Yes, the US should withdraw from the World Health Organization

The WHO is not a science based organization and we shouldn't pay 1.2 billion for politically charged opinions

Last week, Reuters reported that Trump plans on US withdrawal from the World Health Organization as soon as he takes office. Let me be clear: this is a good thing. The WHO repeatedly failed during the covid pandemic. Moreover, these errors are not just in retrospect, there were specific scientific studies that they could have coordinated that they chose not to. Meanwhile, the US pays their salaries. Allow me to build the case for withdrawal here.

When faced with crisis health situations, sometimes you have to take action before you have evidence. No one disputes that. However, if the crisis continues, month after month, year after year, and you fail to generate evidence, then you are not deserving of trust. That is what the WHO did.

#1 Lockdowns

The World Health organization pushed an unprecedented and draconian restriction— that democratic governments can use the police estate to restrict movement. To date, no persuasive evidence has shown this led to benefits. There is in fact evidence to suggest it cause collateral damage, particularly in poor nations, and did little to slow the pandemic spread.

When faced with fearful messaging, many people voluntarily change their behavior. Some people do not. These people make complex calculations. For instance, is it worth it to see a loved one, even though it means some risk. Lockdowns mean that the government prohibits these exceptional cases. There is simply no evidence that this improves outcomes, and slows spread. And WHO never coordinated a study that would settle the question.

Available mobility data from border regions, where one has lockdown and one does not, repeatedly fails to find an on average difference in movement. That fact alone means that lockdown is likely incapable of changing on average outcomes. All it does is use the police state to brutalize people making exceptional choices. Those are prohibited in one region, but not the other.

The WHO’s failure was not saying lockdowns are permissable. It is that the organization has done nothing substantive to evaluate the policy.

#2 Masking kids

The WHO

Although the WHO is not as irrational and dishonest as US groups that recommended masking 2 year olds, they recommending masking 6 year olds. For 5 years, they ran zero studies to see if this works. We do not know if this policy helps.

#3 Test trace isolate, the WHO

After 5 years, we have no data that this strategy improved outcomes for a virus like covid. Perhaps it would work for a virus with short incubation period and no asymptomatic disease. WHO has no idea because again, they ran no studies.

#4 WHO repeatedly lied about vaccination being able to halt covid transmission

If WHO wanted, it could have run built in asymptomatic testing of family members to the initial randomized control trials of the vaccines. It could have advocated for this. This would have tested if it snowed or halted transmission. WHO could have run longer term studies. They did no such thing.

The World Health Organization essentially embraced policy positions that were favored by left-leaning, technocratic, experts in the United States, including Anthony Fauci. They did not conduct appropriate studies to base their policy decisions on.

These policy decisions had implications for global elections, and political processes. The WHO repeatedly gave the same opinion as Democrats without generating evidence to validate that opinion.

The US meanwhile is the largest funder. Spending hundreds of millions to billions per annum. In return, we get opinions rather than evidence.

The US cannot be anchored to a health body that does not utilize the best available science. In a future calamity, we need to run large, non-conflicted, randomized studies on a number of important questions. If these studies are not run a timely fashion, then the state should cede its authority, and stop all mandates.

Given that public health is enriched with individuals of a strong left leaning political view, the potential for organizations like WHO to weaponize their policy to hurt political rivals is too great to tolerate. In fact, many of the WHO positions likely hurt Trump in the 2020 election.

Public Health has a duty to generate evidence to guide its policies. The WHO failed that duty. The US must withdraw. We can't pay for more opinions that aren't evidence based. We already pay for the CDC.