By Gabriel Armas-Cardona, PhD researcher, University of Groningen and Göttingen University (g.a.cardona rug.nl) and David Patterson, PhD researcher, University of Groningen (d.w.patterson rug.nl)

Invitation to 2025 blog post series

Following the January 2025 US government withdrawal from global health governance, programmes and funding, this post invites commentaries which reflect on how health law researchers and practitioners could respond at institutional, national, European and global levels. As we all adjust, are there opportunities in the current crisis?

In January 2025, the US administration announced it would withdraw from the WHO. It has since dismantled USAID and muzzled the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health. Thousands of international aid workers have been sacked and programmes saving, improving and prolonging lives peremptorily cancelled. This is the moral and practical equivalent of remotely shutting down the engines of thousands of aircraft in mid-flight.

Following the freeze on the CDC’s external communications, for the first time in decades the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) did not appear as anticipated, according to NPR. In 1981, the MMWR reported the first puzzling cases of what later became known as ‘AIDS’ - a deadly global pandemic. The report led to the rapid identification of HIV as the causative agent and the first HIV test in 1983. Much credit for the global HIV response in the decades since goes to US public health officials, researchers, scientists, NGOs and community activists. US funding, through bilateral (USAID and other agencies) and multilateral channels, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, has supported and often led the global HIV response.

To understand the public health havoc that the wrecking ball in Washington DC is now creating, think where we would be if AIDS had not been reported by the MMWR in 1981. In mid-February, NPR reported that the US has restricted communication on disease spread as well as domestic institutions' ability to share data with the WHO. These self-imposed restrictions increase vulnerability to emerging diseases, especially within the US. The H5N1 virus is already a major concern with multiple instances of zoonotic spillover and at least one known human death in the US. Simply put, if a new pandemic emerges, we are not as prepared for it as we were in December 2024.

The onus–and opportunity–now lies with the rest of the world. Key global health actors, whether States, WHO, regional governmental institutions (such as Africa CDC), or international and national NGOs, need to respond. Upholding the global health order will place extra burdens on other actors as the US’s pillar of support is pulled down. But at the same time, it will create new opportunities, especially for voices that have typically been sidelined on the world stage.

How should we in Europe revise our understanding of global health research and programme priorities, both within Europe and beyond European borders? How should global health funding and research be restructured in the absence of US support, at least for the coming four years? How can we work more closely with Global South partners to address the health priorities they identify? Are there opportunities to strengthen global health in the current crisis - for example, finalisation of the Pandemic Agreement? Or to develop stronger laws and policies to promote oral health and prevent NCDs in the absence of US government lobbying on behalf of the sugar industry in global health forums? The US withdrawal from global health is already causing negative impacts all around the world. Those effects will in turn generate further consequences—many of which remain unpredictable today. We aim to explore these implications and how global health actors can best move forward.

The goal of this series is to provide a space to discuss new challenges and opportunities. Please contact the coordinators with your blog post proposal or draft for the first round of posts by 31 March.