Analysis | ‘The most momentous time in global health security since 1948’ (2024)

Skepticism impedes a global pandemic agreement

As the world grappled with the emergence of the highly transmissible omicron variant in late 2021, representatives from nearly 200 nations convened in Geneva with a shared goal: to preempt a future global outbreak by forging the inaugural global pandemic accord.

With a deadline looming in May, experts say the stakes of failing to reach an agreement are immeasurable. They warn that an unknown pathogen could wield even more catastrophic consequences than the coronavirus, which has claimed around 7 million lives and inflicted trillions of dollars in economic damages.

Despite intensified negotiations and the recent delivery of a fresh draft document, securing a legally binding pact by next month remains uncertain. The primary hurdle revolves around access to critical information about new threats that may emerge — as well as the vaccines and treatments that could contain them.

“It’s the most momentous time in global health security since 1948,” when the World Health Organization was established, said Lawrence O. Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University.

Much of the impasse centers on pathogen access and benefit sharing. High-income countries are pressing for guarantees that samples and genetic data about any new pathogen will be quickly shared to allow for the development of tests, vaccines and treatments. Meanwhile, developing nations seek guarantees of benefits, such as equal access to vaccines and collaboration with local scientists.

The United States has signaled its support for a binding agreement, including leveraging its purchasing power to enhance global access to medicines. But it, like many European Union countries, faces skepticism because it is seat of the powerful pharmaceutical industry.

The venture is also being roiled by misinformation on social media. That includes hostility toward the WHO and assertions that any international agreement would threaten national sovereignty — claims that WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has condemned as “utterly, completely, categorically false.”

In early April, Tedros clarified that the final agreement would not grant the WHO authority to enforce lockdowns or mask mandates within individual countries.

In mid-April, the policy nonprofit Health Policy Watch published a new bare-bones draft agreement that is being sent to member states. It maintains support for equity, while leaving key details to be hashed out during the next two years, by which time the leadership of many instrumental countries, including the United States, may have changed. Meetings are set to resume April 29.

You can read Frances’s full report here.

On tap today: Vice President Harris will travel to La Crosse, Wis., for a campaign event where she is expected to highlight the stakes of the November elections for abortion rights.

This marks Harris’s third visit to Wisconsin this year and follows a recent three-day tour of the battleground state by two women who say they were denied access to medically necessary care because of their state’s abortion restrictions, according to the Biden-Harris reelection campaign.

Our colleague Dan Diamond sends us this dispatch:

Coming this week: new HIPAA rules on reproductive health care. The Biden administration is set to finalize a proposal to shield patients and providers’ medical records from Republican prosecutors, according to a Department of Health and Human Services email that an official sent to reporters last week. Under current rules, there’s a carveout in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that allows organizations to disclose private medical information to law enforcement in certain cases, such as when there's a criminal investigation.

Patients and health workers have said they’re worried that reproductive health procedures will become a target, especially because some Republican attorneys general have threatened to crack down on women who cross state lines to legally terminate a pregnancy or insisted that abortions should be a matter of a public record. (HIPAA has also been the source of ample confusion in the nearly 30 years since it passed, with some health workers and patients regularly mistaken on what the law covers — or even how it's spelled.)

Meanwhile, zooming out … Several other hotly anticipated final rules have recently passed through the White House Office of Management and Budget, meaning they could be dropped at any time. That includes the Biden administration’s minimum staffing mandate for nursing homes and guidelines that seek to restore protections for LGBTQ Americans and other groups seeking health-care services that were struck down under former president Donald Trump.

On tap today: The Supreme Court will consider whether unhoused people can be fined or hit with criminal charges for camping and sleeping in public places when shelter beds are unavailable.

Competing public health concerns are at the heart of the case. Democratic leaders in cities on the West Coast argue that a lower-court ruling declaring the practice unconstitutional has made it more difficult to address safety and public health risks linked to the encampments, including widespread chronic disease, drug abuse and mental illness.

The case is the City of Grants Pass. Oregon v. Gloria Johnson. et al.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will introduce legislation that aims to make it easier for Arizonans to get abortions in his state, in a move that comes shortly after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a near-total abortion ban from 1864 can take effect in the coming weeks, The Post’s Mariana Alfaro reports.

Newsom announced the proposal yesterday during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” saying it was time for those who support access to abortion to respond to Republican-led bans on the procedure with assertiveness. The emergency legislation would expedite the licenses of Arizona abortion providers to let them treat their patients in California. It will be introduced in the statehouse this week through the legislature’s women’s caucus, Newsom added.

The California governor also unveiled a new ad targeting proposed legislation in Alabama that would make it illegal for people to help minors get abortion care without informing a parent or legal guardian. Newsom’s political action committee, Campaign for Democracy, is paying for the ad as part of its multistate campaign on abortion rights.

Abortion rights advocates are exploring options for a possible 2026 ballot initiative that would restore and protect access to reproductive care in the state, the Idaho Capital Sun’s Kelcie Moseley-Morris reports.

Key context: The effort follows a second legislative session in which Idaho lawmakers opted not to clarify or amend a near-total abortion ban that penalizes providers with prison time. “In the absence of a remedy, we are moving full steam ahead,” said Melanie Folwell, a spokeswoman for the group Idahoans United for Women and Families.

Yes, but: The citizen ballot initiative process can’t amend the state’s constitution; only the Idaho legislature has that authority. Instead, the effort would come in the form of proposed legislation for voters to approve. The specific details of the proposal have yet to be determined, with Folwell saying it might be difficult to untangle the state’s overlapping abortion laws with a single piece of legislation.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) introduced legislation on Friday to combat the United States’ childhood obesity and diabetes epidemics by going after ultra-processed food companies, our colleague Lauren Weber writes.

Their bill calls for a ban on junk-food advertising targeted to children in the United States, and new health-and-nutrient warning labeling from the Food and Drug Administration. It would also order a National Institutes of Health investigation into “the dangers posed by ultra-processed foods,” according to a news release from the senators.

“We cannot continue to allow large corporations in the food and beverage industry to put their profits over the health and well-being of our children,” Sanders said in a news release. He noted that Congress previously took on the tobacco industry, adding it was time to do the same for big food companies.

Last year, The Post revealed the lack of advertising regulation and lax childhood food standards in the United States as part of its Dying Early series examining America's chronic disease epidemic.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.):

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