In a recent directive from the White House, staff with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been ordered to stop all communications with the World Health Organization (WHO).
John Nkengasong, the Deputy Director at CDC, issued the memo to the agency’s leadership on the evening of Sunday, Jan. 26. This move follows an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, proclaiming that the United States will be withdrawing from WHO.
“Effective immediately all CDC staff engaging with WHO through technical working groups, coordinating centers, advisory boards, cooperative agreements or other means, in person or virtual, must cease their activity and await further guidance,” the memo read.
While the order was shocking enough to experts in and out of the organization, some of the surprise comes from how sudden the actions taken have been in accordance with Trump’s order.
Federal law, in connection with WHO, dictates that one year of notice is required before the U.S. can part ways with the organization. The move also requires approval from Congress and that the agreed-to financial obligations be met for the current fiscal year. Trump, in clear defiance of all these barriers, has claimed that legal notice of withdrawal was given during his first term, in 2020, so the withdrawal can happen immediately.
Speaking with the news network CNN, Dr. Lawrence Gostin, a global health expert at Georgetown University who runs a WHO coordinating center on national and global health law, has called the move “reckless.”
“Basically ordering CDC not to work with WHO to put out fires,” Gostin expressed, “is going to make Americans far more vulnerable.”
“President Trump is asking CDC to hit the pause button. But the truth is that viruses don’t take a break from circulating while the White House figures out its next move. If you want to figure out what your future relationship is with WHO, you stay in the fight until you figure it out, and then you make your move. You don’t just quit the battle while you’re trying to figure something out, because the enemy, which is the virus, is still circulating and causing mayhem.”
The move comes at a critical time where outbreaks of the Marburg virus and Mpox were being investigated in Africa, and at the same time the H5N1 bird flu has spread to livestock around the world. Reports of more than 130 cases of tuberculosis, some latent (79) and others active (67) have also been reported in the Kansas City Metro area.
Trump’s order lessens the availability of early warnings that CDC staff with WHO’s offices would report from international sources, which could potentially lead to dangerous health consequences.
USAID’s closures exacerbates problems globally
Much like that is happening within the CDC, USAID is also facing an extreme culling of its staff which could impact more than 100 countries worldwide.
USAID, an international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government, is facing forced purges amid Trump and Elon Musk’s campaign to tear the independent organization down. Over the first weekend in February, Donald Trump continuously criticized the organization, stating his opinion that USAID as being “run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out, and then we’ll make a decision.” At the same time, Elon Musk and his task force team, with Trump’s blessing, forced their way into the agency’s systems, all after USAID’s director of security and his deputy were put on administrative leave for reportedly denying Musk’s access on Saturday.
By Feb. 3, USAID’s Washington office was closed while thousands of jobs were cut by Trump and Musk’s actions.
The agency is normally responsible for delivering billions of dollars in humanitarian aid overseas, addressing a vast list of needs. Many of the items USAID brings to underserved nations range from specific items dealing with women’s health and medical preventatives, to general supplies like clean food and water. More than 10,000 people work for USAID, with about two-thirds of the agency being stationed overseas.
Outrage at the constant battering of the organization was felt outside USAID’s headquarters on Monday, where Congressional Democrats, speaking to a few hundred protestors, vowed to combat the moves taken by the administration. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland called the dismantling of the agency an “illegal power grab” and said it was “a corrupt abuse of power that is going on.”
“It’s not only a gift to our adversaries, but trying to shut down the Agency for International Development by executive order is plain illegal,” Hollen said.
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official during the Obama and Biden administrations, commented directly on the agency’s work, describing it as urgent, and said gutting it would disrupt vital public health initiatives at U.S.-funded clinics in other countries.
“To be very explicit about what is being turned off, the sort of things that are being stopped, are programs that support 20 million people on lifesaving HIV treatment right now,” said Konyndyk, who is president of Refugees International, a rights advocacy organization. “That’s a huge risk to those individuals, but it’s also a risk to the health of the world more broadly.”
Stopping and restarting treatment can cause HIV to mutate and become resistant to the medications. This could make the treatment less effective and limit future treatment options, as potential new strains emerge.