| President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization is bad news for the agency, since the US had contributed $1.3 billion to it between 2022 and 2023. But it also means global health security could be undermined. In an age of jet travel, that could be dangerous for Americans. The WHO works to contain diseases like Ebola, polio, HIV and the recent outbreak of lethal Marburg virus. Without its efforts, these diseases could multiply and more cases reach the US. “I can’t think of one way that this decision makes the United States healthier, safer, or more secure,” says Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University. “And I can’t think of one way that it advances our national interest.” Based in Geneva, the WHO also helps other countries set up health guidelines, policies and information systems. “If you cut off the funding, and the engagement of the US, there will definitely be a knock-on effect in countries not being able to develop their systems as quickly,” says Jayasree Iyer, CEO of the Access to Medicine Foundation. Without these nations’ data, doctors and patients in the US will not have advance warnings about things like the next pandemic, Iyer says. Gostin agrees, and notes that while the US is used to being first to get new vaccines and drugs, “we may find ourselves now at the back of a line.” And without access to the WHO’s vast network of data on virus mutations, pathogen samples and epidemiological data, US pharmaceutical companies, the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “can’t innovate,” Gostin says. Trump previously tried to pull the US out of the WHO in 2020, saying it deferred too much to the Chinese government during Covid-19 and didn’t act quickly enough to contain the disease. He’d also sought to cut the US’s contributions. He’s still focused on the spending. “World Health ripped us off,” Trump said Monday. “Everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore.” Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives and former CDC director warned that withdrawing “silences America’s voice in critical decisions affecting global health security.” Frieden, who is also the former director of global health at Bloomberg Philanthropies, said in a statement that Trump’s decision also “increases the risk of a deadly pandemic.” Yet the US withdrawal could take some time. “By law, Trump is supposed to give one year's notice of the intention to withdraw,” says Gostin. “But in his executive order, he says he’s withdrawing now, immediately.” Peter Maybarduk, director of access to medicines at Public Citizen, said in a statement that pulling out of the WHO puts the US at risk. “This still is one world, like it or not, and viruses don’t discriminate,” he said. — Antonia Mufarech | 
