735

Malaria (fedia.io)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by jeena@jemmy.jeena.net to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

161 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLkbWUNQbgk&t=308s

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] kebabslob@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 5 months ago

He also held on to that COVID vaccine

[-] kralk@lemm.ee 36 points 5 months ago

He fucking did! Why the downvotes? He personally lobbied governments to make sure nobody released the patents to allow cheap vaccinations in developing countries

[-] SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net 16 points 5 months ago

Gates got a bunch of defenders for some reason

[-] bort@sopuli.xyz 0 points 5 months ago

some people like to join the winning team. It makes them feel like winnners themselves.

[-] kebabslob@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 months ago

I guess it doesn't fit the good billionaire narrative

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Citation needed.

[-] bort@sopuli.xyz 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Yikes. Do you know what justification was given?

[-] bort@sopuli.xyz 9 points 5 months ago

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

[-] SporeAdic@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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.

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Thanks. Sounds like the same ol "free market" argument then.

[-] cobra89@beehaw.org 13 points 5 months ago

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.

[-] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 5 points 5 months ago

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.