Lawmakers in the Tennessee General Assembly this week will consider legislation that “deletes all references” to the World Health Organization (WHO) from the Volunteer State’s laws, especially those governing how a pandemic is declared.
According to the summary submitted for the legislation, House Bill (HB) 1226 by State Representative Justin Lafferty (R-Knoxville) and Senate Bill (SB) 669 by State Representative Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) completely “deletes all references to the World Health Organization,” and would instead require the declaration of a pandemic to be made “by the federal Centers for Disease and Prevention Control (CDC), rather than the World Health Organization.”
Subsequent to any declaration by a federal health agency, Tennessee’s governor would continue to retain the final say over when a pandemic is declared in the state.
The legislation would specifically remove a portion of Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) 77-51-209 which currently explains that an “infectious disease” can be defined as “[a] virus or other communicable disease for which [a] pandemic has been declared by the World Health Organization or the federal centers for disease control and prevention,” with the lawmakers proposing the removal of the reference to the WHO.
A second reference targeted by the lawmakers is located within TCA 68-2-611, which currently gives Tennessee’s governor additional powers related to pandemics immediately “upon declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization and a subsequent declaration of a state of emergency by the governor indicating that the pandemic impacts this state.”
Lafferty and Taylor similarly seek to remove the reference to the WHO from the legislation and replace it with the CDC.
The State Senate is currently scheduled to hear the legislation on Monday, while the State House will consider it on Wednesday.
Taylor was the first to file the legislation on January 31, only days after President Donald Trump officially withdrew the United States from the WHO during a flurry of executive actions on his first day back in the White House.
Experts have accused the WHO of failing to acknowledge shortcomings and failures made by policymakers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) said the Senate would see legislation that would unbind Tennessee from the international health organization.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “State Rep. Justin Lafferty” by State Sen Justin Lafferty, “State Senator Brent Taylor” by Sen. Brent Taylor and “WHO HQ” by U.S. Mission Geneva CC2.0.
