The Highwire with Del Bigtree | January 18, 2024
As the WHO and media attempt to keep the public in fear with the threat of an unknown disease, we breakdown what ‘disease X’ really symbolizes. Meanwhile, gain-of-function experiments continue to put humanity in great peril.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | January 18, 2024
Del takes a deep dive on the newly approved RSV vaccine’s side effects on pregnant women. Using data straight from ABRYSVO’s own box insert for data, he highlights the increased risk of preterm birth and buffer ingredients such as polysorbate 80 and residual DNA from host cell proteins from Chinese hamster cell lines. Does this sound safe to you?
If sovereignty is knowingly and deceitfully forfeited by government there are specific laws for dealing with that, says Andrew Bridgen
By Rhoda Wilson – The Exposé – December 20, 2023
On Monday, the UK House of Commons debated the World Health Organisation’s (“WHO’s”) proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (“IHR”).
The debate was held in response to a petition to the UK Parliament which gained more than the required number of signatures. In yet another brilliant speech, Andrew Bridgen MP left no stone unturned. A few other Members of Parliament (“MPs) didn’t hold back either.
The first to speak was Philip Davies, MP for Shipley. He summed up the problem both with the WHO’s two proposed instruments – the IHR amendments and the Pandemic Treaty or Accord – and the UK Parliament’s mindset regarding concerns raised about them.
“In preparing for today’s debate, I looked back at the contributions made in April when another petition on this topic was debated here in Westminster Hall … I have to say that I was disappointed by some of the rhetoric, when valid concerns were dismissed as an ‘overreaction and hysteria’. It is clear that this is – quite rightly, in my opinion – an important issue for the public. We can see that that is the case from not just the full Gallery, but the large numbers signing the petitions,” Mr. Davies said.
“We have two international legal instruments, both designed to increase the WHO’s authority in managing health emergencies,” he said. “What is being proposed could have a huge and detrimental impact on all parts of society and on our sovereignty … We are talking about a top-down approach to global public health hardwired into international law.”
“Let us not forget that the director-general is appointed by an opaque, non-democratic process – and I think that is being rather generous,” he added.
Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire, took the floor next. “I [ ] thank the 116,000 members of the public who signed this public petition so that we can have this important debate today,” he began.
“It is impossible to consider either the pandemic treaty or the amendments to the international health regulations in isolation; they are two linked instruments of the WHO, and they need to be considered in parallel.”
Why does the WHO make false claims regarding proposals to seize states’ sovereignty? Mr. Bridgen asked the House noting that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ statements that “no country will cede any sovereignty to WHO” are unequivocally, and also wholly inconsistent with the text he is referring to.
Mr. Bridgen reminded the House that Tedros, as with all WHO officials, is unelected, unaccountable, non-taxpaying and immune from prosecution due to diplomatic immunity.
The intent of the text of the IHR amendments and Pandemic Accord is clear: WHO’s proposed instruments transfer decision-making power to WHO regarding basic aspects of societal function, decision-making that is currently vested in nations and individuals. “The WHO director-general will have the sole authority to decide when and where they are required, and the proposals are intended to be binding under international law,” Mr. Bridgen said.
“Continued claims that sovereignty is not lost, echoed by politicians in this House, other elected assemblies, and of course the media, therefore raise very important questions concerning motivations, competence and ethics.”
Later in his speech, Mr. Bridgen said that WHO’s position raises a real question of whether its leadership is truly ignorant of what is being proposed or is actively seeking to mislead countries and the public to increase the probability of acceptance.
Mr. Bridgen then referred to the dubious method by which the World Health Assembly adopted amendments to the IHR in April 2022.
“Amending the 2005 international health regulations may be a straightforward way to quickly deploy and enforce what appears to be the new normal for health control measures that we have seen implemented since the covid-19 pandemic. The current text applies to virtually the entire global population, counting 196 states, including all 194 WHO member states. Approval may or may not be required by a formal vote of the World Health Assembly: the recent 2022 amendment was adopted through consensus. If the same approval mechanism were to be used in May 2024, many countries, and indeed the public, might remain unaware of the broad scope of the new text and its implications for national and individual sovereignty. That is why today’s debate is so important,” he said.
Mr. Bridgen quoted from article 18 of the IHR which details specific examples of measures that are currently non-binding and WHO can recommend.
“When implemented together, those measures have generally been referred to since 2020 as lockdowns and mandates -“lockdown” was previously a term reserved for people incarcerated as criminals. It removes basic, universally accepted human rights. Such measures were previously considered by the WHO itself to be detrimental to public health. However, since 2020, it has become the default standard for public health authorities to manage epidemics, despite its contradictions to multiple stipulations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the UDHR.” Mr. Bridgen said.
Mr. Bridgen explained how the current recommendations will be changed into requirements through three mechanisms:
“The first is the removal of the term “non-binding” … Second is the insertion … [of] the phrase that ‘Member States’ will ‘undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations’ … Thirdly … ‘State Parties’ undertake to enact what previously were merely recommendations, without delay, including requirements of WHO regarding non-state entities under their jurisdiction.”
Mr. Bridgen explained that “non-state actors” means private businesses, charities, and individuals. “In other words, everyone and everything comes under the control of the WHO, once the director-general declares a public health emergency of international concern,” he said.
Mr. Bridgen also pointed out that the IHR also allows WHO to deploy “personnel” into the country. “That is, it will have control over entry across national borders for whoever it chooses,” he said.
He called out WHO’s desire to limit freedom of speech to “counter misinformation and disinformation.” This clashes with the UDHR, Mr. Bridgen said.
“Although freedom of speech is currently exclusively for national authorities to decide, and its restriction is generally seen as being negative and abusive, United Nations institutions including the WHO have been advocating for censoring unofficial views in order to protect the people from what they call “information integrity.” No doubt, if these amendments were in place, I would not be allowed to give this speech and, if I was, it would not be allowed to be reported in the mainstream media or even on social media.”
Mr. Bridgen mentioned the potential for human rights abuses by WHO and its allies coercing populations to take experimental vaccines or drugs:
“If vaccines or drugs are still under trial and not fully tested, the issue of being subject to an experiment is also real. There is a very clear intent to employ the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations’ 100-day vaccine programme, which, by definition, cannot complete meaningful safety and efficacy trials within the timespan. As we know, the covid-19 vaccines are still experimental, years on from their first introduction, because they are still under emergency use authorisation.”
The proposed pandemic agreement, Mr. Bridgen said, will set humanity into a new era that is organised around pandemics: pre-pandemic, pandemic and inter-pandemic times.
“The relevant question regarding the two WHO instruments should be not whether sovereignty is threatened,” he said, “but why democratic states would forfeit any sovereignty to an organisation that is significantly funded by and bound to obey the dictates of corporations and self-proclaimed philanthropists, and jointly governed by member states half of which are not even open and transparent democracies.”
Mr. Bridgen followed this by voicing a thought that has been on many of our minds in recent years:
“If sovereignty is being knowingly forfeited by governments, without the knowledge and consent of their peoples and based on the false claims of governments and the WHO, the implications are extremely serious. It would imply that leaders were working directly against the interests of their people. Most countries have specific fundamental laws for dealing with that practice.”
You can watch Mr. Bridgen’s speech in parliament below and read a transcript of it in the Hansard HERE.
John Redwood, MP for Wokingham, agreed. “I hope that the Minister will listen very carefully to the debate and the petitioners,” he said. “It would be quite wrong to vest the power of decision in people so far away from our own country who are not in full knowledge of the local circumstances.”
“Before any such power is vested in the WHO, there should be a proper inquiry and debate about how it performed over the course of the most recent covid pandemic,” Mr. Redwood said. “We need more transparency, debate, discussion and challenge of those in the well-paid positions at the WHO, so that science can advance.”
“We do not want an international body saying, ‘There’s only one way to look at this problem or to think about it’ … we need much more accountability, exposure and proper debate.”
Mark Francis, MP for Rayleigh and Wickford, also voiced his concerns about amendments to the IHR. “Not least because the WHO will be given extremely strong powers in any future pandemic,” he said.
“The proposed amendments empower the WHO to issue requirements for the UK to mandate highly restrictive measures, such as lockdowns, masks, quarantines, travel restrictions and medication of individuals, including vaccination, once a PHEIC has been declared by the WHO. That is something we should all be very concerned about. We as parliamentarians are guardians of the country’s liberty, so we need to be very anxious about that.”
Danny Kruger, MP for Devizes, began by noting that it was very worrying that so few MPs were present at the debate. “Significant numbers of the public have a real interest in this topic, so what is going on?” he asked. And reiterated the points already made.
He emphasised the provision in the proposed regulations that WHO would require countries to tackle misinformation and disinformation. After recalling one or two erroneous statements made by WHO in response to the covid pandemic, Mr. Kruger said:
“This is the organisation that we propose giving the power to intervene in national debates, and to close down discussion about the origins and appropriate response to pandemics under the guise of tackling misinformation and disinformation.
“We should be concerned about the value of the World Health Organisation, given its record, and we should, I am afraid, have the same scepticism about our government’s role.”
Sir Christopher Chope, MP for Christchurch, said: “Once we have given away these powers to the WHO, which is power hungry … it is very difficult to get them back.”
He pointed to an insidious development, following a recent Supreme Court case, of what is called “customary international law.” “That development basically means that a group of outsiders can tell us in this country what is good for us and what is not,” he said.
Mr. Francis interjected and said: “For the avoidance of any doubt … none of us has argued this afternoon for withdrawal from the World Health Organisation – we might call it Wexit.” To which Mr. Davies responded, “Yet.” [Attaboy Mr Davies!]
“We do not want to withdraw,” Sir Christopher said, “there is no need to withdraw from a voluntary organisation that is confined to giving us advice and providing data and information.”
Sir Christopher reminded the House about WHO’s war on ivermectin. “Even more sinister than the change in advice on lockdowns was the WHO’s approach to finding a treatment for covid-19 patients. There was a lot of evidence to suggest that ivermectin – it was not the only such drug – could be used to really good effect to improve outcomes for patients suffering from covid-19,” he said.
“[The campaign against ivermectin] was a war, organised by the WHO, against a remedy for covid-19, because, obviously, the whole vaccine development programme was premised on there being no cure for covid-19, and no effective treatment for it,” he added.
“I hope that the Government will start looking really seriously, and sceptically, at the work of the WHO, and at the extent to which it is unduly influenced by external factors. A lot of its work is not based on straight science, but is actually political.”
After noting that Slovakia, Estonia and New Zealand had come out publicly with their scepticism about WHO’s process, Sir Christopher said:
“I hope that our government will now say, ‘By all means, let’s keep the WHO as a body that provides advice, but under no circumstances will we sign up to anything that will give them control over our lives’.”
You can read the full transcript for the 3-hour debate HERE and watch the full debate on Parliament TV HERE.
By Meryl Nass, MD | December 11, 2023
The Committee roster can be found here.
1. The WHO is not an honest broker.
2. The WHO’s proposed treaties are unconstitutional
3. In the Oct. 30 draft of the treaty, A new WHO Secretariat and Conference of Parties for pandemics are to be established in the future and will make their own rules. Thus, agreeing to this means providing a blank check to the WHO to do whatever it wants at some later date.
4. The 2 proposed treaties ignore existing international law prohibiting the proliferation of biological warfare agents (the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 2004 Security Council Memorandum 1540) and demand that nations search out new agents (a.k.a. “potential pandemic pathogens”) and share them with the WHO, which will “share them globally.” The WHO has already established a BioHub for this purpose and a Pathogen Access and Benefits System.
5. The proposed treaty and amendments also demand that nations perform 2 additional forms of surveillance of their citizens: microbiological surveillance of their populations, animals and ecosystems for pathogens, and surveillance and sharing of medical and hospital records, both of which violate privacy protections.
6. The proposed amendments remove the guarantee of “Human rights, dignity and freedom of persons” that are found in the current international health regulations.
7. The two proposed treaties are both binding, whereas the earlier IHR were recommendations only, apart from minor requirements for notification of certain outbreaks to the WHO. The two proposed documents would give the WHO and particularly its Director-General vast authority to manage healthcare globally. The current Director-General is not a medical practitioner and instead has a PhD in Community Health.
8. The WHO lacks the personnel and expertise to manage international pandemics and other health concerns. Any developed nation has within it much more capacity to understand and manage medical events within its borders, and likely international events as well.
9. The proposed treaty calls for rapidly produced vaccines and for nations to implement domestic legislation to permit the use of unlicensed medical products without manufacturer liability, instead “managing” the liability issues using existing models, such as the US’ Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, which has so far compensated 8 Americans for injuries related to EUA COVID products (primarily vaccines) from the 12,358 claims filed. https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp/cicp-data
10. It is apparent that in the process of developing the “Pandemic Accord” and amendments to the IHR, WHO/WHA positioned itself in a combined law-making/executive/expert/censorship role, which is a well-known path to usurpation of unrestrained power. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the proposed Amendments grant expressly such power to the WHO.
11. The WHO receives 85% of its funding from voluntary contributions, and only 15% from dues paid by its 194 member nations. Most of the voluntary contributions are earmarked for special projects that the WHO carries out. When President Trump withheld US funding in 2020, Bill Gates became the WHO’s top funder. The (unelected) WHO serves many private masters, yet seeks to govern the world’s population.
12. Virtually every recommendation the WHO made for managing the COVID pandemic was counterproductive. Why would we give the WHO the power to enforce the same bad advice on the US and world?
By David Bell and Thi Thuy Van Dinh | Brownstone Institute | December 11, 2023
The Director General (DG) of the World Health Organization (WHO) states:
No country will cede any sovereignty to WHO,
referring to the WHO’s new pandemic agreement and proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR), currently being negotiated. His statements are clear and unequivocal, and wholly inconsistent with the texts he is referring to.
A rational examination of the texts in question shows that:
Continued claims that sovereignty is not lost, echoed by politicians and media, therefore raise important questions concerning motivations, competence, and ethics.
The intent of the texts is a transfer of decision-making currently vested in Nations and individuals to the WHO, when its DG decides that there is a threat of a significant disease outbreak or other health emergency likely to cross multiple national borders. It is unusual for Nations to undertake to follow external entities regarding the basic rights and healthcare of their citizens, more so when this has major economic and geopolitical implications.
The question of whether sovereignty is indeed being transferred, and the legal status of such an agreement, is therefore of vital importance, particularly to the legislators of democratic States. They have an absolute duty to be sure of their ground. We systematically examine that ground here.
The Proposed IHR Amendments and Sovereignty in Health Decision-Making
Amending the 2005 IHR may be a straightforward way to quickly deploy and enforce “new normal” health control measures. The current text applies to virtually the entire global population, counting 196 States Parties including all 194 WHO Member States. Approval may or may not require a formal vote of the World Health Assembly (WHA), as the recent 2022 amendment was adopted through consensus. If the same approval mechanism is to be used in May 2024, many countries and the public may remain unaware of the broad scope of the new text and its implications to national and individual sovereignty.
The IHR are a set of recommendations under a treaty process that has force under international law. They seek to provide the WHO with some moral authority to coordinate and lead responses when an international health emergency, such as pandemic, occurs. Most are non-binding, and these contain very specific examples of measures that the WHO can recommend, including (Article 18):
These measures, when implemented together, are generally referred to since early 2020 as ‘lockdowns’ and ‘mandates.’ ‘Lockdown’ was previously a term reserved for people incarcerated as criminals, as it removes basic universally accepted human rights and such measures were considered by the WHO to be detrimental to public health. However, since 2020 it has become the default standard for public health authorities to manage epidemics, despite its contradictions to multiple stipulations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):
These UDHR stipulations are the basis of the modern concept of individual sovereignty, and the relationship between authorities and their populations. Considered the highest codification of the rights and freedoms of individuals in the 20th century, they may soon be dismantled behind closed doors in a meeting room in Geneva.
The proposed amendments will change the “recommendations” of the current document to requirements through three mechanisms on
States Parties recognize WHO as the guidance and coordinating authority of international public health response during public health Emergency of International Concern and undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations in their international public health response.
As Article 18 makes clear above, these include multiple actions directly restricting individual liberty. If transfer of decision-making power (sovereignty) is not intended here, then the current status of the IHR as ‘recommendations’ could remain and countries would not be undertaking to follow the WHO’s requirements.
Health measures taken pursuant to these Regulations, including the recommendations made under Articles 15 and 16, shall be initiated and completed without delay by all State Parties and applied in a transparent, equitable and non-discriminatory manner. State Parties shall also take measures to ensure Non-State Actors operating in their respective territories comply with such measures.
Articles 15 and 16 mentioned here allow the WHO to require a State to provide resources “health products, technologies, and know-how,” and to allow the WHO to deploy personnel into the country (i.e., have control over entry across national borders for those they choose). They also repeat the requirement for the country to require the implementation of medical countermeasures (e.g., testing, vaccines, quarantine) on their population where WHO demands it.
Of note, the proposed Article 1 amendment (removing ‘non-binding’) is actually redundant if New Article 13A and/or the changes in Article 42 remain. This can (and likely will) be removed from the final text, giving an appearance of compromise without changing the transfer of sovereignty.
All of the public health measures in Article 18, and additional ones such as limiting freedom of speech to reduce public exposure to alternative viewpoints (Annex 1, New 5 (e); “…counter misinformation and disinformation”) clash directly with the UDHR. Although freedom of speech is currently the exclusive purview of national authorities and its restriction is generally seen as negative and abusive, United Nations institutions, including the WHO, have been advocating for censoring unofficial views in order to protect what they call “information integrity.”
It seems outrageous from a human rights perspective that the amendments will enable the WHO to dictate countries to require individual medical examinations and vaccinations whenever it declares a pandemic. While the Nuremberg Code and Declaration of Helsinki refer specifically to human experimentation (e.g. clinical trials of vaccines) and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights also to the provider-patient relationship, they can reasonably be extended to public health measures that impose restrictions or changes to human behavior, and specifically to any measures requiring injection, medication, or medical examination which involve a direct provider-person interaction.
If vaccines or drugs are still under trial or not fully tested, then the issue of being the subject of an experiment is also real. There is a clear intent to employ the CEPI ‘100 day’ vaccine program, which by definition cannot complete meaningful safety or efficacy trials within that time span.
Forced examination or medication, outside of a situation where the recipient is clearly not mentally competent to comply or reject when provided with information, is unethical. Requiring compliance in order to access what are considered basic human rights under the UDHR would constitute coercion. If this does not fit the WHO’s definition of infringement on individual sovereignty, and on national sovereignty, then the DG and his supporters need to publicly explain what definition they are using.
The Proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement as a Tool to Manage Transfer of Sovereignty
The proposed pandemic agreement will set humanity in a new era strangely organized around pandemics: pre-pandemic, pandemic, and inter-pandemic. A new governance structure under WHO auspices will oversee the IHR amendments and related initiatives. It will rely on new funding requirements, including the WHO’s ability to demand additional funding and materials from countries and to run a supply network to support its work in health emergencies (Article 12):
In the event of a pandemic, real-time access by WHO to a minimum of 20% (10% as a donation and 10% at affordable prices to WHO) of the production of safe, efficacious and effective pandemic-related products for distribution based on public health risks and needs, with the understanding that each Party that has manufacturing facilities that produce pandemic-related products in its jurisdiction shall take all necessary steps to facilitate the export of such pandemic-related products, in accordance with timetables to be agreed between WHO and manufacturers.
And Article 20 (1):
… provide support and assistance to other Parties, upon request, to facilitate the containment of spill-over at the source.
The entire structure will be financed by a new funding stream separate from current WHO funding – an additional requirement on taxpayers over current national commitments (Article 20 (2)). The funding will also include an endowment of voluntary contributions of “all relevant sectors that benefit from international work to strengthen pandemic preparation, preparedness and response” and donations from philanthropic organizations (Article 20 (2)b).
Currently, countries decide on foreign aid on the basis of national priorities, apart from limited funding that they have agreed to allocate to organizations such as WHO under existing obligations or treaties. The proposed agreement is remarkable not just in greatly increasing the amount countries must give as treaty requirements, but in setting up a parallel funding structure disconnected from other disease priorities (quite the opposite of previous ideas on integration in health financing). It also gives power to an external group, not directly accountable, to demand or acquire further resources whenever it deems necessary.
In a further encroachment into what is normally within the legal jurisdiction of Nation States, the agreement will require countries to establish (Article 15) “…, no-fault vaccine injury compensation mechanism(s),…”, consecrating effective immunity for pharmaceutical companies for harm to citizens resulting from use of products that the WHO recommends under an emergency use authorization, or indeed requires countries to mandate onto their citizens.
As is becoming increasingly acceptable for those in power, ratifying countries will agree to limit the right of their public to voice opposition to the WHO’s measures and claims regarding such an emergency (Article 18):
… and combat false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through effective international collaboration and cooperation…
As we have seen during the Covid-19 response, the definition of misleading information can be dependent on political or commercial expediency, including factual information on vaccine efficacy and safety and orthodox immunology that could impair the sale of health commodities. This is why open democracies put such emphasis on defending free speech, even at the risk of sometimes being misleading. In signing on to this agreement, governments will be agreeing to abrogate that principle regarding their own citizens when instructed by the WHO.
The scope of this proposed agreement (and the IHR amendments) is broader than pandemics, greatly expanding the scope under which a transfer of decision-making powers can be demanded. Other environmental threats to health, such as changes in climate, can be declared emergencies at the DG’s discretion, if broad definitions of ‘One Health’ are adopted as recommended.
It is difficult to think of another international instrument where such powers over national resources are passed to an unelected external organization, and it is even more challenging to envision how this is seen as anything other than a loss of sovereignty. The only justification for this claim would appear to be if the draft agreement is to be signed on the basis of deceit – that there is no intention to treat it other than as an irrelevant piece of paper or something that should only apply to less powerful States (i.e. a colonialist tool).
Will the IHR Amendments and the Proposed Pandemic Agreement be Legally Binding?
Both texts are intended to be legally binding. The IHR already has such status, so the impact of the proposed changes on the need for new acceptance by countries are complicated national jurisdictional issues. There is a current mechanism for rejection of new amendments. However, unless a high number of countries will actively voice their oppositions and rejections, the adoption of the current published version dated February 2023 will likely lead to a future shadowed by the permanent risks of the WHO’s lockdown and lockstep dictates.
The proposed pandemic agreement is also clearly intended to be legally binding. WHO discusses this issue on the website of the International Negotiating Body (INB) that is working on the text. The same legally binding intent is specifically stated by the G20 Bali Leaders Declaration in 2022:
We support the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that will draft and negotiate a legally binding instrument that should contain both legally binding and non-legally binding elements to strengthen pandemic PPR…,
repeated in the 2023 G20 New Delhi Leaders Declaration:
… an ambitious, legally binding WHO convention, agreement or other international instruments on pandemic PPR (WHO CA+) by May 2024,
and by the Council of the European Union:
A convention, agreement or other international instrument is legally binding under international Law. An agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response adopted under the World Health Organization (WHO) would enable countries around the globe to strengthen national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics.
The IHR already has standing under international law.
While seeking such status, WHO officials who previously described the proposed agreement as a ‘treaty” are now insisting neither instrument impacts sovereignty. The implication that it is States’ representatives at the WHA that will agree to the transfer, rather than the WHO, is a nuance irrelevant to its claims regarding their subsequent effect.
The WHO’s position raises a real question of whether its leadership is truly ignorant of what is proposed, or is actively seeking to mislead countries and the public in order to increase the probability of acceptance. The latest version dated 30 October 2023 requires 40 ratifications for the future agreement to enter into force, after a two-thirds vote in favor within the WHA. Opposition by a considerable number of countries will therefore be needed to derail this project. As it is backed by powerful governments and institutions, financial mechanisms including IMF and World Bank instruments and bilateral aids are likely to make opposition from lower-income countries difficult to sustain.
The Implications of Ignoring the Issue of Sovereignty
The relevant question regarding these two WHO instruments should really be not whether sovereignty is threatened, but why any sovereignty would be forfeited by democratic States to an organization that is (i) significantly privately funded and bound to obey the dictates of corporations and self-proclaimed philanthropists and (ii) jointly governed by Member States, half of which don’t even claim to be open representative democracies.
If it is indeed true that sovereignty is being knowingly forfeited by governments without the knowledge and consent of their peoples, and based on false claims from governments and the WHO, then the implications are extremely serious. It would imply that leaders were working directly against their peoples’ or national interest, and in support of external interests. Most countries have specific fundamental laws dealing with such practice. So, it is really important for those defending these projects to either explain their definitions of sovereignty and democratic process, or explicitly seek informed public consent.
The other question to be asked is why public health authorities and media are repeating the WHO’s assurances of the benign nature of the pandemic instruments. It asserts that claims of reduced sovereignty are ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation,’ which they assert elsewhere are major killers of humankind. While such claims are somewhat ludicrous and appear intended to denigrate dissenters, the WHO is clearly guilty of that which it claims is such a crime. If its leadership cannot demonstrate how its claims regarding these pandemic instruments are not deliberately misleading, its leadership would appear ethically compelled to resign.
The Need for Clarification
TheWHO lists three major pandemics in the past century – influenza outbreaks in the late 1950s and 1960s, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The first two killed less than die each year today from tuberculosis, whilst the reported deaths from Covid-19 never reached the level of cancer or cardiovascular disease and remained almost irrelevant in low-income countries compared to endemic infectious diseases including tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDs.
No other non-influenza outbreak recorded by the WHO that fits the definition of a pandemic (e.g., rapid spread across international borders for a limited time of a pathogen not normally causing significant harm) has caused greater mortality in total than a few days of tuberculosis (about 4,000/day) or more life-years lost than a few days of malaria (about 1,500 children under 5 years old every day).
So, if it is indeed the case that our authorities and their supporters within the public health community consider that powers currently vested within national jurisdictions should be given over to external bodies on the basis of this level of recorded harm, it would be best to have a public conversation as to whether this is sufficient basis for abandoning democratic ideals in favor of a more fascist or otherwise authoritarian approach. We are, after all, talking about restricting basic human rights essential for a democracy to function.
David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He 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.
By Rhoda Wilson | The Exposé | November 28, 2023
The newly sworn-in New Zealand government intends not to be pushed around by UN resolutions or by the World Health Organisation anymore.
According to a coalition agreement with New Zealand First, the new government will undertake a “National Interest Test” before accepting any agreements from the United Nations or the World Health Organisation’s proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations.
To this aim, the New Zealand Cabinet must “reserve against” proposed amendments to International Health Regulations by 1 December 2023.
On Friday, centre-right National signed coalition agreements with libertarian ACT New Zealand and populist New Zealand First allowing the three parties to form a government, bringing an end to six years of left-wing governments in New Zealand.
Yesterday, New Zealand Governor General Cindy Kiro, who represents British monarch King Charles III as head of state, swore National Party leader Christopher Luxon in as New Zealand’s 42nd prime minister along with ministers of his cabinet at Government House in Wellington. Parliament is expected to sit next week and begin working on new policies.
On the day they were signed, Friday, the incoming government released its coalition agreements which outlined a number of policy plans. You can read the coalition agreement between the New Zealand National Party and ACT New Zealand HERE, and between New Zealand National Party and New Zealand First HERE.
According to the coalition agreement with New Zealand First, one of the most urgent issues the new government must address is that the Cabinet will tell officials not to agree to any policy changes suggested by the World Health Organisation (“WHO”). The coalition agreement states:
Strengthening Democracy and Freedoms
Ensure a ‘National Interest Test’ is undertaken before New Zealand accepts any agreements from the UN and its agencies that limit national decision-making and reconfirm that New Zealand’s domestic law holds primacy over any international agreements.
As part of the above, by 1 December 2023 reserve against proposed amendments to WHO health regulations to allow the incoming government to consider these against a “National Interest Test.”
Coalition Agreement between the National Party and the New Zealand First Party
Palestine Information Center – November 23, 2023
GAZA – The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza on Thursday held the Israeli occupation forces fully responsible for the lives and safety of the doctors, who were detained on Wednesday.
It announced that it will stop coordinating with World Health Organization (WHO) on the rest of evacuations until the international agency submits a report on the Israeli detention of medical personnel and until they are all released.
The spokesman of the Ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, said in a press conference at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, “The United Nations bears full responsibility for this event, and we await appropriate and urgent measures on their part to address this situation”.
He pointed out that they were informed by the United Nations about coordination with WHO to evacuate those who were present in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, which is subject to Israeli siege, raids, and destruction, and were stranded inside the hospital with no food, water, medicine, electricity, or security.
Al-Qudra explained that a convoy from the United Nations, represented by WHO, moved on Wednesday to evacuate some of the patients and medical staff who were subjected to the most horrific Nazi practices in addition to starvation.
“We were surprised that this convoy was stopped by the Israeli checkpoint separating the north from south of Gaza, for about seven hours, during which Israeli occupation forces maltreated the patients, their companions, and the medical staff, before arresting a number of them, including Director General of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya,” Al-Qudra said.
He pointed out that WHO has not yet submitted any report to the ministry to clarify what happened, including the numbers and names of detainees, stressing that the inability to communicate with Al-Shifa Medical Complex made them unable to know who was arrested.
The Ministry’s spokesman expressed his concerns over potential liquidation of those detainees.
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 15, 2023
YouTube (Google) is yet another in a series of tech behemoths that feel the need to declare their stance on content, including its effective algorithmic manipulation, just as US primaries are ushering the country into another year of presidential elections.
Beating around that bush – Google representatives now talk about processes, procedures, and tools of censorship of health-related information that, unfortunately, can easily be “repurposed” to serve other, for example, political ends.
Much of the conversation rests on what Google wants to portray as its laurels from “the previous epidemic” – which too many people and creators see from a diametrically opposed point of view, as a dark time of nearly unbridled censorship and suppression of free speech.
A video now published by Yahoo Finance reveals not only that Google has a “chief clinical officer,” but also how that officer, Michael Howell, sees the role of this super powerful tech corporation in determining what users are likely to see, see first, or see at all on a platform like YouTube.
Howell, naturally, sees nothing wrong with this and even, to all intents and purposes, brags that YouTube is working to make sure legacy media have advantage over independent creators, and that the latter may easily face censorship.
That’s the takeaway from his words, which he chose to phrase thus: YouTube works to “lift up high quality content, even as we work to lower, and make less prominent content that isn’t accurate or helpful to users.”
The whole interview is positioned as an exploration of how “misinformation grows and spreads” supposedly in sync with the amount of content and the number of users. There is even the assertion made by Yahoo that medical sector “misinformation” is not only very present among users but also “in the broader medical community.”
While this may or may not signal continued censorship of “disfavored” medical professionals, YouTube Head of Healthcare & Public Health (yes, that’s a YouTube job title these days, too) Dr. Garth Graham shared that the platform is the first to start “labeling health information that’s coming from licensed doctors, licensed nurses, licensed healthcare professionals.”
And even after all these years of sometimes completely arbitrary censorship YouTube is supposed to be taken as a “credible source of information (users) can trust” – as it works with the National Academy of Medicine and of course, the World Health Organization (WHO) to craft its definitions, and then “raise that up” – i.e., algorithmically promote, at the expense of other content.
Graham had more curious things to say, such as that while clearly committed to censoring what (or, whatever) Google decides is “delicate (sic) and dangerous information” – people are still supposed to view it as an “open platform”!
Either Graham doesn’t know what an open platform is, or he hopes YouTube/Google users don’t.
There’s also a good amount of patronizing toward those users, as in them needing to be hand-held (by Google) pretty much all the way in order to discern information from misinformation and make appropriate decisions.
“So, you know, we’re an open platform, but the real goal is how do you balance getting good information to people at the right time (…) while making sure that we remove delicate or dangerous information.”
Asked how Google has already managed (shocker) to get the government to participate in posting videos promoting their policies and what “conversations” preceded this, the Google exec said that “the entire healthcare eco-system” was already “energized” to get their message across.
And he counted the government as well as hospitals and physicians as part of this eco-system. One of them, last but not least, is the WHO.
What we know for certain from a great number of internal documents that have emerged over the past months both from Twitter and Facebook is that these two were being “led” to do certain things by the government and its agencies.
Google’s position in the interview is suggested to be the opposite – namely, at one point Howell is asked if the company basically instructed all these national and international healthcare players on what content to make, and have “trending” (mostly artificially, one might add.)
Howell dances around this question – or statement – by saying that the (pandemic) produced a community of creators from the health sector.
But as we know, many of them also got their voices silenced, however, that is not something anyone should expect Google to address.
Instead, the talk is obviously about the “approved” community of healthcare creators.
But, says Howell: “If there’s no good content out there that people want to watch, it’s very hard to show (that) content to users.”
And, cynics would say – then you write an algorithm that shoves that content into everybody’s “recommended” videos anyway.
But, Howell decided to claim that “people responded well to YouTube’s partnerships” – where that last word means, government and international bodies and institutions.
By Meryl Nass, MD | November 13, 2023
The treaty and the proposed amendments instruct nations that they must perform surveillance for potential pandemic pathogens, build or maintain sequencing labs, and both share actual specimens with the WHO (where a BioHub has been created for this purpose) and also share the sequences online. This demands the proliferation of biological weapons agents — which I believe is a crime (based on my interpretation of Security Council Resolution 1540 and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention).
1 a. The June 2, 2023 “Bureau text” version of the treaty also called for nations performing Gain-of-Function research to reduce “administrative impediments” to the work. In other words, restrictions on the research should be relaxed, which would make lab leaks more likely to occur. This paragraph was removed from the October 30, 2023 version of the treaty.
The treaty calls for a Conference of Parties and a new WHO Secretariat to be created in the future that will make rules for how the pandemic prevention and response apparatus will work—which provides essentially a blank, signed contract to the WHO to create whatever rules it wants.
The treaty calls for rapid vaccine development /production and shaving time off all aspects of vaccine development, testing and manufacture. This requires vaccines to be used without licenses, and the treaty calls for nations to have laws in place to issue Emergency Use Authorizations for this purpose, and to “manage” liability issues. See “The WHO’s Proposed Treaty will Increase Man-Made Pandemics” for more information about this. The US, EU and others have specifically called for 100-day vaccine development and an additional 30 days for production of pandemic vaccines. This would allow for no meaningful human testing.
The amendments removed “human rights, dignity and freedom of persons” from the existing IHR language. Following complaints, this phrase was later inserted into the Treaty–but the treaty may not be accepted in 2024. Meanwhile, the amendments require only a simple majority to pass, are being written in secret, and so it is likely that the most problematic issues will be found in the amendments.
Both the amendments and the treaty call for nation states to perform surveillance of their citizens’ social media, and to censor and prevent the spread of information that does not conform to the WHO’s public health narratives. Yet the treaty also calls for citizens to be free to access information, while they are to be protected from “infodemics,” which are defined as too much information. Citizens must also be stopped from spreading mis- and disinformation.
The amendments have been negotiated entirely in secret for the past nine months, while there have been multiple consecutive drafts of the pandemic treaty released to the public during that time. And while the negotiated amendments were to be tabled for public review in January, the WHO’s principal legal officer has provided a legal fig leaf to avoid the obligation of making them public 4 months ahead of the vote. Will the public even see the amendments before a vote on them occurs?
Why is there such secrecy regarding the proposed amendments?
According to the proposed amendments, the WHO D-G would be able to commandeer and move medical supplies from one country to another, decide what treatments can be used, and restrict the use of other treatments.
The amendments will come into force after a declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is made. However, a declaration of a potential PHEIC will also trigger these powers. The powers can be extended even after a PHEIC is over, as we have seen with COVID and monkeypox (MPOX) declarations by the D-G.
The treaty will be in force continuously, requiring no declaration or pandemic to confer new powers to the WHO.
See detailed report:
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 12, 2023
Given the fervor of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ crusade against “disinformation,” if one didn’t know any better, one could hardly guess that he is at the helm of UN’s health agency, the World Health Organization (WHO), rather than some “ministry of truth.”
Then again, given his own, and WHO’s role in the disastrously mishandled pandemic – when those who were to blame at national and international level discovered “misinformation” as a way to discredit any criticism – this is not so surprising.
Now Tedros writes, “We find ourselves in a time where fake news, lies, conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation are rampant.” The reason this time is the UN’s push to get countries around the world to agree to “the pandemic accord.”
The document is designed to put in place the tools to handle “the next pandemic,” but is far from limited to health issues.
Opponents have been warning that the accord also aims to introduce surveillance tools, effectively facilitate censorship, and undermine a country’s sovereignty in the decision-making processes during a health crisis by transferring a number of powers to the UN.
This last serious concern seems to rub Tedros particularly the wrong way.
There are many more aspects to losing national sovereignty than overt ones such as direct imposition of vaccination or lockdowns, but in his post Tedros chose to focus on that, to then blast critics as making claims that are “completely unfounded, untrue, nonsense and have no basis in reality.”
The WHO director-general doth protest too much, some might conclude.
Such language doesn’t just come out of nowhere; it is usually a signal that not everything is going smoothly behind the scenes, and here Tedros seems to be trying to not only persuade countries about “fake news, lies, conspiracy theories…” around this issue, but also to get them to launch propaganda campaigns in favor of the accord, ASAP.
Tedros calls this, “actively countering false narratives.”
“It is important for them to communicate with their own citizens, assuring them that this agreement explicitly protects their country’s sovereignty. There should be no room for doubt or confusion in this matter,” he wrote on X.
A post – or a whole study – explaining how exactly the proposed treaty “explicitly protects” national sovereignty would be even better as a way to leave “no room for doubt or confusion.”
That’s lacking, but efforts to promote WHO’s narratives are only increasing. Thus, Spark Street Advisors is lobbying by proposing “soft (reputational) incentives such as technical and material resources to help countries (with compliance).
Most international agreements leave it to nations to “self-report” on implementation, but here the recommendation is for the accord to set up “an independent monitoring committee, tasked with producing regular assessments of state parties’ compliance with the pandemic agreement and the timeliness, completeness and accuracy of self-reporting.”
Not sovereignty-undermining, this. Not at all.
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 2, 2023
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new draft of its troubled pandemic agreement/accord/treaty – which the agency has complained is taking too long to finalize.
The latest draft of the negotiating text, released by the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) on Monday must be considered until the INB session scheduled for November 6-10, when it should be formalized.
Some of the commitments contained in this version of the document have to do with combating “false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through effective international collaboration and cooperation” – which skeptics might easily dub, “cross-border censorship.”
And then there’s surveillance, too: something called One Health approach for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, which the draft wants to see promoted and implemented. Meanwhile, One Health is a surveillance tool that is supposed to create new methods of disease control.
Yet another point from the proposal is to “develop and strengthen pandemic prevention and public health surveillance capacities.”
Critics have many concerns and misgivings about all of this, including WHO setting up what’s known as a conference of the parties – an international convention’s top governing body – around the pandemic accord.
The fear here is that it would be one more instrument taking agency and consent away from national governments and people and transferring the decision-making processes, in this case related to health, to the world organization, specifically, WHO.
However, the draft’s chapter on institutional arrangements envisages establishing just such a conference of the parties as part of the accord’s scope.
A number of advocacy organizations from around the world have already expressed their dissatisfaction with the draft from different points of view, including how the treaty, if adopted, would impact less developed countries, while the draft itself is seen as “unbalanced.”
This last objection stems from the origin of the proposal – namely the discussions between INB Bureau and Secretariat, rather than drawing from the meetings of the INB itself.
Ignoring proposals from all countries that are supposed to implement the treaty, and allowing those with the most clout (in the Bureau) to set the tone is seen as one-sided in this sense as well.
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