United States Completes WHO Withdrawal(www.hhs.gov)
93 pointsby Swizec7 hours ago10 comments
  • shubhamjain6 hours ago
    > Going forward, the U.S. government will continue its global health leadership through existing and new engagements directly with other countries, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and faith-based entities. U.S.-led efforts will prioritize emergency response, biosecurity coordination, and health innovation to protect America first while delivering benefits to partners around the world.

    The funny thing about this administration is that they label existing system as "bad" and "corrupt", use that as justification to abandon it, and then proceed to recreate the same thing different way.

    • hackyhacky6 hours ago
      The point is to enable corruption that benefits current office-holders and prevent any activity, corrupt or not, that benefits anyone else.
      • 09283740826 hours ago
        See Goldstein, "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" (1949)
        • jasomill2 hours ago
          “For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”
    • xingped6 hours ago
      You think they will actually replace it with something similar though. They won't. They have no desire to do that. Even in name. Just like all their other supposed plans - it's just smoke and mirrors and no one will actually do any such thing.
    • roenxi6 hours ago
      I dunno, reading it in context of the whole statement, "...and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states" deserves a bit of focus. The UN is structurally designed to give China and Russia outsized influence. Coordinating technical matters like healthcare through the UN does seem a bit unwise given that everyone is posturing up for some sort of Cold-war or potential WWIII style scenario. I don't think we've seen much deescalation of tension in the last decade.

      Better to leave the bandwidth of the UN free to focus on diplomacy without distractions, the military situation is urgent.

      • dc3966 hours ago
        > The UN is structurally designed to give China and Russia outsized influence.

        An interesting assertion. I presume you are implying outsized influence over the US (or do you mean every other country?). I'm honestly curious: can you describe this structural design?

        • roenxi5 hours ago
          The thing that jumps to mind is the Security Council, which they can parley into diplomatic favours from other people. And the whole point of the UN is that it was the victors of WWII explaining to the rest of the world how international affairs were going to work, so I'd be pleasantly surprised if the special privileges stopped there.

          And even without that, the UN isn't really set up to handle technical matters. It is a diplomatic club. The point is to give people a seat at the table without considering their competence.

          • pu_pe5 hours ago
            The Security Council is controlled by the US and its allies (3 out of 5 permanent seats). And the Security Council does not decide on matters of public health like the WHO does. The WHO is staffed by very competent people, certainly more competent than RFK.

            The UN has handled several technical matters successfully, including global vaccination programs.

        • N19PEDL25 hours ago
          Perhaps they mean that Russia, a corrupted warmonger weak country, has veto power, while more powerful, free and democratic countries have not.
          • sparqlittlestar5 hours ago
            Honestly, ceteris paribus for the US
            • niceguy18275 hours ago
              Thank you sir. Love learning new things every day in a tech forum, especially Latin.
    • jjavan hour ago
      > proceed to recreate the same thing different way

      Not a same or similar thing in any way. Everything that is being torn down is being replaced by grifter schemes where all that money is funneled to personal pockets.

    • RajBhai6 hours ago
      NAFTA bad. USMCA good.
    • 0hw0t5 hours ago
      Art of the Deal
  • geldedus11 minutes ago
    Not surprising, given the state of healthcare in the US
  • pmarreck6 hours ago
    > faith-based entities

    Look, believe what you want, but praying literally has no known demonstrable deterministic scientific or medical effect on people

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficacy_of_prayer

    • snehk6 hours ago
      Not sure how it is in the US but in Germany there are many faith-based entities providing regular health services. Malteser would be one of them.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malteser_Hilfsdienst_e.V.

      • 5 hours ago
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      • fsh6 hours ago
        These church-owned entities in Germany are almost 100% government fincanced [1], while abusing a loophole in the German constitution to discriminate their employees for religious reasons. For example, the Catholic ones are notorious for firing employees that get divorced. This system is an absolute disgrace, but the churches are still too powerful in German society and have so far been able to block any attempt at fixing the constitution.

        [1] https://www.malteser-international.org/en/about-us/how-we-wo...

        • dcrazy5 hours ago
          It’s not uncommon in the U.S. either. Providence Health is a Catholic nonprofit that owns 51 hospitals, including several of the big ones in Seattle. It was a big deal when they bought Swedish and people were afraid they would stop offering abortions even in cases of medical necessity.
        • snehk4 hours ago
          My point was that they don't get funding to pray and instead provide real medical services.
    • King-Aaron6 hours ago
      There is literally no point invoking research and factual information into an argument with a religious person.
    • plagiarist6 hours ago
      I sure wish demonstrable facts had mattered to the constituents at any point in time over the last 10 years.
      • King-Aaron4 hours ago
        Amathia runs rife in these people.
  • arisAlexis3 hours ago
    The fact that Tedros is still the head while he mishandled completely the biggest catastrophe of our era should be taken seriously.
  • simianparrot5 hours ago
    The WHO demonstrated clearly during covid that they are corrupt and less than useless. If I had a say my country would pull out as well, a long time ago.
  • standardUser6 hours ago
    Maybe the Board of Peace can pick up the slack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Peace
  • phendrenad26 hours ago
    This is extremely disappointing all-around. The World Health Organization was at the forefront of sounding the alarm about COVID-19 early on, and was one of the first to start preparing for the eventuality that it would spread beyond it's origin point. While most people in the US were still saying it wasn't airborne, and downplaying the spread potential and health effects of COVID, the WHO was sounding the alarm on that, too. Ah yes. A little satire does the heart good, you know?
    • mahirsaid5 hours ago
      I agree there is only so much an organization can do After the spread, countries themselves have to take action in behalf of the organization's directions and procedures. The U.S. at the time took way too long to act, this was a fact, clearly why some governors were in a tweeting match and arguments over this issue. I do not agree with this direction. Clearly there is alternative motive behind this amongst the multiple other useless withdraws and steps taking at this time.
  • NedF5 hours ago
    [dead]
  • BLKNSLVR5 hours ago
    > The WHO delayed declaring a global public health emergency and a pandemic during the early stages of COVID-19, costing the world critical weeks as the virus spread.

    Isn't this administrations position that COVID was kinda a nothingburger anyway. Not worth all the fuss?

    Not that it's out of the ordinary for this administration, just another grain on an increasingly large pile of hypocrisy sand. Whatever serves their agenda.

    > The U.S. is the world’s leading force in protecting public health, saving lives, and responding rapidly to infectious disease outbreaks. Going forward, the U.S. government will continue its global health leadership through existing and new engagements directly with other countries, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and faith-based entities. U.S.-led efforts will prioritize emergency response, biosecurity coordination, and health innovation to protect America first while delivering benefits to partners around the world.

    Firstly, let's update it to "was the world's leading force". Secondly, I hope they're not going to be foisting their newfound vaccine skepticism[0] on the rest of the world. Holy shit if they do.

    [0]: https://www.statnews.com/2026/01/22/vaccine-policy-adviser-k...

    Some choice quotes in that article.