U.S. withdrawal from WHO completed over COVID-19 mishandling

(The Center Square) – The United States completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization due to the group’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a medical group praising the move and officials stating the withdrawal is for those who died alone in nursing homes and whose businesses were destroyed due to COVID responses induced by WHO.

Medical director for Do No Harm Dr. Kurt Miceli told The Center Square that “the Trump administration is right to stop the flow of taxpayer dollars to an organization that has allowed politics to supersede science.”

“From its deference to China during the COVID 19 pandemic to its broader tendencies toward centralized control and bureaucratic overreach, the WHO has undermined its own credibility – leaving little reason for continued American participation or financial support,” Miceli said.

Do No Harm is an organization of “physicians, nurses, medical students, patients, and policymakers focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice,” according to its website.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Thursday that it had completed its withdrawal from WHO “due to the organization's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”

When reached, the HHS referred The Center Square to its press release on the subject.

WHO media relations referred The Center Square to past statements on the topic from its Director-General.

Plans to withdraw the U.S. from WHO began on Jan. 20, 2025 with an announcement from President Donald Trump, according to the HHS’ press release.

Since then, “the U.S. stopped funding WHO, withdrew all personnel from WHO, and began pivoting activities previously conducted with WHO to direct bilateral engagements with other countries and organizations,” the release said.

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U.S. relations with WHO will be “solely in a limited fashion to effectuate withdrawal,” the release said.

The HHS stated in its release that before declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, WHO “echoed and praised China's response despite evidence of early underreporting, suppression of information and delays in confirming human-to-human transmission.” 

Additionally, HHS finds fault with WHO for not adopting “meaningful reforms to address political influence, governance weaknesses or poor coordination,” after the pandemic, which HHS stated reinforced “concerns that politics took priority over rapid, independent public health action and [eroded] global trust.”

HHS said in the release that WHO’s report “evaluating the possible origins of COVID-19 rejected the possibility that scientists created the virus.”

WHO rejected this idea “even though China refused to provide genetic sequences from individuals infected early in the pandemic and information on the Wuhan laboratories’ activities and biosafety conditions,” HHS said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of HHS Robert Kennedy said in a joint statement: “Like many international organizations, the WHO abandoned its core mission and acted repeatedly against the interests of the United States.”

“Today, we right these injustices and bring an end to the bureaucratic inertia, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest, and international politics that have rendered the organization beyond repair,” the statement said.

“We will get our flag back for the Americans who died alone in nursing homes, the small businesses devastated by WHO-driven restrictions, and the American lives shattered by this organization’s inactivity,” the statement said. “Our withdrawal is for them.”