President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization, finishing what he started during his first term when his administration formally began exiting the WHO amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In his order, the president said the WHO “ripped off” the U.S., the largest funder of the organization and a major contributor to its work. Trump also accused the organization of mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic, of being politically influenced by other members like China and of not adopting “urgently needed” reforms.
But many public health experts say withdrawal makes the U.S. and other countries less safe from infectious disease and other threats.
“Leaving the World Health Organization has enormous implications for the United States,” Perry Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, said Wednesday in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “If you think about the WHO as a collection of countries that inform each other and help each other during health crises, then we are choosing to not be part of that group. It is an effective network of sharing information, of letting each other know about infectious diseases that are emerging, letting each other know about humanitarian crises that are existing and then collectively working as nations of the world to help solve those problems.” To read the full story.