The U.S. last week introduced a national framework for One Health to help the country prepare for “the next potential threat” to public health — but critics argue the plan will expand government surveillance and crisis-driven health policies.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) collaborated on the framework, described as the first-ever cross-agency One Health plan.
The plan calls for pathogen surveillance, pandemic preparedness and vaccine development.
In its announcement, the CDC cited the threat of COVID-19, mpox, bird flu, Ebola and other diseases as examples of health threats that the One Health approach could help address.
Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo, told The Defender the framework does not address “upstream health determinants like poor diet, exposure to industrial toxicants and chronic stress” that adversely impact human health.
He also suggested that the crisis-oriented approach to One Health threatens democratic governance.
“By focusing on zoonotic diseases, the framework risks amplifying crisis-driven health governance, further entrenching centralized global systems that bypass democratic oversight,” Ji said.
Promoting vaccine development, biosecurity-driven health model
The One Health framework contains seven goals, including a focus on pathogen surveillance, pandemic preparedness, vaccine development and the operation and safety of biolabs.
The framework’s surveillance strategy includes tracking “the effects of social, economic, and environmental determinants of health and upstream drivers such as climate change and land-use on priority, endemic, emerging, and reemerging zoonotic diseases and other priority One Health issues.”
Pandemic preparedness and response efforts, including “research, development, and supply chain needs for new and targeted diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, and mitigation strategies” are also contained within the new framework.
The framework also connects One Health to “environmental and social determinants of health … including climate change and environmental justice,” and proposes the integration of One Health “into curriculums across all relevant disciplines.”
For Ji, the framework’s goals are notable for what they do not include.
“The lack of focus on foundational strategies like regenerative agriculture, toxin reduction and lifestyle medicine demonstrates a troubling detachment from what truly promotes health at the individual and societal levels,” Ji said.
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Globalist push to ‘limit the autonomy of nations and individuals’
According to the CDC, the framework is an outcome of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which requires U.S. government agencies to address zoonotic diseases and pandemic preparedness. It will “inform One Health collaboration across the U.S. government” over the next five years.
Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, told The Defender the framework seeks to bypass existing public health policymaking processes.
“The plan is aimed at further embedding the extremely fuzzy concept of One Health into all government agencies, creating new interagency structures and mechanisms for decision-making outside the usual chain of command structures,” Nass said.
Ji connected the framework to globalist efforts to usurp national policymaking related to public health. He said it “aligns with globalist efforts, such as the proposed World Health Organization’s (WHO) Pandemic Treaty, which seeks to centralize health decision-making under non-democratically elected bodies.”
The WHO has argued that a global pandemic treaty is necessary to respond to future public health threats, including the “next pandemic.” Critics have argued the treaty would undermine national sovereignty.
The WHO tried to enact the pandemic treaty in time for last year’s World Health Assembly but failed to do so. Negotiations on the treaty have since continued.
Nass said the framework would help international organizations like the WHO attain unprecedented power over national governments.
“I strongly suspect One Health has been positioned to redefine almost everything in the world as being related to health, and therefore under the jurisdiction of the WHO, U.N. Emergency Platform or some other entity that will take over global management when emergencies are declared,” Nass said.
Nass cited the U.N.’s recently adopted Pact for the Future as one such entity.
“This concentration of power may also limit the autonomy of nations and individuals in choosing health policies tailored to their unique needs,” Ji said. “Agencies like the CDC, USDA and DOI have institutionalized these priorities, and their alignment with global initiatives like the WHO Pandemic Treaty ensures their persistence.”
Ji said the One Health concept could benefit humanity, but only if it “recognizes health as an emergent property of balanced ecosystems” and overcomes “the globalist push to centralize health decision-making under unelected bodies.”
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