by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News July 18, 2025
The U.S. departments of State and Health and Human Services have formally rejected a planned expansion of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) power during public health emergencies.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the U.S. will not abide amendments to the International Health Regulations adopted by the World Health Assembly which would expand the WHO’s power.
“The amended IHR would give the WHO the ability to order global lockdowns, travel restrictions, or any other measures it sees fit to respond to nebulous ‘potential public health risks,'” and the regulations were set to become binding on the U.S. on July 19 regardless of its withdrawal from the WHO, the departments said in a statement on Friday.
The amendments would infringe on domestic public health responses and do not “adequately address the WHO’s susceptibility to the political influence and censorship – most notably from China – during outbreaks,” the statement says.
They also “suggest that countries develop capabilities that jeopardize management and dissemination controls over public health information, potentially stifling valuable scientific debate,” and they “compel countries to adopt digital health documents.”
Kennedy said the amendments “open the door to the kind of narrative management, propaganda, and censorship that we saw during the Covid pandemic,” and the U.S. can cooperate internationally “without jeopardizing our civil liberties, without undermining our Constitution, and without ceding away America’s treasured sovereignty.”
Rubio said the amendments’ terminology is “vague and broad, risking WHO-coordinated international responses that focus on political issues like solidarity, rather than rapid and effective actions.”
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