The US’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) could prompt an increase in clinical trials being conducted in China and other developing countries.
One of the first executive orders signed by President Donald Trump saw the US withdraw its membership in the WHO. Presenting at Arena International’s Outsourcing in Clinical Trials West Coast 2025 conference in San Francisco, Archana Sah, founder of AS Pharma Advisors and oncology board member for the Society for Clinical Research Sites, said that the US will “lose out” in important research as a result.
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“The US researchers do stand to lose out on many fronts like limitations to key data access on diseases across the globe, reduced international collaboration, disruption of global standards potentially impacting the comparability of data, reduced funding of global health research-including clinical trials in low resource settings,” Sah said.
“If this withdrawal of the US from WHO happens, it could isolate the US health system, including federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in many ways and countries like China could move ahead and take over this research leadership. Without identifying an alternative, this could be harmful as there is a need for a bilateral health agency like WHO that collaborates with every country in the world.”
Sah added that there will be a funding gap within the WHO because of the US’s withdrawal. The country is the organisation’s biggest financial backer, contributing around 18% of its funding.
“Trump has criticised the WHO for being too slow to recognise airborne transmission of Covid-19 and failure to adopt urgently needed reforms. He has also complained that the US financial contribution is ‘onerous’. My big concern is the trickle-on effect will be that we are losing leadership, and we are losing access to scientific data,” Sah said.
The executive order cites the reason for the US withdrawal from the WHO is “due to the organisation’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states”.
“An optimistic outlook may be that in reality, this may turn out to be just a cosmetic withdrawal rather than a real withdrawal with arrangements for back-channel communications that will continue, with the US participating in key forums and industry finding informal ways to collaborate,” Sah says.
“The pessimistic outlook could be a disaster for global health including pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Without the US involvement, the ability to quickly identify and respond to these pandemics and outbreaks will be really hampered in a big way and will delay the development of the necessary treatments and vaccines should we have another pandemic in the future.”
