U.S. Rejects International Health Regulations Championed by Biden, With Italy and Israel

By Rebecca Oas, Ph.D.

WASHINGTON DC, July 25 (C-FAM) The Trump administration rejected a set of amendments to the International Health Regulations, a key part of the Biden-backed World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic response framework. Italy and Israel joined the Trump administration in rejecting the amendments.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited concerns about ceding U.S. sovereignty to the UN bureaucracy, lockdowns, and censorship as the reasons for withdrawing U.S. support from the revised International Health Regulations.

“The proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations open the door to the kind of narrative management, propaganda, and censorship that we saw during the COVID pandemic,” Secretary Kennedy said. “The United States can cooperate with other nations without jeopardizing our civil liberties, without undermining our Constitution, and without ceding away America’s treasured sovereignty.”

The Biden administration proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHRs) at the World Health Assembly shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic. The binding international framework governs how countries deal with international health emergencies like pandemics.

The Biden amendments, which included a new definition of a “pandemic emergency” and established a committee to lead international pandemic response efforts and a financing mechanism to support it, were adopted in 2024 after two years of difficult negotiations. They were intended to accompany the new WHO pandemic treaty, which was adopted earlier this year and is not expected to be ratified by the U.S.

The amendments controversially endorsed measures such as top-down global lockdowns, centralized censorship, and locked in the pandemic policies developed by Biden and the WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic. The amendments were a permanent rebuke to the Trump administration for diverging from WHO directions early in the pandemic and letting U.S. State Governors make their own decisions.

The U.S. is not alone in rejecting the IHR amendments.  Israel has also done so, as has Italy.  After the Italian health minister made the announcement, Edmondo Cirielli, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, added: “It’s absurd and dangerous to think that Italy should cede parts of its healthcare sovereignty to an organization like the WHO, which, during COVID, has shown clear limitations.”

Several U.S. members of Congress expressed their support for the U.S.’s statement, pointing to the WHO’s loss of credibility during the COVID-19 pandemic and, in the words of Republican Congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona, “an unaccountable international organization that hands individuals’ healthcare freedoms to corrupt bureaucrats.”

In addition to its missteps in responding to the past pandemic, the WHO has also become increasingly politicized on issues like abortion and gender ideology, promoting abortion and so-called “gender-affirming” medical interventions as essential health-care and human rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is despite the fact that such issues have never been accepted as internationally agreed human rights by in any agreement adopted by the world’s governments.

Following his inauguration in January of 2025, President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the WHO and cut funding to the organization.  However, regardless of the U.S.’s withdrawal, the amendments were set to become binding this month unless they were formally rejected.

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