Gates funds vaccination
Yesterday, an article in the Washington Post caught my attention. It was has a story about Bill Gates and his ambitious plan to help the poor countries' children. Gates joined with UNICEF, the World Health Organization and other parties (Glaxo etc.) to form the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.
Knowing of the dangers posed by most vaccines to those who receive them, especially children, I am suspicious and try to find out more. Of course nothing's for free these days, emphasises Glaxo Smith Kline, I read.
People at Glaxo emphasize that these initiatives are not charitable undertakings. While they feel a sense of mission about their work, they said they can continue only if they can do it profitably.
There is also a subtle spin on the issue when the article goes on to say:
Vaccination is widely regarded as the most effective medical technology ever devised. A few doses of medicine can prime the immune system to recognize and attack invading germs before they can cause illness. In the industrial world, the technique has wiped out great scourges that used to maim and kill young children.
In the United States and other rich countries, fewer than 1 percent of children die before reaching age 6, but in some poor countries that number exceeds 20 percent. Malnutrition and poor sanitation contribute enormously to the toll, but so too does the lack of basic immunizations. By World Health Organization estimates, 2.7 million children ages 5 and younger die every year of infectious diseases preventable with vaccines, many costing only pennies per dose.
The "germ theory of disease" is by no means uncontested. In fact, when we read that "[m]alnutrition and poor sanitation contribute enormously to the toll, but so too does the lack of basic immunizations." we should note that malnutrition and poor sanitation are the primary problems taking a high toll in child mortality in the less developed countries, with vaccinations added more like an afterthought, put there to promote the action.
Also read what investigative journalist Greg Palast has to say about the philantropic stunt of Bill 'the Microsoft' Gates, commenting on a similar article in the New York Times.
Article found on GregPalast.com
BILL GATES: KILLING AFRICANS FOR PROFIT AND P.R.
Mr. Bush's Bogus AIDS Offer
Greg Palast
Monday, July 14, 2003Bring back Jayson Blair! The New York Times has eliminated the scourge of plagiarized journalism by eliminating journalism altogether from its front page. Check this Sunday’s edition: “Bill Gates is no ordinary philanthropist,” gushes a Times reporter named Stephanie Strom, re-writing one of the digital diva’s self-loving press releases. Gates has saved 100,000 lives by providing vaccines to Africans, gushes Stephanie, according to someone on the payroll of … Bill Gates. And he’s making access to drugs for Africans, especially for AIDS victims, “cheaper and easier.” Stephanie knows because she asked Bill Gates himself!
Then we get to the real point of this journalistic Lewinsky: “Those who think of Mr. Gates as a ruthless billionaire monopolist … may find it hard to reconcile that image with one of a humorously self-deprecating philanthropist.”
Actually, that’s not hard at all.
Stephanie, let me let you in on a little secret about Bill and Melinda Gates so-called “Foundation.” Gate’s demi-trillionaire status is based on a nasty little monopoly-protecting trade treaty called “TRIPS” – the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights rules of the World Trade Organization. TRIPS gives Gates a hammerlock on computer operating systems worldwide, legally granting him the kind of monopoly the Robber Barons of yore could only dream of. But TRIPS, the rule which helps Gates rule, also bars African governments from buying AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis medicine at cheap market prices.
Example: in June 2000, at the urging of Big Pharma, Bill Clinton threatened trade sanctions against Argentina for that nation’s daring to offer low-cost drugs to Southern Africa.
Gates knows darn well that “intellectual property rights” laws such as TRIPS – which keep him and Melinda richer than Saddam and the Mafia combined – are under attack by Nelson Mandela and front-line doctors trying to get cut-rate drugs to the 23 million Africans sick with the AIDS virus (see also: AIDS in Africa on my page). Gate’s brilliant and self-serving solution: he’s spending an itsy-bitsy part of his monopoly profits (the $6 billion spent by Gates’ foundation is less than 2% of his net worth) to buy some drugs for a fraction of the dying. The bully billionaire’s “philanthropic” organization is currently working paw-in-claw with the big pharmaceutical companies in support of the blockade on cheap drug shipments.
Gates’ game is given away by the fact that his Foundation has invested $200 million in the very drug companies stopping the shipment of low-cost AIDS drugs to Africa.
Gates says his plan is to reach one million people with medicine by the end of the decade. Another way to read it: he’s locking in a trade system that will effectively block the delivery of medicine to over 20 million.
The computer magnate’s scheme has a powerful ally. “The president could have been reading from a script prepared by Mr. Gates,” enthuses the Times’ cub reporter, referring to Mr. Bush’s AIDS plan offered up this week to skeptical Africans. The US press does not understand why Africans don’t jump for Bush’s generous handout. None note that the money held out to the continent’s desperate nations has strings attached or, more accurately, chains and manacles. The billions offered are mostly loans at full interest which may be used only to buy patent drugs from US companies at a price several times that available from other nations. What Africans want, an end to the devastating tyranny of TRIPS and other trade rules, is dismissed by the Liberator of Baghdad.
We are all serfs on Microsoft’s and Big Pharma’s ‘intellectual property.’ If Gates’ fake philanthropy eviscerates the movement to free Africans from the tyranny of TRIPS, then Bill and Melinda’s donations could have the effect of killing more Africans than then even their PR agents claim they have saved. And for our own Republic, we can only hope that when the bully-boy billionaire injects his next wad of loot into the Bush political campaign, he uses a condom.
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Bill Gates : the Philanthropist ?
A few days ago I stumbled upon a Digg news on Bill Gates : Bill gives big. It was about Bill Gates (again) donating serious amount of money.Philanthropy Gates Style
...an investigative report published in the LA Times at the beginning of 2007 found that the Gates Foundation "reaps vast financial gains every year from investments that contravene its good works" [3]. These investments go to companies responsible for causing the problems the Foundation tries to solve. The Gates Foundation also profited hugely from its holdings in the top 100 polluters in the United States as rated by the University of Massachusetts and the top 50 polluters in Canada, as rated by the trade publication Corporate Knights. Its investments in these companies total about $3.3 billion.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Tuesday July 15 2003
updated on Saturday August 4 2007URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/07/15/gates_funds_vaccination.htm
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