US formally withdraws from World Health Organization

ISLAMABAD: The US Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy, on Saturday, announced US formal withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). 

In a post on X on Saturday, Kennedy stated: “The United States has formally withdrawn from the World Health Organization.”

“We are reclaiming our independence, protecting American sovereignty, and putting U.S. public health policy back in the hands of the American people,” the post stated.

In his video message accompanying the post, Secretary Kennedy stated: “On Thursday, the United States formally withdrew from the World Health Organization. We made this decision to reclaim our independence, to protect American sovereignty, and to free our public health policy from a system that no longer serves the American people.”

Covid pandemic 

He said, “The World Health Organization has lost its way. It's drifted far from its founding mission, and it's become mired in bureaucracy, in conflicts of interest, and in international power politics. During the COVID pandemic, those failures weren't just abstract. They were deadly.”

“The world watched as transparency collapsed, accountability disappeared, and ordinary citizens paid the price. That hasn't changed, and it isn't improving.”

Kennedy said, “President Trump recognized the problems with WHO immediately. In fact, one of his very first executive orders of his second term began the formal process of withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. It was an early decisive signal that American health policy would answer to the American people and not to foreign bureaucracies.”

‘America will continue to lead’ 

He further stated: “Going forward, US engagement with the WHO will be limited solely to completing our withdrawal and safeguarding the health and safety of the American people. All US funding has ended. All government US personnel have stopped working there.”

Kennedy said: “I believe this deeply, that only the United States has the scale, the innovation, and the leadership to drive global health solutions that put people first, starting with our own citizens.” 

“Although we are withdrawing from the WHO, America will never withdraw from its leadership in global health. America will continue to lead. We will lead with science, with integrity, and with transparency, and with accountability.” 

“And let me say this clearly. For the Americans who died alone in nursing homes, the small businesses that were destroyed by reckless mandates, the families whose lives were upended by unelected foreign officials who never answered to them, this decision is for you,” he concluded.