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Much has been made of the draft of the International Health Regulations released last week.  Although some changes have been made and some wording moved around, the World Health Organisation’s (“WHO’s”) plans are the same as they were before.

This week, from 22 and 26 April, the 8th meeting of WHO’s Working Group on the International Health Regulations (2005) (“WGIHR”) is convening. The WGIHR’s task has been to incorporate 300+ proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (“IHR”).

Please note that there are two instruments that WHO is attempting to have ratified at the next World Health Assembly taking place from 27 May to 1 June 2024: the IHR amendments; and, the Pandemic Treaty, also referred to as the Pandemic Accord, Pandemic Agreement and WHO Convention Agreement + (“WHO CA+”).  Both instruments are intended to achieve the same aim.  The Globalists require only one of them to be adopted next month to achieve their aims.

Although there have been several drafts of the proposed Pandemic Treaty, there has been little official information released regarding the IHR amendments.  The proposed 300+ amendments to the IHR were released in February 2023 and, a year later, an unofficial draft of the amended IHR was leaked, in February 2024.

Last week, on 17 April, the WGIHR released another draft of the proposed amended IHR labelled ‘Proposed Bureau’s text for Eighth WGIHR Meeting, 22–26 April 2024’.

With the release of this draft, it appears as if WHO has taken out some of the more controversial provisions.  While some have claimed WHO is “backing down” and this is a “major victory for freedom,” they may have been too hasty.

Related: Dr. Meryl Nass: WHO’s pandemic plans are built on lies and misdirection

Dr. Meryl Nass, who has been following WHO’s negotiations and various drafts of both the IHR amendments and Pandemic Treaty closely, has said: “The current language has been watered down, and is a bit trickier to disentangle, but the plan is exactly the same.”

Referring readers to an article published on Door to Freedom comparing the latest draft of the amended IHR to the currently applicable IHR, Dr. Nass wrote on her Substack:

People said surveillance and censorship: control of misinformation and disinformation had been removed. Not so. They are just moved to an Annex and inserted elsewhere … The control of information is now even more stringent, as “surveillance” and managing misinformation are now considered “Core Capacities” that all nations will have to develop, and on which they will be scored using a monitoring system still to be developed.

So what if the term “non-binding” is no longer crossed out? The document is still binding on nations due to other language, the requirement to report back to the WHO on how well nations are complying, and the new compliance and implementation committee, which will ride herd on nations that do not comply.

Human rights, which were crossed out in the earlier draft, are now back. This shows you that those negotiating these treaties think your human rights are negotiable and can be given or taken away with the stroke of a pen.

The language stating that the WHO [Director-General] could designate potential pandemics has been replaced with likely pandemics. A weasel way of saying the same thing.

Door to Freedom team shines a light on how little has really changed in the new version of the April 2024 amended IHR, Dr. Meryl Nass, 24 April 2024

It is worthwhile reading Dr. Nass’ article in full to understand how the WGIHR has tried to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes with its latest IHR draft.

Bearing the above in mind, in the video below TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer interviewed Professor Carl Heneghan on Tuesday about the World Health Organisation’s latest draft IHR and its pandemic plans.  Unfortunately, Hartley-Brewer mistakenly thought the new draft indicates a “massive climb down” and a “huge victory for democracy, free speech and human rights” – which is not the case.

Sharing the interview above, Trust the Evidence (“TTE”), for which Prof. Heneghan is a co-author, published the following article.

WHO pandemic Treaty; Are sovereign states going to sign up?

By Dr. Tom Jefferson and Professor Carl Heneghan

In March 2021, world leaders, including UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, announced a new pandemic preparedness and response treaty.

In November 2022, a petition garnered over 150,000 signatures calling for the Government “to commit to not signing any international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness established by the WHO, unless this is approved through a public referendum.” 

The petition was  on 17 April 2023. The government’s response was: “To protect lives, the economy and future generations from future pandemics, the UK government supports a new legally binding instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.” The Government did not consider a referendum necessary, appropriate, or in keeping with precedent for such an agreement to be ratified.

A year later, the World Health Organisation held the final working group meeting to amend the 2005 International Health Regulations (“IHR”). 

The IHR is an international instrument legally binding on all World Health Organisation (“WHO”) Member States. Its purpose and scope are to prevent, protect against, control, and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease.

The text has been amended approximately 300 times. The latest revisions include additions and deletions that must be agreed upon before the final vote to approve them at the World Health Assembly in late May.

It’s taking the TTE office some time to process these regulations, but four interlocking definitions are of the utmost importance: early action alert, public health emergency of international concern, pandemic emergency and pandemic.

The new definitions start with an early action alert, which means information and non-binding advice issued by the Director-General to States Parties on an event which, at the time of the consideration under paragraph 4 of Article 12, they have determined does not constitute a public health emergency of international concern. 

Non-binding advice means that as we go up the scale, the advice will be binding – a legally enforceable agreement. 

“Public health emergency of international concern” means an extraordinary event which is determined, as provided in these Regulations: 

(i) to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and 

(ii) to potentially require a coordinated international response.

If the Director-General determines, in accordance with paragraph 4, that an event does not constitute a public health emergency of international concern, the Director-General shall issue an early action alert that includes advice to States Parties on preparing for and responding to the event. 

We could easily find ourselves in an annual cycle of public health emergencies of international concern or early action alerts. Particularly given that acute respiratory pathogens give rise to a public health risk each year and spread globally, the whiff of the industry is all over the need for a coordinated international response. Just think of vaccines; then, the international reaction is on the table. 

Now, we get to the pandemic emergency. 

“pandemic emergency” means a public health emergency of international concern that is infectious in nature and: 

(i) is, or is likely to be, spreading to and within multiple States Parties across WHO Regions; and 

(ii) is exceeding, or is likely to exceed, the capacity of health systems to respond in those States Parties; and 

(iii) is causing, or is likely to cause, social and/or economic and/or political disruption in those States Parties; and 

(iv) requires rapid, equitable and enhanced coordinated international action, with whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches. 

TTE may have mentioned that in the UK, we often find ourselves in a winter crisis where a respiratory agent or two will likely exceed the capacity of the NHS to respond. Furthermore, who decides what social and economic disruptions are required to call a pandemic emergency? Perhaps if you’ve got no money left in the government piggy bank, that’s enough to sound the Pandemic emergency siren. 

Once you decipher the need for coordinated international action, with whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, you start to think of vaccines, antiviral stockpiles, and, if we fancy it, a bit of lockdown and some “enforced” surveillance to boot. 

We do not know whether SARS-CoV-2 caused the disruption, but we know that the “measures” or actions did. How, pray, would WHO describe the current situation in Italy where psychologists and psychiatrists cannot cope with the volume of disturbed youngsters? Is “Whole of society” a euphemism for locking people up? It has a faint whiff of Stalinism about it.

Rapid, equitable, and enhanced are thrown in to detract from the fact that while most health systems are buckling under the weight of chronic disease, whatever these words mean, it is going to cost a fortune. 

Finally, we get to the real reason WHO is pursuing the amendments – the definition of the pandemic.

“pandemic” means a public health emergency of international concern that is infectious in nature and: 

(i) has spread and is spreading to and within multiple States Parties across WHO Regions; and 

(ii) is exceeding the capacity of health systems to respond in those States Parties; and 

(iii) is causing social and/or economic and/or political disruption in those States Parties; and 

(iv) requires rapid, equitable and enhanced coordinated international action, with whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches.

By this definition, you might consider the recent covid pandemic wasn’t actually a pandemic, as at no point did it exceed the capacity of health systems to respond. However, roll out a model or two, and suddenly you’ll be overwhelmed: Imperial’s Report 9 predicted ICU bed demand would be 30 times greater than the maximum number of beds available in the UK and USA. That should do it. 

As for economic disruption, the last pandemic has put us in a permanent state of debt that will take decades to overcome. But don’t worry – whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches will save the day. 

They could make the whole regulations a lot easier to understand if they wrote, “A pandemic is whatever the WHO Director-General declares is a pandemic” – that should be straightforward enough for our elected representatives to understand.

But apart from these marginal issues, all else is OK. WHO cares about sovereignty? Certainly not WHO.

This post will not self-delete or self-destruct and is not Teflon coated or commercial in confidence. If you criticise it, you will not get a knock on the door at 3 am.

Readings

World Health Organisation. Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (WGIHR).  Link: Proposed Bureau’s text for Eighth WGIHR Meeting, 22–26 April 2024. 

About the Authors

Carl Heneghan is a professor of Evidence-based Medicine at the University of Oxford, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (“CEBM”) and NHS Urgent Care general practitioner (“GP”) who regularly appears in the media. Tom Jefferson is a clinical epidemiologist and a Senior Associate Tutor at the University of Oxford.  Together they publish articles on a Substack page titled ‘Trust the Evidence’.

Featured image: WHO chief: Covid won’t be the last pandemic, Times of Israel, 27 December 2020