Trump's WHO withdrawal: A seismic shift in global health

"The world that we consider rational is, in a symbolic sense, departing and dying. I expect a political shift towards abandoning a rational approach to public health in favour of political calculations," Dr. Michał Sutkowski, a member of the College of Family Physicians and the Presidential Council for Health Protection, tells WP.

The WP interlocutor referred to one of the first decisions of the US president. Donald Trump signed executive orders initiating the process of withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). The politician did not shy away from sarcasm, stating, "Oh, this is something big. They wanted us to come back so much, so we'll see what happens," while signing.

Dr. Sutkowski emphasizes that the United States will always be an important player on the international stage, and its presence in organizations like WHO is significant. He suggests that reforming WHO would be a better solution than withdrawing from it. "This decision will destabilize an organization that has largely focused on health. It will impact global progress in combating various diseases and epidemics. We, too, will be less resilient," he underscores.

The president criticized the organization, calling it "corrupt" and "incompetent." He accused WHO of bias towards China in how guidelines were issued during the COVID-19 pandemic. The order stated that the withdrawal was due to "unfairly burdensome payments" made by the United States to WHO, which is part of the United Nations.

Under Biden's administration, the US remained the largest sponsor, contributing nearly one-fifth of the organization's budget, which totaled approximately 9.2 billion Canadian dollars. Some American experts suggest that this move could undermine progress in fighting infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, and AIDS.

"This is a catastrophic presidential decision. Withdrawal is a painful wound for global health, but an even deeper wound for the USA," said Lawrence Gostin, a global public health expert and Georgetown University professor, speaking to the BBC.

Dr. Michał Sutkowski fears that the president's decision will be seized by anti-vaccine circles in Poland. This is especially concerning given that Donald Trump had previously nominated Robert Kennedy Jr., known for disparaging vaccinations, to the position of health chief during the campaign. The Polish expert believes that both the withdrawal from WHO and Kennedy's nomination are harmful from a public health perspective.

"Of course, this will be picked up. They will raise their heads. All those who survived COVID in good health, because they were beautiful and young. They will say: 'Well, why did we get vaccinated? Well, you exposed us to various things'. These are complete absurdities because we have no memory of what happened and what could have happened without the implementation of restrictions," the doctor adds.

Additionally, Poland's contribution to the World Health Organization was about 2.7 million Canadian dollars annually. These figures were provided by the Ministry of Health following a parliamentary inquiry by Dominika Chorosińska. Meanwhile, the USA added 675 million Canadian dollars to the WHO budget.

The order stated that the United States is withdrawing from WHO due to "the organization's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, the lack of adopting urgently needed reforms, and the inability to demonstrate independence from improper political influences of WHO's member states."

Let us recall that during his first presidency, Trump accused WHO of concealing information about the COVID-19 pandemic and acting in the interest of China. He claimed that the organization declared a pandemic too late and trusted Chinese authorities too much, who, according to him, deliberately hid the scale of the threat. "WHO became a puppet of China," Trump said in April 2020.

Tomasz Molga,