Exclusive: Rep. Chris Smith Warns About Biden’s Plan to Empower W.H.O.

Republican Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) told Breitbart News that Joe Biden’s effort to amend  the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) will give the United Nation’s World Health Organization (W.H.O.) and its director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus more power to oversee how countries handle health emergencies, including jurisdiction over the United States.

“Right now, there has to be an equal collaboration between the WHO and the country where there’s an emergency health issue,” Smith said. “This now changes all of that it and says W.H.O. has the exclusive right to declare health emergencies.”

This would be done by an emergency committee, whose members would be appointed by the W.H.O. director.

“If [the W.H.O.] thought the United States of America had some kind of health crisis, they could demand that we take action because they have the the ability to propose … a remedy,” Smith said.

“We have sophisticated capabilities here in the United States to detect and combat diseases in emergencies,” Smith said. “Why would we say we want unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats and one in particular, because the Director General gathers far more power than he has ever had if these Biden recommended amendments go through.”

Smith also issued a statement about the amendments.

“The Biden administration’s absurd proposal to surrender U.S. sovereignty to the corrupt WHO is an egregious breach of constitutional principle that will lead to less accountability and more misconduct by this problematic UN agency,” Smith said in the statement issued ahead of the World Health Assembly taking place in Geneva, Switzerland through May 28.

“The Biden Administration’s absurd proposal to surrender U.S. sovereignty to the corrupt World Health Organization (WHO) is an egregious breach of constitutional principle that will lead to less accountability and more misconduct by this problematic UN agency,” Smith said.

Smith’s statement continued:

Instead of demanding accountability from the WHO and its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for their complicity in the spread of COVID the Biden administration seeks to turn over American sovereignty and decision-making, potentially subjecting us to the Communist Chinese Party’s (CCP) ongoing malign influence.”

The alarming amendments offered by the Biden Administration to the WHO’s International Health Regulations would grant new unilateral authority to Director-General Tedros to declare a public health crisis in the United States or other sovereign nations, without any consultation with the U.S. or any other WHO member.

The World Council for Health, which opposes Biden’s plan, described Biden’s proposed amendment:

In May 2022, World Health Organization (WHO) intends to amend the International Health Regulations to give greater control to itself and Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO. This pushes our world towards a centralized governance model of worldwide health surveillance, reporting, and management, where the people have no say.”

As Breitbart News reported Friday:

Article 9 of the Biden administration’s proposed IHR amendments simply strike out the existing requirement for W.H.O. to “consult with and attempt to obtain verification from the State Party in whose territory the event is allegedly occurring.” Every subsequent reference in the IHR to consulting with the relevant state party is likewise erased, effectively giving the W.H.O. director unilateral authority to declare outbreaks.

…

W.H.O. would also be empowered to use “undisclosed sources” for its pandemic data, which could include all manner of self-interested or politicized sources, from pharmaceutical companies to organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The director-general of the W.H.O. would gain unilateral authority to declare health emergencies and take punitive action against member nations.

Breitbart News also reported that the House Freedom Caucus sent President Joe Biden a letter on Monday demanding he stand against the W.H.O.’s push for a “global pandemic treaty,” which would transfer much of the authority for pandemic control from member nations to the U.N. agency.

The letter reads in part:

The House Freedom Caucus urges you to halt your efforts to empower the World Health Organization (WHO) and instead either immediately resume President Trump’s withdrawal from the body or, at the very least, push serious reforms to aggressively correct the organization’s rampant corruption and ineffectual leadership.

Breitbart’s Katherine Hamilton detailed:

The caucus, which is led by Republican fighters Reps. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), called out the Biden administration for proposing amendments to the W.H.O. International Health Regulations — “the set of rules governing responses by the agency and its member states to international public health emergencies” — at the 75th World Health Assembly, which began on May 22. In January, the Biden administration proposed amendments that would eliminate any requirements for W.H.O. to consult with member governments before declaring a disease outbreak.

Smith is a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations.

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