The US has rejected the World Health Organization’s new efforts to combat international health emergencies, alleging the group threatens US sovereignty and “lays the groundwork for global surveillance of every human being”.
In a statement on Friday, US health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr said the US had opted out of changes that the WHO approved last year to better respond to severe disease outbreaks. Kennedy’s decision comes one day before the deadline to decline the amendments.
“The new regulations employ extremely broad language that gives the WHO unprecedented power,” Kennedy said. “That opens the door to the kind of narrative management and propaganda and censorship that we saw during the Covid pandemic.”