2022 WHO INB: pandemic preparedness and response

In December 2021, WHO Member States agreed to establish an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement, or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

In April 2022 the PSGR submitted to the first public hearing (250 words max):

“What substantive elements do you think should be included in a new international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response?”

April 13, 2022 PSGR’s submission text:

The WHO has a special role to protect health. Risk for infectious and non-infectious disease is determined by economic, social and environmental drivers. The most important role the WHO can prioritise is critical work to safeguard the health of infants and children by assisting nation-states to promote of safe, ancestral and indigenous wholefood diets and to prioritise the protection of drinking water.

NGO investment in the WHO results the WHO undertaking specific directed activities. Such activities require the acceptance of a technology or medicine and risk eroding the high status of the WHO. Further encroachment by technological & medical centric institutions intent upon providing surveillance, data management and medical interventions place the WHO’s reputation at grave risk. Generations of remote autocratic direction has been particularly burdensome on indigenous societies. Compulsory surveillance and medication can be referred to as medical colonisation.

If the WHO becomes globally responsible for pandemic preparedness and response powerful non-government institutions will strategically and relentlessly lobby the WHO. Regulatory capture is the likely outcome.

Nation-states must have autonomy to reject WHO decisions. Individual nations are best placed to navigate complex, ambiguous and value laden environments required to protect public health. In infectious and non-infectious disease pandemics all the authority, decision-making and policy must be retained with nation-states.

Critical to WHO independence is:

1. Removal of financial funding of the WHO from non-government institutions

2. Assurance that data used to support policy and decision-making in pandemic events is transparent and available for review by public health experts.

The PSGR unfortunately missed the Second Round which asked

“Based on your experience with the COVID-19 pandemic, what do you believe should be addressed at the international level to better protect against future pandemics?”

April 13, 2022 PSGR’s submission text:

Information