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He also held on to that COVID vaccine
He fucking did! Why the downvotes? He personally lobbied governments to make sure nobody released the patents to allow cheap vaccinations in developing countries
Gates got a bunch of defenders for some reason
some people like to join the winning team. It makes them feel like winnners themselves.
He was on the right side of the mask debate, right wingers were shitting on him, and the internet knows no nuance so he's the good guy and if you criticize him that means you like trump.
It couldn't possibly have anything to do with his work in the eradication of polio and malaria, his efforts to provide clean drinking water to impoverished areas, and his program to create renewable cheap electricity for impoverished rural areas? Seems like that probably has a lot more to do with people's perspective of him than the fact that trumpy bois don't like him.
Really? Cause I didn't really hear his name a lot before covid, and now I hear it a lot, and people always have really strong opinions about him.
It just wasn't in your circle of influence before. He has been working in humanitarian aid for decades. His contributions are well known, and well documented. You can check for yourself, he has accomplished a great deal towards the things I mentioned.
I guess it doesn't fit the good billionaire narrative
Citation needed.
Civil society organizations active in poorer nations, including Doctors Without Borders, expressed discomfort with the notion that Western-dominated groups, staffed by elite teams of experts, would be helping guide life-and-death decisions affecting people in poorer nations. Those tensions only increased when the Gates Foundation opposed efforts to waive intellectual property rights, a move that critics saw as protecting the interests of pharmaceutical giants over people living poorer nations
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/14/global-covid-pandemic-response-bill-gates-partners-00053969
Yikes. Do you know what justification was given?
i remember hearing, that their argument was, that a strong profit-incentive would motive the manufacturer to increase production as well as quality. I also remember that the debate around that topic was drowned out by some weirder theories. E.g. during that time q-anon was on the rise, and some people argued, that the gates foundation was using covid to implant microchips into people or something like that
source: my memory from a couple years back
Thanks. Sounds like the same ol "free market" argument then.
A not insignificant line of reasoning (though probably less important to people in power than the profit incentive) was also to keep the secrets of making the vaccine from bring revealed to other countries, which would apparently erode the USA's pharmaceutical research advantage. An interesting article about this from the former director of NIST is here but I don't necessarily agree with the reasoning.
Anyone doubting this claim should read this article: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/14/global-covid-pandemic-response-bill-gates-partners-00053969
Gives a really good breakdown of the role of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had in the global pandemic response and how they donated more money to the WHO during that time than any member country. How they have close ties to the WHO and how they hoarded the IP rights to the COVID vaccine resulting in lower income countries not having access to the vaccine.
It wasn't "lower income countries not having access to the vaccine". It was just preventing them from making it. They can have subsidized access to high quality vaccines.
India wanted to manufacturer the vaccine in less than ideal factories. That would have hurt or killed some of the people who took it, and the vaccine would have been blamed. This is the literal reason why they said "no". They fucking invented the vaccine. They would know.