Does a draft to amend a health law in Romania aim to give the World Health Organization control over national health decisions and make vaccines mandatory? No, that's not true: The draft ordinance amends Romania's law on promoting health and preventing disease, and both the proposed amendment and the current law mention the WHO only once, as a health agency that traditionally provides vaccine recommendations.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) posted on TikTok on February 5, 2024, by user @life_racer207777 (profile archived here). The user quotes an article published on February 5, 2024, on the Romanian Ziua News website, titled, as translated from Romanian into English by Lead Stories staff, "The laws are being prepared for the Treaty by which the WHO will impose what it wants if it declares a new pandemic" (archived here) and provides a caption, also translated into English from Romanian by Lead Stories staff, that reads:
They're working on the WHO laws. Here's what is being imposed by draft law PL-x 652/2023 on government ordinance no. 40/2023
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Feb 13 14:25:14 2024 UTC)
PL-x 652/2023 (archived here) is a draft law to enact government ordinance no. 40/2023, which is an amendment to Law no. 152/2020 on health promotion and disease prevention in Romania. The ordinance aims to make several changes to the 2020 law, out of which two are used as the basis for the claim in the quoted article:
First, the ordinance (archived here) seeks to re-organize authority over issues of health promotion and combating infectious diseases to the Ministry of Health from the National Agency for Health Programs.
Second, the ordinance adds an explanation to prevent and combat infectious diseases by "providing vaccines throughout the territory, according to the objective needs of Romania, taking into account the recommendations of the World Health Organization."
But this information is not new and already exists in the 2020 Law. What the 2023 ordinance changes are some wording in Article 7, (4), which reads: "a) the purchase of vaccines, according to the objective needs of Romania, taking into account the recommendations of the World Health Organization; and b) ensuring the distribution of vaccines throughout Romania." The actual word changes would combine a) and b) under one single phrase, by replacing "purchase" with "providing," and adding "throughout the territory" of Romania.
There is no other mention of the World Health Organization ("Organizația Mondială a Sănătății"/ "OMS" in Romanian) throughout Law no. 152/2020, nor Ordinance no. 40/2023 aiming to change it. Compulsory vaccination is not mentioned at all.
Lead Stories has previously debunked other claims on the WHO pandemic treaty allegedly supplanting national sovereignty and making vaccination mandatory. You can read them here and here.
