To comply with President Trump’s executive order last week, staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were directed on Monday to suspend all communications with the World Health Organization, multiple federal health officials confirmed to CBS News.
Mr. Trump’s executive order directed federal departments to “recall and reassign” any US government staff working with the WHO, in addition to beginning the year-long process of formally withdrawing from funding the UN health agency.
According to one source, the CDC’s Deputy Director for Global Health, John Nkengasong, gave the broad directive to enforce the order by email on Monday, pending more guidance on when and how exceptions might be carved out.
CDC staff assigned to work for the WHO are also being warned not to come into the office, according to the email, pending additional direction from leadership.
Mr. Trump has long been skeptical of the WHO, accusing the organization of mishandling COVID-19 and claiming it receives too much funding from the United States, which provides the most of any country.
At an event in Las Vegas on January 25, he stated that the WHO had proposed to reduce the United States’ budget obligation to roughly the amount supplied by China.
“Maybe we should do it again. I do not know. Perhaps we would. “They need to clean it up a little,” Mr. Trump stated.
Former health officials told CBS News that the United States’ exit from the WHO might jeopardize attempts to respond to epidemics, hurting the UN body while also making it more difficult for American officials to prepare.
The WHO was often the initial source of information for US policymakers regarding concerning outbreaks, particularly in countries cautious of cooperating with US authorities. The WHO also relies on disease experts sent from the United States and other countries to replenish its ranks.
“As has been repeated many times, infectious diseases know no boundaries, and in today’s world of rapid travel, an outbreak anywhere is a threat everywhere,” said James LeDuc, an adjunct professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Between working for the US Army’s medical research and leading the Galveston National Laboratory, LeDuc served for the CDC as a WHO medical officer and then one of the agency’s top global health officials.
“There is no alternative to WHO. WHO has a global mission that permits health issues to be addressed on a global scale and in a coordinated manner,” LeDuc stated.
The World Health Organization’s representative declined to comment on the move. The Department of Health and Human Services, which supervises the CDC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Preparing for seasonal and pandemic influenza
The gag order comes ahead of a key committee meeting next month, where CDC officials were scheduled to help the WHO pick out strains for next winter’s influenza vaccine.
Influenza vaccine manufacturers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rely on the data and findings by that panel to decide on the shots used every fall around the Northern Hemisphere.
The CDC also plays a key role as a WHO “collaborating center” for flu, serving as one of the world’s one of the world’s top laboratories for testing and studying the virus.
Many countries send samples of worrying influenza cases to the CDC’s Atlanta laboratory for scrutiny of mutations that might pose a pandemic threat, like after deaths from bird flu or swine flu.
Responding to viruses like polio and Marburg
CDC officials assigned to work for the WHO frequently act as liaisons with the agency’s disease experts, providing information on concerning new viruses that the WHO is responding to around the world.
Others collaborate with other countries to eradicate illnesses, such as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, supported by both organizations.
The WHO also plays an important role in giving licenses and coordinating trials that allow medications to be used to treat diseases, particularly in smaller nations dealing with new disease outbreaks.
Former federal health officials reported that the WHO helped facilitate the introduction of a US vaccine in response to an Ebola-like disease outbreak in Rwanda last year.
Authorities are closely watching another outbreak of Marburg this year in Tanzania, which the WHO announced confirming last week.
Replacing U.S. expertise at the WHO
“The expertise provided by CDC and other U.S. government agencies is absolutely essential to the success of WHO activities and to the well-being of the United States,” said LeDuc.
LeDuc recalled that U.S. staff were once proud to don WHO uniforms, working steps away from scientists from former Cold War adversaries to stem emerging disease threats out of the international organization’s Geneva office.
“I don’t think we want, particularly as public health experts, to feel like they can only wave the U.S. flag in those positions. The reason why it worked is because we were able to be American and also to be global citizens,” said Loyce Pace, director of global affairs for HHS under the Biden administration.
Pace said there are hundreds of American health agency officials who work with the WHO. She said it is likely other countries will likely try to step to fill the void left by American public health officials.
Another former federal official said China has been seeking to fill more posts within the U.N. agency, worrying some U.S. officials about how they may seek to use their positions.
“My hope is that there is a part of us that will continue to work to see that not as a weakness but as a strength, to distinguish us from other actors who do not have that approach and, frankly, have not been as effective in building partnerships to protect the world,” according to Pace.
