Proposed amendments to World Health Organization (WHO) regulations would give the WHO the power to impose lockdowns, border closures, and other mandates.
WHO pandemic treaty could impose lockdown on UK, ministers fear | The Telegraph - Tony Diver:
May 25, 2023 - "Lockdown measures could be imposed on the UK by the World Health Organisation (WHO) during a future pandemic under sweeping new powers, ministers fear. Member states would be obliged to follow the agency’s instructions when responding to pandemics, including by introducing vaccine passports, border closures and quarantine measures, under a draft update to its regulations. A new 'pandemic treaty' under discussion would also force Britain to spend five per cent of its health budget on preparing for another virus outbreak.
"Ministers are understood to be alarmed by plans to increase the WHO’s powers enabling its governing body to require countries to hand over the recipe of vaccines, regardless of intellectual property rights, and to counter misinformation. Conservative MPs have written to ministers to warn of an 'ambition evident … for the WHO to transition from an advisory organisation to a controlling international authority'. In their letter ... they urge the Foreign Office to block powers that 'appear to intrude materially into the UK’s ability to make its own rules and control its own budgets'.
"Responding to the concerns on Thursday, Andrew Mitchell, a Foreign Office minister, told The Telegraph that he would block any law that prevents the UK from setting its own health policy. 'The UK is supportive of the pandemic treaty currently being negotiated by national governments,' ... he said. 'We’re clear that we would never agree to anything that crosses our points of principle on sovereignty or prevents the UK from taking decisive action against future pandemics.'
"The rule changes have been proposed as part of plans to update the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHRs) in light of the coronavirus pandemic and establish a new Pandemic Preparedness Treaty. The treaty was first proposed by world leaders including Boris Johnson in 2021 during the pandemic and was originally designed to improve alert systems, data-sharing and the production of vaccines....
"But among 300 proposed amendments to the IHRs are changes to make the WHO’s advice 'binding' and introduce a new requirement for countries to ... 'recognise WHO as the guidance and coordinating authority of international public health response…and undertake to follow WHO’s recommendations in their international public health response'. If passed, the change would mean the WHO could enforce border closures, quarantine measures and vaccine passports on all member countries, including the UK. A draft of the treaty itself would commit member states to spending five per cent of their health budgets, plus a proportion of GDP, to pandemic preparedness.
"Six conservative MPs led by Esther McVey, the former Cabinet minister, have written to Mr Mitchell to call for a Commons vote on the draft treaty and regulations before they are signed. Ms McVey said:... 'The plans represent a significant shift for the organisation, from a member-led advisory body to a health authority with powers of compulsion. This is particularly worrying when you consider the WHO’s poor track record on providing consistent, clear and scientifically sound advice for managing international disease outbreaks'....
"Campaigners also expressed concern about increasing the WHO’s role in identifying misinformation.... Molly Kingsley, co-founder of the UsForThem campaign group, said: “We should all be concerned about the WHO being ordained as an arbiter of pandemic truth, especially given its poor record during the pandemic, such as its claim that Covid was definitively zoonotic in origin and its April 2020 denial of the role of natural immunity in protecting against infection.”
Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/25/who-pandemic-treaty-lockdown-uk-ministers-fear/
WHO new treaty | Dr. John Campbell | April 27, 2023:
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