Thinking Citizen Blog — The US Withdraws From The World Health Organization: Why? So What? Who Cares? Who Should?

John Muresianu
4 min readJan 23, 2025

--

Thinking Citizen Blog: Thursday is Health, Health Care, and Global Health Policy Day

Today’s Topic: The US Withdraws from the World Health Organization: why? so what? who cares? who should?

Just eight hours after taking the oath of office, President Trump issued an executive order announcing the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization.

Is Trump sowing the seeds of the next global pandemic? or not? has the US historically contributed a disproportionate share to WHO’s funding? What would a proportionate share be? Today a few notes.

What do you know about the WHO that the rest of us should know, but may well not?

Was the eradication of small pox the WHO’s greatest single achievement? Is the estimate that global immunization efforts have saved 154 million lives since 1974 a reasonable estimate?

By the way, that translates to “6 lives every minute every year.”

Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

THE RATIONALE FOR THE WITHDRAWAL IN THE TEXT OF THE EXECUTIVE ORDER

1. “The organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China and, other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate poliltical influence of WHO member. states.”

2. “In addition, the WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.”

3. “China with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300% of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90% less to the WHO.” ????? How does the math work here?

“THIS IS THE DARKEST DAY FOR GLOBAL HEALTH I’VE EVER EXPERIENCED” (Lawrence Goslin, professor of global health, Georgetown University)

1. “The biennial budget of WHO is about $6.8 billion.”

2. The work of the WHO includes: “bringing aid to war-torn areas like Gaza and tracking emerging epidemics like Zika, Ebola and Covid-19.”

3. “It will take some time for the United States to withdraw. A joint resolution adopted by Congress at the agency’s founding addressed a potential withdrawal, and requires the Unite States to give a year’s notice and pay its financial obligations for the current fiscal year.”

IS THE WHO A “PUPPET OF CHINA”? WHAT DOES THE WHO DO?

1. Founded in 1948.

2. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland with six regional offices.

3. Director General: Tedros Adhanom Ghebrevesus (1965 — ) Ethiopian, in office since 2017.

Withdrawing The United States From The World Health Organization — The White House

Trump Withdraws U.S. From World Health Organization

Trump orders US exit from World Health Organization

Coronavirus: Trump accuses WHO of being a ‘puppet of China’

World Health Organization (WHO)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tedros_Adhanom_Ghebreyesus

Thinking Citizen Blog — The WHO — a Mixed Bag

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?

LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY

Updated PDFs — Google Drive

ATTACHMENTS BELOW:

#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).

#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)

#3 Israel-Palestine Handout

NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)

YOUR TURN

Please share the most interesting thing you learned in the last week related to health, health care or health care policy — the ethics, economics, politics, history….

Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to health are or health care policy that the rest of us may have missed.

Or just some random health-related fact that blew you away.

This is your chance to make someone’s day. Or to cement in your mind something really important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that matters.

--

--

John Muresianu
John Muresianu

Written by John Muresianu

Passionate about education, thinking citizenship, art, and passing bits on of wisdom of a long lifetime.

No responses yet