US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Argentine Minister of Health Mario Lugones signed a joint declaration to reaffirm their countries' withdrawals from WHO and build a new global health cooperation model.  The new system aims to be based on scientific integrity, transparency, sovereignty and accountability, and will be free from totalitarian impulses, corruption and political control.

The US Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his Argentine counterpart, Minister of Health Mario Lugones, have signed a joint declaration reaffirming their countries' withdrawals from the World Health Organisation ("WHO") and announcing plans to create an alternative international health system.

The new system aims to be grounded in scientific integrity, transparency, sovereignty and accountability, with Kennedy and Lugones stating that their withdrawal from WHO marks the beginning of a new path towards building a modern global health cooperation model.

During his visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kennedy met with Lugones and Argentine President Javier Milei to discuss key health priorities – including healthcare reform, addressing chronic disease and their new global health collaboration – to define a joint work agenda that will strengthen transparency and trust in the health system.

Lugones expressed his shared vision with Kennedy, stating that they believe in the future of collaboration in global health and have similar visions about the path forward, with the declaration expressing a shared vision of the challenges facing the region's health systems and the measures needed to transform them.

The decision to pull the US out of WHO was declared by President Donald Trump in January.  The following month, Argentine President Javier Milei announced his country would also be withdrawing from WHO.  The Argentine government justified its departure in a statement earlier this week, saying that WHO's prescriptions do not work because they are not based on science but on political interests and bureaucratic structures.