International Health Regulations Amendment
Member states will vote on whether to amend the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Health Regulations between May 22-28.
The move to amend International Health Regulations is being led by the Biden administration, which sent a proposal (Provisional agenda item 16.2) to the World Health Assembly on January 18 — this wasn’t made public until April 12.
Biden administration is recommending the following:
1)intensifying the surveillance of all countries and their citizens; creating a global communication network that is periodically (if not constantly) in a state of assessing risks and reporting to the WHO;
2)giving the WHO the authority to tell other member states when one member state isn’t reporting in and recommending they take action (i.e., the WHO will snitch on non-compliant countries);
3)giving Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus the authority to declare when a pandemic or emergency is occurring;
4)giving the WHO the authority to determine what steps a country should take in its pandemic response;
5)and giving the WHO the ability to mobilize capital in the event of a pandemic.
WHO will not be required to consult with the identified nation beforehand to “verify” the event before taking action.
The amendments require a response in 24 hours from the identified nation, or WHO will identify it as “rejection” and act independently (Article 10.3).
If the identified nation “does not accept the offer of collaboration within 48 hours, WHO shall… immediately share with the other State Parties the information available to it…” (Article 10.4).”
“…. Under the proposed regulations, WHO itself would develop and update “early warning criteria for assessing and progressively updating the national, regional, or global risk posed by an event of unknown causes or sources…” (New article 5).
Notice that the health-endangering event may be so nonspecific as to have “unknown causes or sources.” Thus, Tedros and any future Director-Generals of WHO will be given unrestricted powers to define and then implement their interventions.”
“The proposed regulations, in combination with existing ones, allow action to be taken by WHO, “If the Director-General considers, based on an assessment under these Regulations, that a potential or actual public health emergency of international concern is occurring…” (Article 12.2). That is, Tedros need only “consider” that a “potential or actual” risk is occurring.”
It should be noted that these amendments are not the same as the WHO’s proposed global pandemic treaty, which remains a looming and greater threat to national sovereignty.
https://thecountersignal.com/who-to-amend-international-health-regulations/
So I think its a good time to look into the recent history of the International Health Regulations which are LEGALLY BINDING in all respects except where Member States state Formal Reservations in advance
The 1969 IHR originally addressed only cholera, plague, and yellow fever before the 2005 revision broadened the scope to any public health emergency of international concern.
US representatives were actively involved in the discussions and issued a statement of support upon passage of the regulations. According to the statement,
“The United States believes that the revised IHRs will provide an effective mechanism to respond to new global public health threats.”
The assembly comprises representatives of the 192 members of the World Health Organization (WHO). Members voted to expand the circumstances under which national health authorities must report disease occurrence to international authorities.
The regulations in their earlier form monitored and controlled just six diseases – cholera, plague, yellow fever, smallpox, relapsing fever and typhus, according to a WHO press release.
WHO published its first global pandemic influenza preparedness plan in 1999, two years after the detection of the first human cases of avian influenza A (H5N1) in Hong Kong SAR . The plan was updated in 2005 and again in April 2009 .
The 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak and more recent experiences with the spread of avian flu provided the impetus to update the regulations to apply to a wider range of diseases.
William Steiger, with the Department of Health and Human Services, was one of the chief U.S. negotiators in the process. He said in a May 17 press briefing that the expanded list of diseases is an important change
The new regulations bring disease control into the 21st century," said Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO assistant director-general in charge of communicable diseases. "With this framework, we can now support the work of countries in controlling outbreaks more effectively. The regulations provide WHO with new, clearly defined roles and responsibilitiesas we help countries to respond to disease outbreaks."
Submission of Concerns and Intent to issue Reservations
May 23, 2005
STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD BY THE
GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONCERNING THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION’S
REVISED INTERNATIONAL HEALTH REGULATIONS
The United States agrees with other Member States that the current International Health Regulations (IHRs) are insufficient in view of today’s rapid, high-volume international migration, emerging infections, and threats of terrorism. Accordingly, the United States has participated actively in the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) and in sub-regional and regional meetings. The United States believes that the revised IHRs will provide an effective mechanism to respond to new global public health threats in a manner that is consistent with the principles embodied in Article 3.
We attach particular importance to the universal application of the IHRs for the protection of all people of the world from the international spread of disease. The United States is pleased with the work of the IGWG and the cooperation and flexibility of negotiating partners and fully supports the adoption of the text of the revised IHRs that was approved by the Working Group on May 14.
The United States, however, has several concerns regarding the final text of the revised IHRs. Therefore, the United States makes this statement regarding the concerns set forth below and, at the appropriate time, will submit formal understandings and a reservation in relation to these concerns.
FEDERALISM
For the record, the United States sought a provision that would explicitly recognize the right of federal states to implement the IHRs in a manner that is consistent with the division of rights and responsibilities existing in their constitutionally mandated systems of government.
Unfortunately, the IGWG did not accept this straightforward request.
Accordingly, the United States will submit a narrowly tailored reservation in accordance with Article 62 of the IHRs that will clarify that the United States will implement the IHRs in a manner consistent with our federal system of government.
The United States also states for the record of this meeting that with respect to the United States, the Federal government will implement the IHRs to the extent it exercises jurisdiction over the matters covered therein. Otherwise, our state and local governments will implement them. To the extent that state and local governments in the United States exercise jurisdiction over such matters, the Federal Government will take measures appropriate to our Federal system to facilitate the implementation of these Regulations.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov
)
https://web.archive.org/web/20070113064728/http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=May&x=20050523150433cmretrop0.6263849
Formal Reservation
https://web.archive.org/web/20140821153121/https://www.who.int/ihr/usa.pdf?ua=1
Reservation (meaning)
https://web.archive.org/web/20050203112219/https://www.who.int/gb/ghs/pdf/IHR_IGWG2_ID2-en.pdf
Shortly after the revised IHR came into effect in 2007 we experienced the first Pandemic in over 40 years in 2009 (assuming we accept 1968 and 1957 as Pandemics because nobody even knew it was a Pandemic until it was over with (CFR<0.2%)
.
By the terms of the regulations, all member states should currently have in place a National IHR Focal Point for communication, should complete assessments of their disease surveillance capacity by the summer of 2009
WHO has had a pandemic planning and guidance document available since 1999. In 2005, WHO revised the document in response to the threat of avian influenza. This document was revised and rereleased in April 2009
Great timing
On March 18, 2009, surveillance systems in Mexico alerted authorities to an unusual number of cases of influenza-like illness which was later identified as a novel strain of influenza A virus (H1N1).
As of May 26, this con-tagious virus has spread to 46 countries, accounting for ≈13,000 cases. By August >90 deaths caused by this virus occurred, most of which have been in Mexico
One online WHO document described pandemics as causing “enormous numbers of deaths and illness”, while the official definition of a pandemic was based only on the degree of spread.
When, without notice or explanation, WHO altered some of its online documents to be more consistent with its intended definition of a pandemic, the Organization invited suspicion of a surreptitious shift in definition rather than an effort to make its descriptions of a pandemic more precise and consistent.
Reluctance to acknowledge its part in allowing misunderstanding of the intended definition fuelled suspicion of the Organization.
On 4 May 2009, WHO’s web narrative stated
“An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness. With the increase in global transport, as well as urbanization and overcrowded conditions, epidemics due to the new influenza virus are likely to quickly take hold around the world.”
Later the same day, WHO altered its web-based description of what to expect in a pandemic, eliminating references to the expected severity of a pandemic, and left no indication on the web site that the change had been made.
Further modifications were made on 5 May, when the following statements were inserted:
• “A disease epidemic occurs when there are more cases of that disease than normal. A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic of a disease.”
• “Pandemics can be either mild or severe in the illness and death they cause, and the severity of a pandemic can change over the course of the pandemic ...”
• “If the pandemic evolved to become severe and widespread over time, we could also expect...”
• “Effective pandemic preparedness around the world is essential to mitigate the effects of a pandemic, particularly if it becomes severe.”
According to WHO estimates, between 2.0 and 7.4 million could die -- assuming the pandemic was relatively mild. But if the new virus proved to be as aggressive as the one that triggered the Spanish Flu in 1918, the death toll could run to the tens of millions.
"We wanted to overestimate rather than underestimate the situation," says Fukuda.
[The number of lab-confirmed deaths reported to the WHO ended up at 18,449 .The WHO collaborated with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(USCDC) and Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL) to produce two independent estimates of the influenza deaths that occurred during the global pandemic using two distinct methodologies. The 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic is estimated to have actually caused about 284,000 (range from 150,000 to 575,000) excess deaths by the WHO-USCDC study
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic ]
Interestingly, experts expected the H1N1 pandemic to be in addition to the regular seasonal flu, but the seasonal flu did not show up this year. There were essentially no cases of seasonal flu. There is still no clear answer as to why, and it will probably take a couple of years to sort that out.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/who-h1n1-and-conflicts-of-interest/
Manufacturers of flu remedies and vaccines funded the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza, which regularly held conferences and meetings of experts. The lobbying group was headed by Albert Osterhaus of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who also happened to be one of the WHO's most influential advisors on influenza vaccines.
Together with Osterhaus, Johannes Löwer was asked to provide Director-General Chan with recommendations on the subject of swine flu vaccination. The then president of the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), which specializes in vaccines, is now convinced that he and his fellow experts were probably too strongly influenced by the horror scenarios swirling around the avian flu. "We expected a real pandemic, and we thought that it had to happen. There was no one who suggested re-thinking our approach."
On June 11, 2009 when the Pandemic (Phase 6) was declared critics were asking derisively whether the WHO had any plans to declare the latest outbreak of the common cold a pandemic. "Sometimes some of us think that WHO stands for World Hysteria Organization," says Richard Schabas, the former chief medical officer for Canada's Ontario Province.
BTW-The COVID pandemic was declared on March 11. Something sure is special about the number ELeven
Phase 6 acted as a switch that would allow bells on the industry's cash registers to ring, risk-free. That's because many pandemic vaccine contracts had already been signed. Germany, for example, signed an agreement with the British firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2007 to buy its pandemic vaccine -- as soon as phase 6 was declared.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/reconstruction-of-a-mass-hysteria-the-swine-flu-panic-of-2009-a-682613.html
Guidelines recommending governments stockpile antiviral drugs were issued by WHO in 2004.
The advice prompted many countries around the world into buying up large stocks of Tamiflu, made by Roche, and Relenza manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
The BMJ, in a joint investigation with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, found that three scientists involved in putting together the 2004 guidance had previously been paid by Roche or GSK for lecturing and consultancy work as well as being involved in research for the companies.
Although the scientists involved had freely declared the links in other places and said WHO asked for conflicts of interest forms prior to expert meetings, the ties were not publically declared by WHO.
During the Swine Flu Pandemic a request to see conflict of interest declarations was turned down. In addition, membership of the "emergency committee" which advised WHO's director general Margaret Chan on declaring an influenza pandemic was kept secret until the Pandemic was declared over on August 10, 2010
https://www.bbc.com/news/10235558
The pharma industry made between seven and 10 billion euros ($10-15 billion) in 2009 from the sales of swine flu related drugs, according to JP Morgan.
https://www.pharmatimes.com/news/swine_flu_labelled_a_conspiracy_984175
This was just a warm up for the 2020 Pandemic.
And history seems to suggest that after the International Health Regulations are revised and the Pandemic Treaty gets approved the next Pandemics will be Bigger and more Profitable
What could the next one be? Monkey Pox, African Swine Fever, Small Pox, Influenza?
Researchers conducting surveillance on pigs in China found genotype 4 (G4) Eurasian avian-like H1N1 viruses have been detected since 2016, as they reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The strain has genes from a mix of pig, avian and human viruses and genes from the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic virus. Genetic material can mix in an animal host through a process called reassortment, creating a new virus, according to Flor M. Munoz, M.D., M.Sc., FAAP, a member of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases.
The new strain appears to grow well in human airway epithelial cells and possesses “all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans,” according to the study.
Testing of 338 swine workers in China found 10% had evidence of a past infection. There are no reports of person-to-person transmission, but experts say the virus may continue to adapt and mutate.
In July 2020, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called the straina “potential pandemic concern,” because of its novelty. Humans don’t have immunity to this new virus, and it is too different from seasonal flu vaccine strains for these vaccines to be effective. However, it has not been found in humans or pigs in the U.S.
https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/8160
https://nemo.guide/blog/2022/05/16/swine-fever-wild-boar-piglet-found-decapitated-in-rome-park/
Monkey Pox
Small Pox
Your guess is a good as mine