From LifeSiteNews

By Michael Nevradakis Ph. D., The Defender

The amendments to the International Health Regulations are far more threatening than the Pandemic Agreement because it can pave the way for a digital vaccination passport.

Also amendments are on the table providing that Member States have to organize within their national health system an authority that implements all instructions of the Director-General of WHO within their territory with intense obligations for surveillance.

Negotiations for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) proposed “pandemic agreement” – or “pandemic treaty” – and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) have failed, for now at least.

The New York Times reported that negotiators failed to submit final texts of the two documents before the May 24 deadline for consideration and a vote at this year’s World Health Assembly taking place this week in Geneva, Switzerland.

The WHO said the proposals are intended to prepare for the “next pandemic.”

But critics called the proposals a global “power grab” that threatened national sovereignty, health freedom, personal liberties and free speech while promoting risky gain-of-function research and “health passports.”

“Sticking points,” according to The Times, included “equitable access to vaccines and financing to set up surveillance systems.”

Instead of considering a full set of proposals from both documents, a more modest “consensus package of [IHR] amendments” will be presented this week, according to the proposed text of the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (WGIHR).

READ: 24 Republican governors tell Biden they will resist ‘unconstitutional’ WHO pandemic treaty

The text does not represent a fully agreed package of amendments and is intended to provide an overview of the current status and progress of the WGIHR’s work. …

The mandate of the WGIHR Co-Chairs and Bureau has now ended but we stand ready to support the next steps agreed by the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly, including facilitating any further discussions if so decided.

The final report of the International Negotiating Body (INB) for the “pandemic agreement,” dated May 27, states “The INB did not reach consensus on the text.”

Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), credited global opposition to the WHO’s proposals for shutting them down. She told The Defender:

It is a huge tribute to civic action that the WHO treaty and regulations have apparently failed. While delegates to the World Health Assembly are still engaged in last-minute negotiations, outside of approved procedures they do not have a consensus to move forward with a legal infrastructure to conduct COVID operations.

This is great news for the world’s citizens and shows us how powerful we can be when we work together creatively.

The Times reported that negotiators plan to ask for more time. According to The Straits Times, “Countries have voiced a commitment to keep pushing for an accord.”

Opening the World Health Assembly on Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus suggested efforts to finalize the two proposals will continue.

“We all wish that we had been able to reach a consensus on the agreement in time for this health assembly and crossed the finish line,” Tedros said, in remarks quoted by The Straits Times. “But I remain confident that you still will, because where there is a will, there is a way.”

Internist Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom – an organization working to defeat the WHO’s proposals – celebrated the news and suggested the WHO’s efforts have failed irreversibly.

“The treaty is done,” Nass wrote on Substack. “Nothing in the treaty can rise from the ashes of the negotiations to be voted on this week.” She characterized the news as a “first round” win “in the war of democracy versus one-world government.”

WHO proposals ‘rolled out through lies and stealth’

Negotiations failed despite efforts by Tedros and others to persuade negotiators and WHO member states to agree on the two texts in time for a vote at the World Health Assembly.

At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in January, Tedros warned of the pandemic threat posed by a yet-unknown “Disease X” and said the pandemic agreement “can help us to prepare for the future in a better way because this is about a common enemy.”

In March, over 100 former world leaders, including former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair – a proponent of “vaccine passports” and digital ID – signed a letter urging WHO member states to finalize negotiations on the “pandemic agreement.”

Biden administration officials negotiating on behalf of the U.S. also pushed for the two documents to be finalized.

Loyce Pace, assistant secretary for global affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told The Times. “Those of us in public health recognize that another pandemic really could be around the corner.”

In December 2023, Pace testified before Congress in support of the two documents. “It’s only a matter of time before the world faces another serious public health threat,” she said, noting the U.S. role in drafting some of the proposed IHR amendments.

But according to Nass, the entire pandemic preparedness project has been rolled out through “lies and stealth.”

“Globalists created legal documents replete with euphemisms and flowery language, always disguised to hide the documents’ true intentions,” she said. “But we saw through them and didn’t let them get away with it.”

Nass wrote that the “consensus” on the IHR proposals delivered to the World Health Assembly are “the flowery language ones, not the meaningful ones.”

There is one exception, Nass said. Referring to Article 5 of the IHR amendments, she noted that “the negotiators were fine telling nations to surveil their citizens and combat misinformation and disinformation.”

“Nearly all governments are already surveilling and propagandizing us,” Nass said. “So, while this provision is odious, it really doesn’t change anything.”

She also noted that while consensus was reached on Article 18, the implementation of “health passports” and other similar documents during a health emergency is now a “recommendation” instead of a requirement. Definite language – such as the word “shall” – has been removed from the text.

‘They are not going to go away’

Other legal experts and health freedom advocates welcomed the news but said the WHO will likely continue pushing for the two proposals.

Australian attorney Katie Ashby-Koppens, who helped advocate for New Zealand’s rejection of a previous set of IHR amendments last year, told The Defender, “I don’t know that we should be celebrating the failure to reach agreement at this stage as a milestone.”

Journalist James Roguski told The Defender, “Member nations and the WHO have not given up. To the contrary, they have every intention of continuing in their attempts to finalize the negotiations.”

“Now is not the time to celebrate,” Roguski continued. “Now is the time to come together in order to take focused and massive action.”

Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst told The Defender, “According to my information, if the pandemic agreement fails, then they can continue negotiations later this year, with the view of trying again at next year’s World Health Assembly.”

Terhorst added:

We were informed that the World Health Assembly will not vote on the Pandemic Agreement this week, but the member states will vote on the amendments to the International Health Regulations. They are negotiating as we speak in Geneva and they are working towards a deal at the end of this week, probably Saturday, June 1, 2024.

The amendments to the International Health Regulations are far more threatening than the Pandemic Agreement because it can pave the way for a digital vaccination passport.

Also amendments are on the table providing that Member States have to organize within their national health system an authority that implements all instructions of the Director-General of WHO within their territory with intense obligations for surveillance.  So we are by no means out of the danger zone. To the contrary.

“Given the WHO/World Health Assembly is a law unto themselves, and they desperately want these treaty reforms to pass, then the mandate to continue and finalize their negotiations may be extended,” Ashby-Koppens said.

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender the WHO’s proposals were “the first time … that globalists spent an enormous amount of time, effort, money and brainpower to construct a worldwide totalitarian police state under the guise of protecting public health.”

Boyle said:

The WHO won’t back down from its proposals easily. They are not going to go away. They have come this far, and they will keep at it until they get their objective by hook or by crook. The only way to protect ourselves from these globalists is to pull out of the WHO.

But Nass believes the WHO may encounter difficulty in bringing back its proposals, telling The Defender it would be “unlikely to get far with either document unless they are pared down to what does not actually matter much to any nation.”

“I expect they will patch together a few [proposals] and vote yes and claim victory. But their major desires are all smashed,” Nass said. “They needed secrecy and ignorance, and they lost those advantages.”

Experts told The Defender a key factor in the WHO’s failure to achieve consensus on the two proposals was opposition from several nations – and by people worldwide.

“People and politicians around the world were educated about what was really being negotiated, what was really in the documents,” Nass said.

On Saturday, CHD participated in a rally against the WHO proposals, across from the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Watch Mary Holland speak at the New York rally here.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

From the Macdonald Laurier Institute

By Nigel Rawson and John Adams for Inside Policy

No Canadian should have to choose between paying for medicines and paying for rent or food. National pharmacare has been proposed as a remedy to this situation.

“When will Canada have national pharmacare?” asks the author of a recent article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Better questions are: will Canadian pharmacare be the system many Canadians hope for? Or, might it turn out to be skimpy coverage akin to minimum wage laws?

In its 2024 budget document, the federal government proposed providing $1.5 billion over five years to support the launch of national pharmacare for “universal, single-payer coverage for a number of contraception and diabetes medications.” This has been hailed as a “big day for pharmacare” by some labour unions, patients and others, including the author of the BMJ article who said that national pharmacare should be expanded to cover all medication needs beginning with the most commonly-prescribed, clinically-important “essential medicines.”

In its budget, the government stated “coverage of contraceptives will mean that nine million women in Canada will have better access to contraception” and “improving access to diabetes medications will help improve the health of 3.7 million Canadians with diabetes.” Why not salute such affable, motherhood and apple pie, sentiments? The devil is in the details.

The plan does not cover new drugs for diabetes, such as Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy, Mounjaro or Zepbound, all based on innovative GLP-1 agonists, where evidence is building for cardiovascular and weight loss benefits. This limited rollout seems based on cheap, older medicines, which can be less effective for some with diabetes.

The federal government has also consistently under-estimated the cost of national proposals such as pharmacare – not to mention other promises. In their 2019 election platform, the Liberals promised $6 billion for national pharmacare (the NDP promised $10 billion). Keen analysis shows that even these expansive amounts would be woefully inadequate to fund a full national pharmacare plan. This makes the $300 million a year actually proposed by the Liberals’ look like the skimpy window-dressing that it is.

National pharmacare, based on the most comprehensive existing public drug plan (Quebec’s), would cost much more. In 2017, using optimistic assumptions, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) estimated the cost for a national plan based on Quebec’s experience to be $19.3 billion a year. With more appropriate assumptions, the Canadian Health Policy Institute estimated $26.2 billion. In June 2019, the federal government’s own Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare put the cost at $40 billion, while a few months later, the tax consulting company RSM Canada projected $48.3 to $52.5 billion per year. Five years later, costs no doubt have soared.

Even with these staggering cost a program based on matching Quebec’s drug plan at the national level would fail to provide anywhere near the level of coverage already provided to the almost two-thirds of Canadians who have private drug insurance, including many in unionized jobs. Are they willing to sacrifice their superior coverage, especially of innovative brand-name medicines, for a program covering only “essential medicines”? Put another way, are Canadians and their unions prepared to settle for the equivalent of a minimum wage or minimum benefits?

The PBO has estimated the cost of coverage of a range of contraceptives and diabetes medicines as $1.9 billion over five years, which is more than the $1.5 billion provided in the budget. However, this figure is based on an assumption that the new program would only cover Canadians who currently do not have public or private drug plan insurance, those who currently do not fill their prescriptions due to cost related reasons, and the out-of-pocket part of prescription costs for Canadians who have public or private drug plan coverage. This is major guesswork because existing public and private drug plans may see the new federal program as an opportunity to reduce their costs by requiring their beneficiaries to use the new program. If this occurs, the national pharmacare costs to the federal government, even for the limited role out of diabetes and contraceptives, would soar to an estimated $5.7 billion, according to the PBO.

Our governments are not known for accurate estimates of the costs of new programs. One has only to remember the Phoenix pay system and the ArriveCAN costs. In 2017, the Government of Ontario estimated $465 million per year to extend drug coverage to every resident under the age of 25 years. What happened? Introduced in 2018, prescriptions rose by 290% and drug expenditure increased to $839 million – almost double the guesstimate. In 2019, the provincial government back peddled and modified the program to cover only people not already insured by a private plan.

Although we believe governments should facilitate access to necessary medicines for Canadians who cannot afford their medicines, this does not require national pharmacare and a growing bureaucracy. Exempting lower-income Canadians from copayments and premiums required by provincial programs, as British Columbia has done, and removing the requirement to pay for all drugs up to a deductible would allow these Canadians access sooner, more simply, and more effectively.

Moreover, it isn’t just lower-income Canadians who want help with unmet medicine needs. Canadians who need access to drugs for diseases that are difficult to treat and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year also require assistance. Few Canadians whether they have low, medium or high incomes can afford these prices without government or private insurance. Private insurers often refuse to cover these drugs.

The Liberals provided a separate $1.5 billion over three years for drugs for rare disorders, but no province or territory has signed a bilateral agreement with the federal government for these drugs and no patient has received benefit through this program. Even if they did, the $500 million per year would not go far towards the actual costs. There is at least a zero missing in the federal contribution, as the projected cost of public spending on rare disease medicines by 2025 is more than threefold what Ottawa has budgeted.

Expensive drugs for cancer and rare disorders are just as essential as basic medicines for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, birth control, and many other common conditions. If a costly medicine will allow a person with a life-shortening disease to live longer or one with a disorder that will be severely disabling left untreated to have an improved quality of life and be a productive taxpayer, it too should be regarded as essential.

The Liberals and NDP are working to stampede the bill to introduce the pharmacare program (Bill C-64) through the legislative process. This includes inviting witnesses over the first long weekend of summer, when many Canadians are away, to appear before the parliamentary Standing Committee on Health three days later.

Too much is unknown about what will be covered (will newer drugs be covered or only older, cheaper medicines?), who will be eligible for coverage (all appropriate Canadians regardless of existing coverage or only those with no present coverage?), and what the real cost will be, including whether a new program focusing on older, cheaper drugs will deter drug developers from launching novel medicines for unmet needs in Canada.

This Bill as it stands is such a power grab that, if passed, the federal Health Minister never has to come back to Parliament for review, oversight or another tranche of legal authority, it would empower the Cabinet to make rules and regulations without parliamentary scrutiny.

A lot is at stake for Canadians, especially for patients and their doctors. Prescription medicines are of critical importance to treating many diseases. National pharmacare must not only allow low-income residents to access purported “essential medicines” but also ensure that patients who need specialized drugs, especially higher-cost innovative cell and genetic therapies that may be the only effective treatment for their disorder, are not ignored. Canadians should be careful what they wish for. They may receive less than they anticipate, and, in fact, many Canadians may be worse off despite the increase in public spending. Time to look under the hood and kick the tires.

Nigel Rawson is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

John Adams is co-founder and CEO of Canadian PKU and Allied Disorders Inc., a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and volunteer board chair of Best Medicines Coalition.