Donald J. Brooks worked as an infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO) until August last year and served as coordinator of the global COVID-19 program of work (2023-2025).

I’m from rural Clifton, Maine, off a dirt road used for logging and to reach family camps. In places like Clifton, preparedness beats drama, because systems are thin and help isn’t instant. Growing up, I watched an ambulance slide down our icy hill and get stuck on the way to someone in need. Power outages were routine, and a generator was just part of how we lived.

That’s why a recent conversation with my parents hit me hard. They told me the World Health Organization (WHO) seems like a “globalist entity pushing a global agenda.” I hear versions of that everywhere now, not just in Maine. The information space we live in pushes people toward extremes: total trust or total contempt, all-in or all-out.

I’m not interested in that kind of politics. I’m a Mainer who prizes independent thinking, and independent thinking means resisting slogans and asking what’s actually true. So here’s what I can say as someone who worked inside WHO during the pandemic: WHO can feel far away and detached, and that’s exactly why it mattered that Americans were in the room.

From Maine, it can feel like another planet: Geneva, acronyms, polished language, people you’ll never meet.

But that’s the point — when Americans leave, the room doesn’t disappear. It just loses people like us. In that room, there was a Mainer pushing for balance, pushing for evidence over ideology, for recommendations rooted in data that protect both lives and livelihoods. Not perfect decisions, but better decisions, argued by someone who knows what “thin margins” look like in real communities.

From 2023 to 2025, I served as the coordinator of the global COVID-19 program of work at WHO. I’ve seen U.S. officials dismiss WHO staff in Geneva as “eurocrats.” That label would have included me. Whatever you imagine “Geneva” is, the reality I saw was people chasing the data, arguing over evidence and trying to keep countries moving in the same direction long enough to save lives.

That’s what WHO is in practice: a forum. A place where countries share signals, argue over evidence, negotiate tradeoffs and coordinate when an outbreak doesn’t respect borders or political narratives. When the United States participates, it doesn’t just “receive guidance.” It shapes what gets debated, what gets prioritized and what gets measured.

As of Jan. 22, 2026, the United States is out, and the work continues anyway. Declaring ourselves “out” doesn’t make global outbreaks any less real. We don’t get to opt out of global outbreaks; we only opt out of influence and early warning. In stepping back from one of the world’s central forums for public health emergencies, this administration has taken away our voice: the ability to push back, demand evidence and shape what comes next.

This isn’t abstract for Maine. Maine is rural by geography and by infrastructure. When capacity is thin and distances are long, being late costs you choices. Skepticism can be healthy, but it’s not a plan. Leaving doesn’t correct WHO’s flaws; it removes our ability to argue for better. And for Maine, that matters: long drives, limited staffing, an aging population and winter constraints leave little margin for late warning or one-size-fits-all guidance.

In Clifton, after you’ve watched an ambulance get stuck on the ice trying to get to someone on one of their worst days, you stop confusing skepticism with denial. You don’t argue about whether winter is real, you plan for it, because the consequences show up either way.

The same logic applies here: outbreaks don’t care what we believe. You stay in the room so you hear warnings early, push for evidence and keep a hand on what comes next.

Leaving WHO doesn’t make Maine safer, freer or more self-reliant. It makes us quieter in the rooms where the world prepares, and it leaves Maine, with its thin margins, less informed and with fewer options when the next threat arrives.