Open Letter in Support of U.S. Engagement in the Pan American Health Organization
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)—which was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1902—has been a powerful investment in U.S. health security and the health and well-being of the broader Western Hemisphere. For 124 years, it has been one of the most effective health and disease prevention organizations operating anywhere in the world.
We believe that the U.S. should continue to lead and engage with PAHO. We also believe that the U.S. should sustain its investment in PAHO. Doing so ensures PAHO’s work protects Americans and American interests in this biologically dangerous world.
PAHO protects Americans from growing disease threats
PAHO was founded under President Theodore Roosevelt two years before work began on the Panama Canal. Its founding purpose was unambiguously practical: protect American commerce and public health by controlling infectious disease in the hemisphere.
While the diseases that made PAHO necessary then have diminished due to its work, grave new threats continue to emerge. H5N1 avian influenza, dengue, chikungunya, and leishmaniasis are circulating in the U.S. New World Screwworm was identified in the U.S. for the first time in six decades. And migration through the Darién Gap rainforest is carrying unfamiliar pathogens northward. A nation that cannot detect and contain disease threats at their source cannot fully protect its people at home. PAHO is a critical part of that defense in the Western Hemisphere.
PAHO protects PAHO’s disease surveillance network provides the U.S. with critical early warnings of disease threats
PAHO is at the center of detecting and responding to threats that impact Americans and the Americas. In the last few years, we have seen how vulnerable we are to infectious disease outbreaks. The reemergence of the Bundibuygyo species of Ebolavirus in Africa and the Andean strain of hantavirus on a cruise ship in the South Atlantic are just the most recent examples.
PAHO offices in 26 countries form an extraordinary disease surveillance network that bilateral investments alone can never replicate. Being part of PAHO gives the U.S. early warnings before they reach American communities and farms.
PAHO has an unmatched record of protecting health
PAHO helped lead the Americas to become the first region in the world to eliminate polio, rubella, measles, and maternal and neonatal tetanus, and it led the first hemispheric effort to eradicate smallpox.
In 2018, when a measles outbreak threatened to spread northward from Venezuela (a country with which the U.S. had a strained relationship), PAHO took the lead and immunized nearly 9 million children. Last year, PAHO partnered with Pfizer, the Government of Argentina, and regional manufacturers to develop locally produced pneumonia vaccines accessible across the region.
All of this comes at a remarkably modest cost. The U.S. annual contribution to PAHO's budget is just 0.0011% of total federal spending.
PAHO advances important U.S. economic interests and national security in the Western Hemisphere
The U.S. Administration’s National Security Strategy (2025) highlights the unique importance of the Western Hemisphere to American security and prosperity. This is particularly so for health. Where diseases emerge, they do not remain for long. Sooner or later, they arrive at our borders, our farms, and our markets.
In this context, sustaining U.S. leadership in PAHO is an America First strategy in practice. PAHO protects American troops and diplomats stationed throughout the hemisphere, as well as Americans studying abroad and traveling. It keeps American markets open for business. And its pooled procurement mechanisms—which supply vaccines and medicines to much of the region—help make the Americas healthy while creating reliable, large-scale demand that benefits U.S. manufacturers and suppliers. A U.S. withdrawal from PAHO would not leave a vacuum; it would leave an opening that strategic competitors are prepared to fill.
PAHO serves American interests and reflects American values
PAHO was founded on U.S. soil, by U.S. leadership, and built on the conviction that American leadership in this hemisphere produces results. For 124 years, the U.S. has not only successfully engaged with PAHO but has been the moving force behind PAHO’s work that serves American interests and reflects American values.
Now is the time for the U.S to reaffirm its leadership in PAHO and meet America’s funding obligations to the Organization. At a time when infectious disease threats continue to cross borders, we urge policymakers in Washington to reassert America’s commitment to health security in the Western Hemisphere and recognize PAHO's essential role in safeguarding the American homeland.
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