U.S. Participates in WHO Influenza Conference Despite Withdrawal from Organization, HHS Confirms
“CDC representatives will take part in the meeting to support international technical collaboration,” the Department of Health and Human Services tells NPR.
Despite its public withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States participated in the WHO’s February influenza conference.
The move underscores a striking contradiction between the Trump administration’s policy and its actions.
It comes as U.S. agencies continue conducting gain-of-function experiments on influenza pathogens while simultaneously developing vaccines designed to counter those same engineered threats.
Together, it gives the appearance of a coordinated, pre-positioned influenza-focused system, where the threat and the response are being developed in parallel, long before any declared outbreak.
The WHO holds these meetings twice per year as part of the organization’s Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System.
NPR reported at the end of February:
For the past week, about 50 flu scientists from around the world were crammed into a conference room at a Hilton hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.
Their goal was to design a flu shot that will confer the best protection for the next flu season —starting in the fall of 2026. Each day, they pored over reams of data — about how the virus is evolving worldwide, how well last year’s shot performed, and which strains might be easiest to mass produce for a vaccine.
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The report emphasized that even though the Trump admin had formally withdrawn from the WHO, HHS nevertheless confirmed to NPR that CDC officials would be present virtually:
In past years, CDC scientists like Jernigan have played a major role in these meetings. But after the U.S. officially withdrew from the WHO in January, it wasn’t clear the U.S. would participate in any WHO-led meeting. Earlier this month, the administration confirmed CDC would be sending staff despite the U.S. exit from the organization, albeit virtually instead of in person.
“CDC representatives will take part in the meeting to support international technical collaboration,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement to NPR. “Their participation will solely focus on providing technical expertise, sharing surveillance data, and contributing to scientific discussions that inform vaccine strain recommendations. This participation does not change the U.S. position on withdrawing from the WHO.”
The development shows the U.S. still operating in lockstep with the very global infrastructure it publicly claims to have exited.
Behind the rhetoric of withdrawal, American agencies remain embedded in the same influenza surveillance, strain selection, and vaccine coordination pipeline.
The coordination aligns toward a single outcome: orchestrating an influenza outbreak before the public is ever told it has begun—echoing the same pattern of parallel threat development and response deployment seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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I think by now, we all have come to realize that EVERYTHING they say is LIES!!!
Thank you, Jon!
Fear of the flu must be perpetuated. Focus on the minutia and not the reality of why millions of Americans die each year because of wrong medical protocols and focus on treating symptoms of disease states and not the root cause. C-Diff kills at least 30,000 US patients annually and we don't talk about it! Just one example of many! Vaccine are NOT the answer, but they sure are a great money maker!