WHO – Gates Blueprint for Global Digital ID, AI-Driven Surveillance, and Life-Long Vaccine Tracking for All
Automated, cradle-to-grave traceability for “identifying and targeting the unreached”
By Jon Fleetwood | December 2, 2025
In a document published in the October Bulletin of the World Health Organization and funded by the Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a globally interoperable digital-identity infrastructure that permanently tracks every individual’s vaccination status from birth.
The dystopian proposal raises far more than privacy and autonomy concerns: it establishes the architecture for government overreach, cross-domain profiling, AI-driven behavioral targeting, conditional access to services, and a globally interoperable surveillance grid tracking individuals.
It also creates unprecedented risks in data security, accountability, and mission creep, enabling a digital control system that reaches into every sector of life.
The proposed system:
- integrates personally identifiable information with socioeconomic data such as “household income, ethnicity and religion,”
- deploys artificial intelligence for “identifying and targeting the unreached” and “combating misinformation,”
- and enables governments to use vaccination records as prerequisites for education, travel, and other services.
What the WHO Document Admits, in Their Own Words
To establish the framework, the authors define the program as nothing less than a restructuring of how governments govern:
“Digital transformation is the intentional, systematic implementation of integrated digital applications that change how governments plan, execute, measure and monitor programmes.”
They openly state the purpose:
“This transformation can accelerate progress towards the Immunization agenda 2030, which aims to ensure that everyone, everywhere, at every age, fully benefits from vaccines.”
This is the context for every policy recommendation that follows: a global vaccination compliance system, digitally enforced.
1. Birth-Registered Digital Identity & Life-Long Tracking
The document describes a system in which a newborn is automatically added to a national digital vaccine-tracking registry the moment their birth is recorded.
“When birth notification triggers the set-up of a personal digital immunization record, health workers know who to vaccinate before the child’s first contact with services.”
They specify that this digital identity contains personal identifiers:
“A newborn whose electronic immunization record is populated with personally identifiable information benefits because health workers can retrieve their records through unique identifiers or demographic details, generate lists of unvaccinated children and remind parents to bring them for vaccination.”
This is automated, cradle-to-grave traceability.
The system also enables surveillance across all locations:
“[W]ith a national electronic immunization record, a child can be followed up anywhere within the country and referred electronically from one health facility to another.”
This is mobility tracking tied to medical compliance.
2. Linking Vaccine Records to Income, Ethnicity, Religion, & Social Programs
The document explicitly endorses merging vaccine status with socioeconomic data.
“Registers that record household asset data for social protection programmes enable monitoring of vaccination coverage by socioeconomic status such as household income, ethnicity and religion.”
This is demographic stratification attached to a compliance database.
3. Conditioning Access to Schooling, Travel, & Services on Digital Vaccine Proof
The WHO acknowledges and encourages systems that require vaccine passes for core civil functions:
“Some countries require proof of vaccination for children to access daycare and education, and evidence of other vaccinations is often required for international travel.”
They then underline why digital formats are preferred:
“Digital records and certificates are traceable and shareable.”
Digital traceability means enforceability.
4. Using Digital Systems to Prevent ‘Wasting Vaccine on Already Immune Children’
The authors describe a key rationale:
“Children’s vaccination status is not checked during campaigns, a practice that wastes vaccine on already immune children and exposes them to the risk of adverse events.”
Their solution is automated verification to maximize vaccination throughput.
The digital system is positioned as both a logistical enhancer and a compliance enforcer:
“National electronic immunization records could transform how measles campaigns and supplementary immunization activities are conducted by enabling on-site confirmation of vaccination status.”
5. AI Systems to Target Individuals, Identify ‘Unreached,’ & Combat ‘Misinformation’
The WHO document openly promotes artificial intelligence to shape public behavior:
“AI… demonstrate[s] its utility in identifying and targeting the unreached, identifying critical service bottlenecks, combating misinformation and optimizing task management.”
They explain additional planned uses:
“Additional strategic applications include analysing population-level data, predicting service needs and spread of disease, identifying barriers to immunization, and enhancing nutrition and health status assessments via mobile technology.”
This is predictive analytics paired with influence operations.
6. Global Interoperability Standards for International Data Exchange
The authors call for a unified international data standard:
“Recognize fast healthcare interoperability resources… as the global standard for exchange of health data.”
Translated: vaccine-linked personal identity data must be globally shareable.
They describe the need for “digital public infrastructure”:
“Digital public infrastructure is a foundation and catalyst for the digital transformation of primary health care.”
This is the architecture of a global vaccination-compliance network.
7. Surveillance Expansion Into Everyday Interactions
The WHO outlines a surveillance model that activates whenever a child interacts with any health or community service:
“CHWs who identify children during home visits and other community activities can refer them for vaccination through an electronic immunization registry or electronic child health record.”
This means non-clinical community actors participating in vaccination-compliance identification.
The authors also describe cross-service integration:
“Under-vaccinated children can be reached when CHWs and facility-based providers providing other services collaborate and communicate around individual children in the same electronic child health records.”
Every point of contact becomes a checkpoint.
8. Behavior-Shaping Through Alerts, Reminders, & Social Monitoring
The WHO endorses using digital messaging to overcome “intention–action gaps”:
“Direct communication with parents in the form of alerts, reminders and information helps overcome the intention–action gap.”
They also prescribe digital surveillance of public sentiment:
“Active detection and response to misinformation in social media build trust and demand.”
This is official justification for monitoring and countering speech.
9. Acknowledgment of Global Donor Control—Including Gates Foundation
At the very end of the article, the financial architect is stated plainly:
“This work was supported by the Gates Foundation [INV-016137].”
This confirms the alignment with Gates-backed global ID and vaccine-registry initiatives operating through Gavi, the World Bank, UNICEF, and WHO.
Bottom Line
In the WHO’s own words:
“Digital transformation is a unique opportunity to address many longstanding challenges in immunization… now is the time for bold, new approaches.”
And:
“Stakeholders… should embrace digital transformation as an enabler for achieving the ambitious Immunization agenda 2030 goals.”
This is a comprehensive proposal for a global digital-identity system, permanently linked to vaccine status, integrated with demographic and socioeconomic data, enforced through AI-driven surveillance, and designed for international interoperability.
It is not speculative, but written in plain language, funded by the Gates Foundation, and published in the World Health Organization’s own journal.
City Health Officials Tied to Soros Urge Public to ‘Get Vaccinated,’ Blame Policy Shifts for ‘Deadly Outbreaks’
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 22, 2025
A coalition of city public health officials with ties to pharma investor George Soros is urging the public to “get vaccinated.”
In an open letter, the Big Cities Health Coalition accused federal officials of driving down vaccination rates and fueling an increase in dangerous infectious disease outbreaks by making “repeated false claims” about vaccines.
They wrote:
“Vaccines have eradicated devastating diseases and saved millions of lives. They keep classrooms safe and schools open. They allow children to spend time with friends and enjoy their favorite activities. They help parents and caregivers work to support their families.
The letter also addresses recent changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommended vaccine schedule for children and adults, though it does not mention U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or President Donald Trump by name.
The coalition, which represents 35 U.S. cities and about a fifth of the U.S. population, “has been working together to exchange ideas and address public health threats for more than two decades,” according to CNN, which first reported on the letter Monday.
Participating cities include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Houston, Dallas, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Seattle.
The group’s financial documents reveal support from billionaire financier Soros. Soros has also invested heavily in the pharmaceutical industry, including COVID-19 vaccine makers Pfizer and AstraZeneca, and Gilead Sciences, which produces remdesivir, a controversial antiviral treatment frequently given to COVID-19 patients.
Coalition attempted to scrub funding from Soros- and Gates-linked groups
The Big Cities Health Coalition was founded in 2002, according to a now-deleted webpage. The current version of its website contains little more than the group’s recent letter.
Links to the organization’s 2023 and 2024 annual reports are no longer active, but can be found on the Internet Archive and elsewhere. The reports show that Soros and other major healthcare-related organizations, including groups connected to Bill Gates, finance the coalition.
According to its 2023 annual report, the Open Society Foundations, founded by Soros, funded the coalition. Other funders include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente and the CDC Foundation.
In 2022, the Soros Economic Development Fund, an extension of the Open Society Foundations, partnered with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and MedAccess, a pharma-industry broker connected to the U.K. government, to invest $200 million in developing COVID-19 vaccines.
The Gates Foundation is a major funder of Gavi.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has financially supported FactCheck.org, which previously flagged COVID-19-related “misinformation” for Facebook.
The CDC Foundation’s donor list includes the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation and vaccine manufacturers including Pfizer, Merck and Johnson & Johnson.
According to internal medicine physician Dr. Clayton J. Baker, the coalition’s annual reports reveal clear conflicts of interest.
“It’s informative to look into the funding of organizations like the Big Cities Health Coalition,” Baker said. He noted that Kaiser Permanente paid patients $50 to get COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic and fired employees who refused the shots, then tried to rehire them later when short-staffed.
According to the coalition’s Form 990 for fiscal year 2023, the organization spent $875,540 on “communications,” including engaging with “media, and federal policymakers about the importance of supporting local public health and health equity.”
The group also spent $433,703 on its “urban health agenda” and $147,397 on “equity/racial justice.”
The coalition’s members “meet periodically with Congressional staff” and “other federal government officials,” the filing states.
The organization’s schedule of contributors is listed as “restricted” in the filing.
Coalition blames unvaccinated for ‘deadly’ and ‘more frequent’ outbreaks
In its letter, the coalition blamed “declining” vaccination rates for “deadly outbreaks of diseases like measles and polio” and claimed that the outbreaks are “becoming more frequent.”
CNN reported that measles exposure at a South Carolina school led authorities to quarantine over 100 unvaccinated students, illustrating “one of the many reasons why Big Cities Health Coalition emphasizes the importance of vaccination.”
Research scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., said that invoking measles and polio is a “manipulative framing device.” He said:
“Outbreaks of these diseases occur almost exclusively in highly vaccinated populations where immunity has waned, or where sanitation and migration variables are misattributed as ‘vaccine refusal.’
“By portraying every outbreak as proof of anti-vaccine rhetoric, the coalition seeks to recapture moral high ground based on presumptions of safety, without addressing the underlying immunologic and ecological data.”
The coalition’s letter also warned of a potential uptick of COVID-19 and flu infections in the “rapidly approaching” cold and flu season.
However, Baker said the coalition’s letter “contains absolutely zero genuine evidence” to support its claims. He said:
“The coalition’s statement is embarrassingly inane. They say, ‘We are united behind a simple message: get vaccinated.’ Vaccinated with what? They make no distinction between necessary or unnecessary, safe or unsafe, effective or ineffective shots. Just ‘get vaccinated.’ That’s like saying ‘get medicated.’ This is the asinine level of rhetoric to which vaccine fanatics are currently reduced.”
Emily Hilliard, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), dismissed the coalition’s concerns.
“HHS is restoring the doctor-patient relationship so people can make informed decisions about their health with their providers,” Hilliard told The Defender.
Letter rooted in data, not ‘political ideology,’ coalition members say
Coalition members told CNN their letter is an attempt to restore public trust in science, not an effort to politicize public health recommendations.
“We have to make our public health decisions based on data and not on political ideology,” Dr. Philip Huang, director of the Dallas County Health and Human Services Department, told CNN. “We have to be the voices for that science and reason.”
Huang said the current CDC administration “seems more driven by political ideology than actual data and science, so it undermines the trust.”
Lyons-Weiler disputed the coalition’s claims, calling the letter “the opening salvo in an attempt to rebuild centralized narrative control over immunization policy.”
“Language such as ‘talk with your doctor’ and ‘tune out political noise’ is designed to sound apolitical while reinstating top-down message discipline,” he said.
CDC changes to vaccine policy spark pushback across U.S.
The coalition “is the latest group to take a strong public stand in support of vaccination as a direct response to concerns that the federal government is limiting access and raising doubts,” CNN reported.
Earlier this month, the CDC updated the childhood immunization schedule to recommend individual-based decision-making regarding COVID-19 vaccination for children 6 months and older, following the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) unanimous vote to adopt the recommendation.
Last month, ACIP also voted to recommend limiting the MMRV (measles, mumps, rubella and varicella, or chickenpox) vaccine to children ages 4 and older. And in June, the committee voted to stop recommending flu shots containing thimerosal — a preservative linked to neurodevelopmental disorders.
In response, 15 Democratic governors launched the Governors Public Health Alliance last week to coordinate their public health efforts independently of national public health agencies.
Previously, four Western states announced the formation of the West Coast Health Alliance, which aims to issue its own immunization guidelines.
In August, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued “evidence-based” recommendations calling for COVID-19 shots for infants, young children and children in “high-risk” groups. In July, the AAP and five other medical organizations sued Kennedy over new COVID-19 vaccine guidance.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Gates-Funded Self-Assembling Microcrystal Implants Mark a New Phase in Population Control
By Nicolas Hulscher, MPH | FOCAL POINTS | April 25, 2025
A new study published in Nature Chemical Engineering titled “Self-aggregating long-acting injectable microcrystals” reveals Bill Gates’s latest investment. As expected, this “innovation” does not improve the health of humanity by any means, but instead seeks to further reduce already-collapsing birth rates.

The technology, dubbed SLIM (Self-aggregating Long-acting Injectable Microcrystals), enables the self injection of microcrystals that self-assemble into a semi-permanent drug implant. The implant slowly releases synthetic hormones like levonorgestrel—a potent contraceptive—over months to years.
While the study frames SLIM as a step forward in medical innovation, closer inspection reveals grave concerns:
- Irreversible implants: Once injected, the microcrystals self-assemble into a dense, solid mass deep in subcutaneous tissue. The study provides no method for removal, raising the possibility that these implants are effectively permanent, particularly in low-resource settings without surgical infrastructure.
- Unknown long-term effects: In rats, the solid implant remained intact for at least 97 days—the full length of the study. In humans, where metabolism is slower and tissue clearance is more complex, these structures could persist for years with unknown consequences.
Widely available, extremely long-lasting anti-fertility implants are a dream come true for depopulationists. Bill Gates, the funder of this study, publicly revealed his preference for reducing the population by 10-15% in order to “get CO₂ to zero.”
“First we’ve got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people, that’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, healthcare, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10-15%” – Bill Gates at TED2010
The Gates Foundation also funded a study that was published last year titled “Global fertility in 204 countries and territories, 1950–2021, with forecasts to 2100: a comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.” They estimated irreversible population collapse within the next few decades:
By 2050, over three-quarters (155 of 204) of countries will not have high enough fertility rates to sustain population size over time; this will increase to 97% of countries (198 of 204) by 2100.
Let’s get this straight: The same foundation that acknowledges an inevitable population collapse—without any intervention—is simultaneously funding invasive technologies that would only accelerate it:

We need to reverse the major decline in birth rates to preserve civilization. A few months ago, I identified some key targets:
A study by Aitken found that fertility rate declines are driven by both short- and long-term factors. In the short term, socioeconomic drivers like urbanization and delayed childbearing, as well as issues such as obesity, falling sperm counts, and environmental toxicants (e.g., pollutants, nanoplastics, and electromagnetic radiation), compromise reproductive health. Long-term factors include reduced selection pressure on high-fertility genes due to smaller family sizes and the widespread use of assisted reproductive technologies, which may perpetuate poor fertility genotypes in the population. Addressing these issues is essential to mitigating the ongoing fertility crisis.
Burkina Faso rejects GMO mosquitoes: Bill Gates-backed anti-malaria project suspended amid controversy

By Willow Tohi – Natural News – 08/30/2025
On August 23, Burkina Faso’s military government ordered the suspension of the Target Malaria project, a research initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aimed at combating malaria. The decision came after growing concerns from local and international critics about the project’s potential unintended consequences and ethical implications. Amid a wave of anti-Western sentiment and doubts over the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the move has significant implications for global health and biotechnology efforts in Africa.
Key highlights of the decision
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- Burkina Faso has ordered the Target Malaria research team to halt all activities and destroy all genetically modified mosquitoes.
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- The suspension reflects growing distrust of foreign-funded initiatives in Burkina Faso, a country that has shifted closer to Russia and Iran since a 2022 coup.
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- Critics argue that the genetic modifications pose unknown risks to public health and ecosystems.
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- Despite prior approvals from national biosafety agencies, the project faced mounting public resistance.
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- The decision marks a significant setback for genetic approaches to malaria eradication in Africa.
A decade-long experiment
Target Malaria, launched in Burkina Faso in 2012, was a research consortium led by Imperial College London. The project sought to use genetic modification to control mosquito populations and reduce malaria transmission, a disease that claims over 600,000 lives annually, primarily in Africa.
In 2019, Burkina Faso became the first country in Africa to release genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild. These mosquitoes were engineered to produce predominantly male offspring, aiming to curb population growth by spreading specific traits through wild mosquito populations. The project received financial backing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest private funders of global health programs.
Regulatory approval, public resistance
The Target Malaria project had received approval from Burkina Faso’s National Biosafety Agency (ANB), the National Environmental Assessment Agency (ANEVE) and the country’s Health Research Ethics Committee. Communities in selected field sites, such as Souroukoudingan in Houet Province, had also signed off on the releases.
On August 11, 2025, one small-scale release of non-gene drive genetically modified male bias mosquitoes took place successfully, in accord with terms and conditions of the ANB and ANEVE permits. However, despite these clearances, the initiative drew mounting criticism from civil society groups.
A clash with military priorities
The suspension reflects broader tensions between Burkina Faso’s military-led government and Western-backed NGOs. Since seizing power in 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s administration has increasingly sought to limit foreign involvement in domestic policy, particularly projects tied to high-profile Western philanthropists such as Bill Gates.
Ali Tapsoba, a leading member of the Coalition for Monitoring Biotechnological Activities in Burkina Faso (CVAB), said, “The problem is the solution proposed by Target Malaria, which consists of eliminating the vector using gene-drive mosquitoes.” He added, “This technology is highly controversial, unpredictable and raises ethical concerns. More specifically, the impacts of gene-drive organisms on health and ecosystems remain unknown and potentially irreversible.”
Critics further highlighted that the modified mosquito strains originated in laboratories in Europe, raising questions of scientific neo-colonialism and external influence. In its defense, Target Malaria stressed, “The IRSS team, as part of the Target Malaria project, has operated since 2012 in compliance with the national laws of Burkina Faso. We have engaged actively with the national authorities and stakeholders of Burkina Faso and remain ready to cooperate.”
International reactions and implications
The decision to suspend the Target Malaria project in Burkina Faso has reverberated internationally, particularly among those involved in global health and biotechnology efforts. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has been embroiled in controversies over some of its initiatives, with advocacy groups accusing it of promoting genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture models that benefit large corporations while sidelining smallholder farmers.
A turning point in biotechnology and public health
The suspension of the Target Malaria project in Burkina Faso marks a significant victory for those skeptical of biotechnological interventions. This move highlights the deep ethical, environmental and political concerns surrounding such projects, especially in regions with a history of foreign exploitation. As Burkina Faso reasserts its health sovereignty, the decision raises critical questions about the true motivations behind such biotechnological solutions. The involvement of figures like Bill Gates, who have significant financial stakes in these technologies, further fuels suspicions. While Gates’ foundation claims to advance global health outcomes, the potential for these technologies to enrich developers at the expense of the communities they serve cannot be overlooked. This decision is a clarion call for more transparent and community-led approaches to public health, ensuring that the interests of the most vulnerable are not sidelined in the name of progress.
U.S. Cancels Contracts Worth $766 Million for Moderna Bird Flu Vaccine After ‘Rigorous Review’
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 29, 2025
The Trump administration cancelled two contracts totaling $766 million with Moderna for the development of its mRNA-1018 vaccine for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, citing safety and efficacy concerns identified during its clinical trials, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has confirmed.
“After a rigorous review, we concluded that continued investment in Moderna’s H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable,” HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon told The Defender.
“This is not simply about efficacy — it’s about safety, integrity and trust. The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public,” Nixon said.
Moderna first revealed the cancellation of the two awards in a statement published Wednesday. Moderna also announced “positive interim data” from its Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials for mRNA-1018.
“While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis,” Moderna said in its statement.
Last year, HHS awarded Moderna $176 million for the late-stage development of the mRNA-1018 vaccine. In the final days of the Biden administration in January, HHS granted Moderna $590 million to accelerate the development of its bird flu vaccine and expand clinical studies for vaccines targeting five other flu virus subtypes.
‘A major policy shift away from dangerous mRNA injection programs’
Some scientists criticized the cancellation of the awards. Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and the Biden administration’s COVID-19 response coordinator, told CNN, “The attack on mRNA vaccines is beyond absurd” and that “we will come to regret this” if bird flu starts spreading between humans.
However, epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher called the news “a very positive development” that “marks a major policy shift away from dangerous mRNA injection programs.”
Vermont-based lawyer and farmer John Klar called it a “sensible decision,” noting the seasonal nature of the virus and its waning virulence.
Dr. Clayton Baker, an internal medicine physician, called the contract cancellation “absolutely the right decision.”
“The mRNA gene therapy platform, as demonstrated by the multiple toxicities of the COVID-19 shots, is fundamentally unsafe and should be removed from use altogether,” Baker said.
Baker suggested that the timing of the January 2025 grant, just days before the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, was likely intended to “promote the bird flu panic that was perpetrated by the outgoing administration, in order to derail the new administration.”
HHS told Reuters earlier this year that it would review agreements the Biden administration made for vaccine production. In March, HHS denied rumors that it was considering cancelling funding for mRNA vaccine research.
In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a $1 billion plan to combat the spread of bird flu among chickens. The plan included a strategy to develop vaccines for chickens, but not for humans.
According to Reuters, Moderna “has been banking on revenue from newer mRNA shots, including its bird flu vaccine and experimental COVID-flu combination vaccine, to make up for waning post-pandemic demand for its COVID vaccine.” The company “plans to explore alternatives for late-stage development and manufacturing” of its bird flu vaccine.
News of the canceled contracts came just days after Moderna withdrew its application for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its mRNA-1083 combination flu and COVID-19 vaccine.
Last week, Reuters reported that Moderna’s decision to withdraw its application came amid “increased regulatory scrutiny of the vaccine approval process since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the top U.S. health job earlier this year.”
Markets did not immediately react to news of the grants’ cancellation. Moderna shares remained flat during after-hours trading Wednesday, but were up by over 2.6% by press time Thursday.
No human bird flu cases reported in three months
According to Reuters, bird flu has infected 70 people in the past year, mostly farm workers, but “has spread aggressively among cattle herds and poultry flocks.”
In January, a Louisiana man who was hospitalized with the first severe case of bird flu in the U.S. died — the first bird flu-related death in the U.S. and all of North America. However, the man, who was older than 65, had underlying medical conditions, and it remains unclear whether bird flu directly caused his death.
There have been no new human bird flu cases in three months, The Associated Press (AP) reported May 19.
Dr. Meryl Nass, an expert on biological warfare and founder of Door to Freedom, said, “H5N1 was a dangerous virus if you caught it from a chicken years ago.” But it has never spread person-to-person, and has “mutated to cause extremely mild disease in almost all humans that have caught it over the past five to 10 years.”
Nass said this makes a new bird flu vaccine for humans unnecessary. “There is absolutely no reason why the United States needs another bird flu vaccine, and there is even less reason to develop an mRNA vaccine because the platform itself is dangerous.”
Bird flu scare a ‘propaganda campaign’
Mainstream media outlets and many scientists continue to suggest that bird flu poses an imminent threat to humans, in what Dr. Richard Bartlett, an emergency room director, former Texas Department of Health and Human Services advisory council member, and expert on bird flu, called a “propaganda campaign.”
“The messaging has been that bird flu spread from penguins to sea lions, to a western Minnesota goat, to Texas dairy cattle and finally to a dairy farmer with red eyes. It’s been a two-year marketing campaign,” Bartlett said.
Bartlett said the messaging is intended to “manufacture the perception of a need for new mRNA products — despite the absence of long-term safety data.”
Last year, former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf warned that a potential bird flu pandemic could have a 25% mortality rate. Jeremy Farrar, Ph.D., then the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, warned that bird flu has an “extremely high” mortality rate for humans and could mutate to pass between humans.
In December 2024, Dr. Leana Wen, the former commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department and a professor of public health at George Washington University, said the outgoing Biden administration had not done enough to address bird flu and criticized the lack of availability of a bird flu vaccine.
After the start of Trump’s second term and the implementation of funding cuts to government health agencies, mainstream media reports suggested the cuts were placing the public at risk of a worsening bird flu outbreak.
In February, Reuters reported the cuts “disrupted the U.S. response to bird flu as the outbreak worsens,” resulting in “anxiety among federal health staff that critical information about bird flu will not be disseminated in a timely manner or at all.”
In April, USA Today reported that cuts affecting the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine “will hamper the FDA’s ability to respond to animal disease outbreaks, including bird flu, and protect public health.”
Also that month, virologists from 40 countries published a report in The Lancet urging the Trump administration to prepare for a bird flu pandemic, according to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
The report was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which in 1999 established Gavi. The Gates Foundation holds one of the four permanent seats on Gavi’s board and continues to heavily fund the organization.
According to the AP, “experts are puzzling over why reports of new human cases have stopped” in the last three months. The report suggests that infections potentially aren’t being detected, that immigrant farm workers may be afraid to be tested, and that efforts to find bird flu cases were “weakened by government cuts.”
Baker said such scenarios are unlikely to account for the lack of recent bird flu cases. “What does this say about the severity of the illness in humans? It says that the illness is either mild or entirely asymptomatic and that there’s no need for a vaccine for an asymptomatic condition.”
U.S. ‘poured a king’s ransom’ into bird flu vaccine development
Nass said that the FDA has already licensed three vaccines for H5N1 and that “there have been dozens of experimental bird flu vaccines that were never taken to licensure. The U.S. government “has already poured a king’s ransom” into funding these vaccines, even though bird flu has never spread between humans.
Baker said that instead of funding new bird flu vaccines, the U.S. government should “stop the gain-of-function style manipulation of bird flu into a bioweapon, which takes place at the Kawaoka lab at the University of Wisconsin and the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia, as well as at other labs.”
Gain-of-function research increases the transmissibility or virulence of viruses and is often used in vaccine development. Earlier this month, Trump issued an executive order pausing gain-of-function research in the U.S. for 120 days while a new regulatory framework is developed. The order also ended U.S. funding for such research in some countries.
“Gain-of-function research produces human pathogens, the process is driven by fear in the media, and then proprietary vaccines are presented as the solution,” Baker said. “It needs to end.”
Recently, there have been growing calls among scientists for a moratorium or ban on mRNA vaccines, including a petition pending before the FDA.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
‘Inhumane, Reckless’: Critics Weigh in on Europe’s Approval of Self-amplifying COVID mRNA Vaccines
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender |February 24, 2025
Europe has approved a self-amplifying mRNA COVID-19 vaccine for ages 18 and up. The move drew criticism from scientists, who cited several concerns, including high rates of serious side effects among clinical trial participants and no long-term safety data.
The European Commission, the European Union’s primary executive body, on Feb. 14, granted marketing authorization for ARCT-154 — marketed as KOSTAIVE — a vaccine manufactured by CSL and Arcturus Therapeutics.
Japanese regulators were the first to approve the ARCT-154 shot, which the country made available for the 2024-25 season to people 65 and over, and 60- to 64-year-olds with severe underlying conditions.
Self-amplifying mRNA vaccines are similar to synthetic mRNA vaccines in that they both contain foreign mRNA that the body’s cells translate into a protein. However, unlike synthetic mRNA vaccines, self-amplifying vaccines also contain an enzyme that instructs the body on how to make more mRNA.
“What makes self-amplifying mRNA technology so worrisome, is that the mRNA will perpetuate indefinitely,” said Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
Jablonowski explained that with the traditional COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, “at least there is some solace in knowing the original mRNA will break down and stop production of the spike proteins.”
Nicolas Hulscher, an epidemiologist with the McCullough Foundation who writes on Substack, called Europe’s approval of ARCT-154 a “grave mistake.”
“These products behave like a synthetic virus,” Hulscher said. “The replicon mRNA is designed to encode not only the target antigen but also viral replicase, enabling the mRNA to replicate itself within the target cells. This replication machinery allows for an unknown period of toxic antigen production.”
The antigen is the “active ingredient in all vaccines … that causes the immune system to begin producing antibodies,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jablonowski said that being chronically exposed to an antigen — “especially one as toxic as the COVID-19 spike protein” is “like being vaccinated every day for the rest of your life.”
Plus, the product may not effectively target emerging COVID-19 variants, Jablonowski said:
“When a new variant emerges, as coronaviruses change constantly, would the strategy be another self-amplifying mRNA vaccine? Another factory that may never turn off? And so on? There will be a breaking point.
“The tragic short-sightedness of this strategy is that eventually the vaccinated will be creating spike protein to assault their own body to teach their immune system how to combat a virus that doesn’t exist anymore.”
Hulscher said long-term safety data on ARCT-154 is “non-existent.” He also reported that 90% of clinical trial participants experienced adverse events after the first dose, with 74.5% reporting systemic reactions and 15.2% requiring medical attention.
Arcturus Therapeutics is one of at least nine vaccine developers working on self-amplifying mRNA products, according to a November 2024 analysis by Hulscher.
So far, none of the clinical trials for the product have “addressed the major concern of product shedding,” Hulscher said.
Jablonowski also pointed out that the mRNA lipid nanoparticle technology has been shown to cross the placental barrier, making it “unconscionable that the European Commission would allow these products anywhere near a person who may become pregnant.”
FDA approved clinical trial for self-amplifying bird flu vaccine
Although the U.S. has yet to approve a self-amplifying mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last November gave the green light for Arcturus Therapeutics to launch clinical trials for a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine targeting the H5N1 virus, commonly known as bird flu.
The trials are funded by the U.S. government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “The United States must REJECT this dangerous technology,” Hulscher said.
Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough agreed.
“Vaccinologists have made a critical error in the design of genetic vaccines,” McCullough said. “Injection of the genetic code for any foreign protein including parts of viruses causes the body to respond with an immune attack against its own cells.”
“This leads to intense vaccine injury syndromes all through the human body,” he said.
McCullough added, “Giving the vaccines their own ‘life’ with the ability to reproduce themselves is inhumane, reckless, and from the outset, should be flagged as dangerous and potentially lethal to the recipient.”
Related articles in The Defender
- Japan Approves World’s First ‘Self-amplifying’ mRNA COVID Shot — Is the U.S. Next?
- ‘Disaster Waiting to Happen’: FDA Approves Phase 1 Trial of Gates-funded Self-amplifying Bird Flu Vaccine
- Rogan Rips Mainstream Media for Failure to Cover ‘Real Numbers’ of People Injured, Killed by COVID Shots
- U.S. Pumps $667 Million Into World Bank’s Pandemic Fund
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Bill Gates and USAID: A Dangerous Alliance With Deadly Secrets
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 19.02.2025
Bill Gates has urged the Trump administration to reconsider its stance on USAID, calling it “an unbelievable asset” and warning that cuts could risk “millions” of lives. What is the Microsoft mogul-turned billionaire ‘philanthropist’ really worried about?
USAID and the Gates Foundation have worked together for nearly 25 years on issues near and dear to Mr. Gates’ heart, from infectious diseases and vaccines to family planning, agriculture, and climate change.
Major collaborations include the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
Gates has also partnered with USAID on the Global Health Initiative and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
If these names ring a bill, they should:
- GAVI is running an ambitious program to vaccinate 86 million adolescent girls in developing countries against HPV with jabs including Gardasil, made by Merck, which now faces a lawsuit in the US over side effects ranging from sporadic paralysis to cancer.
- Gates and USAID have continued supporting GAVI despite evidence from India starting in 2009 that its HPV jabs can cause severe illness or even death.
- USAID committed over $2 billion to GAVI from 2001-2017, and $1.16 billion more between 2020-2023.
- Leaked docs published by Revolver News in 2022 exposed a USAID scheme using pandemic funds for “reproductive health” (i.e. population control) in Africa.
- CEPI, together with Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, has been linked to controversial health schemes of its own, from a September 2019 workshop on vaccine biomarkers to partnership in Event 201, a pandemic simulation held in October 2019, just weeks before COVID hit.
Partners in Food (In)security
Gates and USAID have also touted collaborations on food security, promoting agricultural tech for smallholder farmers in developing countries, for example.
At the same time, the Gates Foundation has invested heavily in companies engaged in GMO research, from Monsanto and its infamous “terminator seed” projects to synthetic meat startups.
An exhaustive 2024 critique of Gates’ agricultural schemes in Africa by the US Right to Know public health watchdog found that his and USAID’s AGRA initiative, focused on chemical-laced monoculture farming, increased dependency and agrobusiness influence instead of reducing hunger.
In other words, Gates’ concerns about USAID’s demise seem more about losing a key ally in efforts to control development, food security, and health in developing nations than “saving lives.”
Bigger Than USAID Scandal? Clinton Probe to Expose Gates, Soros and Epstein Links
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 11.02.2025
The fall of the House of Clinton would trigger a domino effect, upending globalist entities like Bilderberg, billionaires such as Bill Gates & George Soros, and their bought politicians worldwide, says Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel.
How Could the Clinton Foundation Probe Expose Globalists?
- Ortel calls CF the largest unprosecuted fraud. If true, its trustees, executives and donors – both US and foreign – could face IRS and legal probes at home and abroad.
- Hundreds of billions in grants could be returned to US and foreign governments if fraud is proven, according to the analyst.
What Countries, Entities, and Private Funds Have Donated to the Clintons?
- Australia, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, the UK, Ukraine and others funded CF, public records show.
- The largest known donor is UNITAID (WHO), which has sent hundreds of millions more than CF has reported to the IRS since 2006.
- Other suspicious donors: DFID, AusAID, NORAD and aid agencies from Canada, Ireland and Sweden, Ortel says.
- Private foundations also funded Clinton frauds. The Gates Foundation has donated since 2005 – while convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein collaborated with Bill Clinton. George Soros is another key donor.
Who Promoted the Clintons’ Globalist Web?
- Harvard, Yale and Columbia University gave credibility to Clinton charity frauds, Ortel says.
- Legacy media & publishers boosted Clinton Global Initiative events, ignoring that none were legally registered charities.
Investigation Into the Clinton Charitable Work
- A full probe into CF and its offshoots is needed ASAP, Ortel says.
- A 2018 hearing revealed CF owes $2.5 billion to the US government for acting as a foreign agent instead of a nonprofit.
- But the scandal exceeds $2.5 billion – Bill Clinton used charity as a front, with no honest accounting for AIDS, climate, or Haiti’s missing $10 billion, Ortel concludes.
WikiLeaks Exposes Internews: USAID-Funded Media Machine Behind Global Influence
Sputnik – 08.02.2025
The infamous US agency USAID funneled nearly half a billion dollars to Internews Network, a non-profit deeply involved in media operations all over the world, WikiLeaks has revealed.
In 2023 alone, Internews Network collaborated with 4,291 media outlets, produced 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching 778 million people, and trained over 9,000 journalists. Operating in 30+ countries, it has key offices in the US, London, Paris, and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok, and Nairobi. But there’s more to the story:
- Founded in 1982, Internews claims to help media outlets achieve financial sustainability and promote “trustworthy information” – a mission it pursues with hefty US government funding.
- By 2023, the organization had partnered with nearly 4,300 media outlets, trained thousands of journalists, and simultaneously supported social media censorship initiatives.
- USAID alone poured $472.6 million into Internews, though the organization also received funding from AOL-Time Warner Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other private donors.
- Grants include $10.7 million from USAID to support “high-quality responsible journalism” in Liberia and $11 million for “media enabling democracy” in Moldova, per datarepublican.com.
- The US State Department chipped in $1.48 million to establish “safe, accessible, and life-saving information services” in South Sudan.
- Another $19.5 million USAID grant was issued to Internews to “position Jordanian society to effectively advocate for citizen-driven interests”.
- Adding to the intrigue, Internews CEO Jeanne Bourgault and other key figures recently had their bios scrubbed from the organization’s website — but WikiLeaks, noticing the move, helpfully provided archived copies.
Here’s How Much Senate’s Loudest RFK Jr Critics Have Been Paid by Big Pharma
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 02.02.2025
The fiery viral exchange between RFK Jr and Senator Bernie Sanders on Big Pharma money in politics has cast a new light on the Trump HHS pick’s uphill confirmation battle.
Among senators grilling Kennedy hardest in this week’s grueling confirmation hearings, here’s who’s gotten the most pharma money via PAC contributions and employee donations between 1990-2024, per calculations by OpenSecrets:
- Bernie Sanders: $1.9 mln
- Ralph Warnock: $1.76 mln
- Patty Murray: $1.6 mln
- Chuck Schumer: $1.55 mln
- Elizabeth Warren: $1.2 mln. Ironic that she’s recently accused Kennedy of “profiting from anti-vaccine conspiracies.”
- Ron Wyden: $1.2 mln
- Bill Cassidy: $1.2 mln
- Mark Warner: $654,000
- Maggie Hassan: $467,000
- Catherine Cortez Masto: $537,000
Bipartisan Consensus
And it’s not just Democrats. OpenSecrets records, which have 307 names on file, show former GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell got $2 mln, Mitt Romney $3.3 mln, Richard Burr $1.6 mln, the late John McCain $1.4 mln, Bill Cassidy $1.2 mln, and Roy Blunt, John Cornyn and Tim Scott $1.1 mln each over the past three-and-a-half decades.
A 2021 STAT study found that over two-thirds of Congress got a pharma check in 2020, with Pfizer alone contributing to 228 federal campaigns and over 1,000 state races. By last August alone, Big Pharma’s 2024 election PAC war chests hit $37 mln, per BioSpace.
OpenSecrets partial list of top Big Pharma donations to current and former US senators.
© Photo : OpenSecrets
Besides lobbying, lawmakers have taken advantage of their jobs to get rich off pharma-related insider trading, with a 2021 Business Insider report finding that 75 made timely investments into the federal Covid response.
Then there’s the combined payouts of healthcare industry, which includes pharma but also insurance, medical device suppliers, etc.
By these accounts, Sanders alone got $23+ mln since 1990, Warnock $14.7 mln, Warren $10.4 mln, Wyden $6.7 mln, Tim Kaine $3.3 mln, Ed Markey $2.3 mln, Patty Murray $5.8 mln, Tammy Baldwin $4.9 mln, etc.

Chart compiled by @MidwesternDoc based on OpenSecrets data on healthcare industry contributions to US lawmakers.
© Photo : X / @MidwesternDoc / OpenSecrets
Media Onboard Too
Major outlets aren’t running anti-RFK hit pieces for free. Dr. Leana Wen, author of a recent WaPo piece trashing Kennedy, received over $1.1 mln from Big Pharma over her career.
In 2021, MintPress News calculated that active Big Pharma cheerleader Bill Gates has given nearly $320 mln to media over the years to ensure favorable coverage of himself and the initiatives he’s pushing, including as it relates to the pharmaceutical industry.
Unaddressed Issues after WHO Withdrawal
By David Bell | Brownstone Institute | January 29, 2025
On Day One of his new administration, United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order notifying an intent to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). This has drawn celebration from some, dismay from others, and probably disinterest from the vast majority of the population more concerned with feeding families and paying off debt. The executive order also leaves much unaddressed, namely the substantive issues that have changed the WHO and international public health over the past decade.
Change is certainly needed, and it is good that the WHO’s largest direct funder is expressing real concern. The reactions to the notice of withdrawal also demonstrate the vast gulf between reality and the positions of those on both sides of the WHO debate.
The new administration is raising an opportunity for rational debate. If this can be grasped, there is still a chance that the WHO, or an organization more fit for purpose, could provide broad benefit to the world’s peoples. But the problems underlying the international public health agenda must first be acknowledged for this to become possible.
What Actually Is the WHO? What Does It Do?
Despite being the health arm of the United Nations (UN), the WHO is a self-governing body under the 194 countries of the World Health Assembly (WHA). Its 34-member executive board is elected from the WHA. The WHA also elects the Director-General (DG), based on one country – one vote. Its 1946 constitution restricts its governance to States (rather than private individuals and corporations), so in this way, it is unique among the major international health agencies. While private individuals and corporations can buy influence, they can be completely excluded should the WHA so wish.
With 8,000 staff, the WHO is split into six Regions and a Head Office in Geneva, Switzerland. The Regional Office of the Americas, also called the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), is based in Washington, DC, and preceded the WHO, having been established in 1902 as the International Sanitary Bureau. Like other Regional Offices, PAHO has its own Regional Assembly, obviously dominated by the US, and is largely self-governing under the wider WHO and UN system.
The WHO is funded by countries and non-State entities. While countries are required to provide ‘assessed’ or core funding, most of the budget is derived from voluntary funding provided by countries and private or corporate donors. Nearly all voluntary funding is ‘specified,’ comprising 75% of the total budget. Under specified funding, the WHO must do the funders’ bidding. Most of its activities are therefore specified by its funders, not the WHO itself, with a quarter of this being private people and corporations with strong Pharma interests.
Therefore the WHO, while governed by countries, has effectively become a tool of others – both State and non-State interests. The US is the largest direct funder (~15%), but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is a close second (14%), and the partly Gates-funded Gavi public-private partnership (PPP) is third. Thus, Mr. Gates arguably has the largest influence in terms of specifying the WHO’s actual activities. The European Union and World Bank are also major funders, as is Germany and the United Kingdom (i.e. the remaining large Western Pharma countries).
In response to its funders, the WHO has shifted focus to areas where large Pharma profits can be accrued. Pharma must insist on this as it has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize return on investment for its shareholders by using its WHO connections to sell more product. The obvious way to make lots of money in Pharma is by spreading fear of vaccine-preventable diseases, and then making vaccines and selling them free from liability to as large a market as possible. This was highly effective during the Covid-19 response, and the WHO is now sponsored by these interests to implement the surveil-lockdown-mass vaccinate paradigm behind the recent amendments to the International Health Regulations and the draft pandemic agreement.
While a shamefully willing tool, the WHO is not driving this. The US started the IHR amendment process and heavily backed it until the recent change of administration. The new administration, while signaling an intent to withdraw from the WHO, has not signaled a withdrawal from the pandemic industrial complex the US helped develop.
Critical to understanding the US withdrawal is the fact that the Covid-19 outbreak, and the response, would have looked almost identical if the WHO did not exist. The WHO was not involved in the gain-of-function research, in vaccine development, or in vaccine mandates. It abrogated its own ethical principles and prior recommendations in pushing lockdowns and mass vaccination, and did huge harm in the process. However, it was countries that funded and conducted the virus modification that likely spawned Covid-19. It was countries, in concert with Pharma, that mandated lockdowns on their people and pushed vaccination most heavily (the WHO never recommended the Covid-19 vaccines for children).
This is not a defense of the WHO – the organization was both incompetent, dishonest, and negligent during Covid-19. They were a public health disgrace. They have continued to deliberately mislead countries regarding future pandemic risk, and inflated return-on-investment claims, in order to sell the policies that benefit their sponsors. But remove the WHO, and the World Bank (the main funder of the pandemic agenda), the PPPs looking to sell pandemic vaccines (Gavi and CEPI), the Gates Foundation, Germany, the UK, and EU, the US health ‘swamp’ itself, and Pharma with its compliance media, will still exist. They have other options to bring a veneer of legitimacy to their pillaging through public health.
The US Notice of Withdrawal
As President Trump’s 20th January order of withdrawal notes, it repeats an executive order from mid-2020 that was subsequently revoked by President Biden. In theory, it takes at least 12 months for a withdrawal to take effect, based on the Joint Resolution of Congress in 1948 through which the US joined WHO, subsequently agreed by the WHA. However, as the new executive order is intended to revoke the Biden revocation, the remaining time to run is unclear. The waiting period could also be shortened by a further Act of Congress.
The 2025 notice of withdrawal is interesting, as the reasons given for withdrawal are relatively benign. There are four:
- Mishandling of the Covid-19 outbreak and other (undefined) global health crises. The “mishandling” is undefined, but may include WHO support for China in obscuring Covid-19 origins as highlighted in the recent Covid-19 House of Representatives sub-committee report. There are few obvious candidates for other truly global health crises that the WHO mishandled, except perhaps the 2009 Swine flu outbreak, unless the executive order refers to any international (global) public health issue (in which case there are many).
- Failure to adopt urgently needed reforms. These are undefined. Of concern, the only reforms the US has been pushing on the WHO in the past few years (pre-Trump administration) were intended to increase the authority of the WHO over sovereign States and the authority of its work. The recent Republican-dominated House subcommittee report recommended the same.
- Inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states. This is presumably aimed at China, but is also concerning, as the WHO is subject to its Member States through the WHA. It would be strange if the US was hoping to free the WHO from such constraints. There is no mention of private sector involvement, now about 25% of WHO funding, which many would claim is the core reason for the corruption and deterioration of the WHO’s work.
- Unfairly onerous payments by the US. The US provides 22% of the WHO’s assessed (core funding) but this is only a fraction of US payments. The vast majority of US payments have been entirely voluntary, and the US could presumably choose to stop these at any time, removing most of its funding but not its voting rights. With China listed by the WHO as paying less than Somalia and Nigeria in the current 2024-25 biennium (per mid-January 2025), the US has a reasonable gripe here, but a simple one to fix.
Missing from the executive order is any reference to the other promoters of the pandemic or emergency agenda. The World Bank’s Pandemic Fund is untouched by this executive order, as are the PPPs. CEPI (vaccines for pandemics) and Gavi (vaccines in general) provide private industry and investors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with direct decision-making roles they cannot ensure through the WHO.
The executive order requires the Director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy to “…review, rescind, and replace the 2024 U.S. Global Health Security Strategy.” It is hoped that this signals a recognition of the lack of an evidence base and financial rigor around the current policy. Indeed, the policy promoted by the US, the WHO, the World Bank, and PPPs is irrelevant, by design, to a laboratory-released pathogen such as that which probably caused Covid-19. The actual mortality from natural outbreaks that it is designed for has been declining for over a century.
Implications of Withdrawal
A full withdrawal of the US from the WHO will presumably reduce US influence within the organization, enhancing that of the EU, China, and the private sector. As it ignores the World Bank and the PPPs, it will not greatly affect the pandemic agenda’s momentum. Covid-19 would still have happened had the US been out of the WHO before 2020, and modRNA mass vaccination would still have been driven by countries and Pharma with the help of a compliant media. The WHO acted as a propagandist and helped waste billions, but never advocated for vaccine mandates or mass vaccination of children. Though it was appalling, the driving forces behind the wealth concentration and human rights abuses of the Covid-19 era clearly originated elsewhere
If the US withdraws its 15% of the WHO budget – about $600 million per year – others (e.g. EU, Gavi, Gates Foundation) could fill the gap. The executive order mentions withdrawing US contractors, but these are few. Nearly all WHO staff are directly employed, not seconded by governments. The main effect will be to reduce coordination with agencies such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The US will have a continuing need to use WHO services, such as for prequalification (regulation) of hundreds of millions of dollars of commodities bought and distributed by USAID and related programs but not regulated through the FDA. This is not a problem – the WHO lists are public – but the US would simply continue to use WHO services without paying for or influencing them.
The withdrawal notice also mentions cessation of US involvement in negotiating the amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) and the Pandemic Agreement. The IHR negotiations concluded 8 months ago, and the US has 2 months to signal rejection. The IHR is separate from WHO membership. The pandemic agreement is subject to wide disagreement between countries, and it is not clear whether it will go forward. However, provisions in the FY23 US National Defense Authorization Act (pages 950 to 961) are already stronger than the US would be signing up to with these WHO agreements.
The history of US withdrawals from UN institutions is also one of subsequent re-entry after a change in administration. Leaving the WHO without influence will presumably make it even less like what the Trump administration would like, should history repeat itself and the next administration rejoin.
The hope is that the US withdrawal will force major reform within the WHO – one of the key reasons provided in the withdrawal notice. However, there is no hint in the executive order of the desired direction of change, or whether the US will adopt a more rational policy. If such an intent were made clear, other countries would follow and the WHO itself may actually reboot. However, withdrawing without addressing these fallacies underlying the pandemic agenda entrenches the vested interests who profited through Covid-19 and clearly aim to continue doing so.
Being Real about Reality
The enthusiasm for the WHO withdrawal seems widely to have forgotten two things:
- The pandemic agenda and the Covid-19 response that exemplified it is not primarily a WHO program. (WHO said essentially the opposite in 2019).
- The actual pandemic industrial complex of surveil-lockdown-mass vaccinate is already essentially in place and does not need the WHO for it to continue.
The WHO Bio-Hub in Germany is largely a German government and Pharma agency with a WHO stamp. The World Bank pandemic fund is the main funding current source for pandemic surveillance, the 100-day vaccine program (CEPI) is directly funded by hapless taxpayers, and the Medical Countermeasures Platform is a partnership with countries, Pharma, the G20, and others. These would probably continue irrespective of the WHO’s existence. The pandemic industrial complex made hundreds of billions of dollars through Covid-19 and has the capacity and incentive to continue.
The complexity of all this is being addressed on social media by statements such as “The WHO is rotten to the core,” “The WHO is unreformable,” or even “Pure evil” – all unhelpful labels for a complex organization of 8,000 staff, 6 fairly independent Regional offices, and dozens of country offices. The WHO’s work on reducing the distribution of counterfeit drugs saves perhaps hundreds of thousands of people each year, and these people matter. Its standards for tuberculosis and malaria management are followed globally, including by the US. In several countries, its technical expertise saves many lives – people who can be abandoned to cliches or taken seriously.
The organization desperately needs reform, as President Trump notes. Its current leadership, having spent the last few years blatantly misleading and lying to countries about Covid-19 and pandemic risk, seems an unlikely candidate to help. They have played the tune of private interests over the needs of the world’s people. However, the WHO’s structure makes it the only major international health institution that countries alone can actually force to reform. It simply needs sufficient Member States of the WHA to force exclusion of private interests, and to force the WHO back to diseases and programs that actually have a significant bearing on human well-being.
Should such reform prove impossible, then the coalition of countries built around the reform agenda can replace it. The massive bureaucracy that global health has become needs to be seen through the same lens as that in the US. The fantasy built around pandemic risk is not substantively different from many on the domestic agenda that the Trump administration is now targeting. It is similarly erosive of human rights, freedom, and human flourishing. Addressing this is an opportunity we would be foolish to miss.
David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. David is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.
GMO Tomato Project Funded by Gates Foundation and U.S. Taxpayers Hits Roadblock
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 3, 2025
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding research to genetically engineer tomatoes to be able to disrupt the reproductive cycle of the whitefly, a common insect that damages tomato plants, Jon Fleetwood reported on Substack.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — a division of the U.S. Department of Defense — also funded the research as part of its “Insect Allies” project, according to a study on the tomatoes published last month in BMC Plant Biology.
Whiteflies, or Bemisia tabaci, are a common pest that drinks sap from phloem, the food-conducting tissue in tomato plant stems and leaves, sometimes causing the plant to dry up. The insects also excrete a sticky substance called honeydew, which attracts ants.
Whiteflies can decimate crops. The BMC study estimates the pest causes $2 billion in annual losses in cassava production in Africa alone, which can cause food insecurity in regions that rely on the crop.
The researchers aim to develop a genetic modification (GM) technology that could modify plants to produce proteins that target and destroy whitefly eggs. The authors note that targeting egg viability is a “unique strategy” for transgenic plants, setting it apart from most GM insecticidal plants that target adult insects.
Fleetwood raised concerns about the technology’s potential to harm human health and the environment.
“If commercialized, these ‘[t]ransgenic plants’ — genetically engineered to include genes from other species — could introduce reproductive-disrupting insecticidal compounds into the human food chain,” Fleetwood wrote.
He continued:
“Tomatoes engineered with insecticides to disrupt reproduction may sound like a breakthrough, but they raise critical questions about safety, transparency, and the ethics of modifying food crops to attack life at its reproductive core.
“As these technologies develop, consumers have a right to know: Are these the risks we’re willing to take with our food?”
The DARPA Insect Allies program funds “scalable, readily deployable, and generalizable countermeasures” to natural and engineered threats to the U.S. food supply. The program seeks to provide “targeted therapies” to mature plants within a single growing season.
However, in this case, the researchers encountered major technical problems in their experiments, molecular geneticist Michael Antoniou, Ph.D., told The Defender. That means the product remains far from commercialization, he said.
Study hits ‘major barrier’
Fleetwood summarized the three mechanisms the genetically engineered tomatoes used to target whitefly egg viability:
- Chitinase Production: The tomatoes are engineered to produce an enzyme derived from the fern Tectaria macrodonta that degrades chitin, a key component of insect eggshells. This enzyme is intended to kill the developing embryos inside the eggs.
- Reproductive Hijacking: Using synthetic vitellogenin domains (SynVg), the proteins mimic natural reproductive pathways in whiteflies, ensuring the insecticides are delivered directly into the eggs.
- Enhanced Uptake: Protein transduction domains (PTD) facilitate the transport of these insecticidal compounds from the insect’s gut to its reproductive system.
Antoniou explained that to track how these mechanisms worked, the researchers used a transgene that encodes an easily detectable fluorescent protein, mCherry, which allowed them to easily monitor whether the transgene was expressed.
Using mCherry they targeted plant parts — the the phloem and the apoplast, or space around the plant cells — that the insects will eat.
In principle, Antoniou said, the pest would ingest any insecticidal protein expressed in these parts of the plant. However, when the researchers fed whiteflies the mCherry-expressing GM tomatoes, they did not detect the fluorescent protein in the insects, including in their eggs, as intended.
While the authors couldn’t explain why the transgene was absent in the flies that ate the tomatoes, they said an innate protein-degrading defense mechanism in the eggs may have caused the issue, Antoniou said.
“The authors acknowledge that this natural defence mechanism constitutes a major barrier to taking this technology forward.”
He also noted that because the researchers were initially having problems detecting the transgene in the engineered tomatoes, they had to use suckers — plants that grow from the roots of the host plant.
“Problems of transgene expression silencing and, more strikingly, major deformities were observed in these sucker plant clones,” Antoniou said. “This is not unexpected, given the known tendency for transgene silencing and the highly mutagenic nature of the GM transformation process as a whole, which can lead to major DNA damage and disruptions in gene expression patterns.”
How would the technology affect humans?
Fleetwood warned that embedding pest control into food crops represents a “seismic shift in agriculture.” Proponents argue it reduces chemical pesticide use, but critics point to concerns about the unintended consequences of such technologies.
He criticized the study for failing to address “the risks of disrupting reproduction in target species, harming non-target organisms, and exposing humans to novel proteins.”
Although the researchers experimented with an ornamental tomato variety, applying this technology to food crops for human consumption raises health concerns, Antoniou said.
He explained:
“A crucial missing piece of information is whether the transgenes are expressed in mature tomato fruits. If they are, then the consumer would be ingesting insecticidal proteins, with unknown health consequences.
“Although this would not result in direct reproductive concerns in the case of the chitinase (because humans, including human eggs, don’t contain chitin), there could be toxic or allergic reactions.”
GM Watch Editor Claire Robinson said that because the GM technology used in the study focuses on the production of chitinase, an enzyme that breaks down chitin, it won’t directly affect human fertility. “Chitin is only present in insects/insect eggs and fungi, and not in mammals, including humans.”
However, that doesn’t mean it’s harmless to humans, she said. “Ingesting this GMO-produced insecticide may have adverse health effects on humans, which are unpredictable. It may also harm non-target and beneficial insects, whose exoskeletons and eggs contain chitin.”
Robinson added:
“Having said all that, judging by the paper published in the journal, this technology doesn’t seem to be working well and Gates and DARPA need to face the reality that they will need to pump large amounts of funds into a project that may never succeed.
“Insects can rapidly adapt to technologies and products intended to kill them and it’s likely that even if this technology is developed to a point where it initially seems to work, it could have a limited window of effectiveness.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

