WHO."

Foes warned that together, the proposed IHR amendments and the pandemic accord "would lay the groundwork for a global surveillance infrastructure, ostensibly in the interest of public health, but with the inherent opportunity for control (as with Communist China's 'social credit system')."

On May 24, WHO authorities announced that negotiations over the pandemic treaty had stalled, with reports indicating that deliberations are deadlocked over issues of information- and technology-sharing. However, officials made clear that they would continue their work to break the impasse, and that in the meantime, they would double down on pushing through the IHR amendments — a feat they achieved just eight days later.

The Amendments

Among their revisions to the IHR, members crafted a formal definition of "pandemic emergency" — one designed to "trigger more effective international collaboration in response to events that are at risk of becoming, or have become, a pandemic," the WHO explained in a June 1 news release,

"According to the definition, a pandemic emergency is a communicable disease that has, or is at high risk of having, wide geographical spread to and within multiple States, exceeds or is at high risk of exceeding the capacity of health systems to respond in those States; causes, or is at high risk of causing, substantial social and/or economic disruption, including disruption to international traffic and trade; and requires rapid, equitable and enhanced coordinated international action, with whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches."

The IHR amendments also set in motion a robust expansion — at both the member-state and international levels — of the WHO bureaucracy. New features include:

• A Coordinating Financial Mechanism to facilitate funding to "equitably address the needs and priorities of developing countries," and to augment "pandemic emergency prevention, preparedness and response-related capacities."

• A States Parties Committee to oversee "the effective implementation of the amended Regulations."

• National IHR Authorities to "improve coordination and implementation of the Regulations within and among countries."

Health leaders hailed these developments as a groundbreaking success. "Tonight we have all won and the world has won," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus proclaimed on June 1. "You have made the world safer."

"The amendments to the International Health Regulations will bolster countries' ability to detect and respond to future outbreaks and pandemics by strengthening their own national capacities, and coordination between fellow States, on disease surveillance, information sharing and response. This is built on commitment to equity, an understanding that health threats do not recognize national borders, and that preparedness is a collective endeavor."

Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services under Biden, was equally effusive. In a June 1 statement, Becerra said the amendments were built upon "the lessons we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic."

"With this agreement, we take steps to hold countries accountable and strengthen measures to stop outbreaks before they threaten Americans and our security," he continued. "This historic agreement to strengthen the world's rules of the road affirms our longstanding commitment to global health equity and security. It animates unprecedented cooperation towards achieving a global pandemic preparedness and response agreement."

Blueprint for Tyranny

Peering behind the mask of globalist rhetoric, critics are working to expose the threat posed by an empowered WHO.

Shortly after the passing of the amendments, the Sovereignty Coalition — "a non-partisan group of patriotic, public policy-minded leaders, organizations and individuals who share a profound commitment to the US Constitution and the God-given freedoms it guarantees" — issued a press release singling out three provisions "of particular concern" in the IHR agreement.

The first, it noted, would "affirm World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus — the man responsible for so much of the damage needlessly done in response to the COVID-19 pandemic — as the sole arbiter of whatever he thinks constitutes a 'public health emergency of international concern' (PHEICs) with a view, based on previous drafts of the IHR treaty, to granting him the power to dictate as well what must be done in response to it."

The second IHR provision highlighted by the Coalition would "require vaccination passports for every man, woman and child on the planet."

"The digital version of such IDs would be platforms for the WHO to create not only vast data bases for surveilling public health worldwide. They would also permit the aggregation of and access to personal information about every individual's place of employment, income, bank accounts, family, social media posts, etc., and enable the restriction of travel and imposition of quarantine if not in compliance with required vaccinations, etc.

This information would permit the 'China Model' that was recommended by Tedros during the COVID-19 pandemic to become a full-on international version of the Communist Chinese totalitarian 'Social Credit System.'"

The third provision would "require every state party to strengthen their capabilities to counter 'misinformation' and 'disinformation'." This, the Coalition warned, would serve as "an internationally binding legal pretext for imposing the sort of censorship mechanisms the Biden administration previously, secretly engineered with the help of tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter."

Corrupt 'Consensus'

The Coalition also pointed out a series of irregularities in the IHR amendment process.

"In ... a bid to give its Director General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, unprecedented power to trample our sovereignty and freedoms, the WHO served notice that such power will be tyrannically abused, including via the violation of those very regulations," the Coalition noted in its press release.

"For example, Tedros ignored the IHRs' Article 55.2, which requires that any amendments thereto must be made available 'at least four months' before they are eligible for adoption," the Coalition pointed out. "In the event, states parties meeting at the World Health Assembly literally in the dark of night, on a Saturday no less, were not given even four hours to examine myriad proposed changes to the regulations that effectively constitute the organization's constitution."

"Then, the Director General declined to conduct a roll-call vote to adopt the legally binding international agreement," the Coalition continued. "Instead in a room described has having roughly 30 percent of the member states — far fewer than the necessary quorum — Tedros announced that a 'consensus' existed for the IHR amendments' adoption. He reportedly had the microphones turned off during that moment. Only after he declared the approval of what amounts to a treaty were six nations allowed to express their opposition to the accord."

"By using such high-handed and actually illegal techniques, Tedros effected the rubber-stamping of the first of two accords intended to 'fundamentally transform' (to use Barack Obama's revolutionary phrase) the WHO from a demonstrably politicized and incompetent advisory body into one whose leader becomes a global public health dictator.

The transformation being sought would entail the surrender of American sovereignty, states rights and constitutional freedoms. Only by keeping these negotiations closely held could the IHR treaty have gotten to this point and the pandemic treaty be even remotely achievable."

Reggie Littlejohn, Esq., co-founder of the Sovereignty Coalition, and founder and president of Anti-Globalist International, was on site during the assembly — one of many dissenters who gathered to monitor the proceedings in Geneva. A faithful Catholic and attorney, she skewered the blatant irregularities on display during the revision process.

"The manner in which the IHR Amendments were passed flagrantly violates the WHO's own rules," Littlejohn noted. "This violation prevented governments and civil society from being able to analyze this document and discern its implications."

"The WHO's tossing out of its own rule indicates its disregard for the rule of law," she continued. "If it is willing to disregard such an important safeguard as Article 55, what is stopping it from disregarding any other provision in the IHRs? If it is willing to ignore its own laws, why would we expect it to honor ours?" 

"For this reason," Littlejohn declared, "the amendments to the IHR are invalid and should be rejected."

Still in the Works

Though the global pandemic treaty is currently on hold, efforts to complete it will soon recommence. In the final hours of the assembly on June 1, WHO members agreed to continue work on the pandemic accord, with the goal of completing negotiations no later than the opening of the 2025 World Health Assembly — and earlier, if possible.

"The decision to conclude the Pandemic Agreement within the next year demonstrates how strongly and urgently countries want it, because the next pandemic is a matter of when, not if," Tedros said on June 1. "Today's strengthening of the IHR provides powerful momentum to complete the Pandemic Agreement, which, once finalized, can help to prevent a repeat of the devastation to health, societies and economies caused by COVID-19."

Negotiators for the pandemic accord will reconvene in July to continue their efforts.

The Fight Goes On

Working with Republican lawmakers, groups like the Sovereignty Coalition and Anti-Globalist International are urging Americans to join the battle to preserve US sovereignty and civil liberties. In a joint statement following the IHR revisions, Coalition leaders declared:

"The Biden administration has employed a combination of secrecy, deceptiveness and coercion to put Tedros Ghebreyesus on track to achieve arguably the greatest concentration of power in a single individual in the course of human history," Coalition leaders declared following the IHR revisions. "Such conduct must be repudiated by the American people and their elected representatives. The Sovereignty Coalition looks forward to working with other patriots, in this country and around the world, to defeat the IHR treaty and safeguard our sovereign, free and constitutional republic against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Writer, editor and producer Stephen Wynne has spent the past seven years covering, from a Catholic perspective, the latest developments in the Church, the nation and the world. Prior to his work in journalism, he spent eight years co-authoring “Repairing the Breach,” a book examining the war of worldviews between Christianity and Darwinism. A Show-Me State native, he holds a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine University and an Executive MBA from the Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

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