Trump pulls the United States out of WHO. How it can affect California’s monitoring of infectious diseases

The US is zero for the H5N1 bird flu.

Since March 2024, when the virus was first reported in a dairy herd in Texas, the virus has killed one person, made several sick, contaminated the nation’s food supply, felled dozens of livestock, Infected more than 900 dairy herds in 16 statesAnd caused millions of wild animals’ death and commercially farmed chickens, ducks and turkeys.

So how President Trump and his administration will deal with this widespread, potentially deadly viruses, as scientists say, is only a mutation or two away from becoming a completely human pandemic is a question that many health officials and experts in infectious diseases are now asking.

And so far – say the few who want to write about their concerns – things don’t look promising.

On Monday, Trump issued an order that will remove the United States from the World Health Organization – a 76 -year -old international agency that has been partly set up to share data and information on global pandemics.

He has also closed the Biden-Era’s White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness, which was directed by Congress to streamline and coordinate the nation’s reaction to burgeoning pandemics, such as bird flu. Since office formation in 2023 it has initiated Coordinated efforts from multiple agencies to “test” the nation ‘S preparedness for new disease outbreaks and has provided advice and coordination on vaccine development and accessibility among various health agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration. A visit to the office’s website Wednesday morning showed a “404 page not found” error message.

And on Tuesday night, the news broke the Trump administration provided instructions to a number of agencies in the Health and Human Department of Health and Pause “Pause” on all health communication. The department did not answer questions about the problem.

However, a note from a spokesman for Human Services for one Times Reporter on another topic noted that the agency “issued a break in mass communication and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserve health.”

The spokesman said the break was temporary and set up to give the new administration’s appointed the opportunity to “create a process of review and prioritization.”

Experts say that while we are still only in the first week of the new administration, and things can change, this development does not promise well for a transparent and timely reaction to the growing bird flu crisis.

“More cases of H5N1 occur in the United States than in any other country,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Providence, RI. are dangerously misled. This will make America less healthy and will aggravate the virus’s financial tolls. ”

Experts also say that the new administration’s actions can lead to financial and social isolation for many Americans. Other nations may begin to question the health and safety of exported agricultural products, such as dairy products, livestock, poultry and meat, as well as the health of Americans who want to travel internationally.

“I can predict countries beating travel and trade restrictions against the United States. It will affect millions of Americans,” said Lawrence Gostin, a legal researcher at Georgetown University.

Although WHO typically does not support travel restrictions or trade bans, independent nations may require such measures. In January 2020, Trump temporarily suspended access to all non-American nationals who came in from China.

Other nations, Gostin said, could take similar measures if they feel the United States is not transparent or openly communicating information about the H5N1 outbreak. And without a place at WHO’s negotiating table, where new panding lines are currently being drawn, the United States can find a look from the outside.

“With our withdrawal, we would give off influence leadership” to China and other US opponents, Gostin said – the exact opposite of what we should do in such an uncertain moment for a potentially emerged pandemic. “When the next (WHO) Director General is elected, it will be China that will pull the threads – not the United States,” he said. “Our opponents will set the global rules that we will have to live by.”

Trump’s decision to remove the United States from WHO rests on two of his beliefs: First, the organization abused the Covid-19 pandemic and secondly that it charges the United States for a lot of money-“far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments” said Trump in its order.

Between 2015 and 2024, the WHO US charged between $ 109 million and $ 122 million a year. It accounts for 22% of all membership contributions, making the United States the largest contributor to the organization.

But it is not only the isolationist initiatives and the potential loss of diplomatic strength and influence that concern experts and health officials.

Measures to eradicate offices designed to streamline the nation’s reaction to bird flu, and directives to “pause” communication about it, indicate either ignorance or a conscious blindness to the way H5N1 – and all zoonotic diseases – move through the environment and Potentially harming people, said Matthew Hayek, assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University.

The Trump Administration “has a real opportunity to come in and think about this virus and change the way we handle that kind of trouble,” he said-and noted the Biden administration’s disgusted and flat-footed answers that enabled the virus To spread almost uncontrolled across the country’s dairy herds for months. Instead, “From that it looks like it’s not going to happen. It seems that these first worrying steps in terms of mouth-hailing public health agencies moving in the opposite direction. And to double the Biden administration strategy for Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil ”just wants to make it worse.

The US Department of Agriculture intends to continue to update its H5N1 website as samples are tested and confirmed, according to Lyndsay Cole, a spokesman for the agency. On Thursday, two new dairy cattle herds, where there were positive tests for bird flu, added to the board’s “Situational Update” Website for H5N1.

John Korslund, a retired USDA scientist, said he wasn’t so worried yet. He said it usually takes a few days or weeks when a new administration comes online before things are run.

But “In the case of H5N1, the new administration has indicated less support for formal pandemic emergency activities,” he said, as shown in Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO and the closure of the Pandemical Office in the White House. The actions, he added, “may indicate less Trump administration support for expanded federal surveillance and response efforts for H5N1 infections in humans and animals.”

He said the virus is likely to pose a more imminent threat before this new administration decides to provide “significant federal activities or dollars.”

Nuzzo, Brown University scientist, agreed.

“The Trump administration will have no choice to act on H5N1 – the virus continues to sick people and livestock and drives up our grocery bills,” she said. “The question is not whether the Trump administration will act to fight H5N1, but when and how many lives and livelihoods will be hurt before they act.”

Times Personnel Writer Emily Alpert Reyes contributed to this report.