03.01.12
Dr. Ben Goldacre Speaks Out Against Gates Foundation Support for Bad Drugs
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
–Bill Gates
Summary: The patent ventures (monopolies) of Bill Gates are criticised by medical doctors and Warren Buffett’s son
THE Gates Foundation helps companies it is investing in sell some more drugs and conduct clinical trials on impoverished populations that won’t sue when the experiment fails. Such is the nature of the PR operation set up by Bill Gates to make himself richer (and Gates is still getting richer, despite claims of “giving away” his wealth).
One person who is affiliated with MSF asks: “Why is the Gates Foundation supporting this trial of a rubbish AIDS drug?”
To quote: “There’s food for thought all over this letter. The Gates Foundation are supporting a trial comparing two AIDS drugs to see if the cheap one is as good at treating AIDS as the expensive one. But the cheap one has well demonstrated worse side effects. Is that worth it? Maybe, if you want to be realistic about more people getting access to cheaper treatments (remembering, natch, that’s it’s both hideous and absurd that drug co’s try to claw back drug development costs from developing countries, but there you go). However, it looks like the cheap one won’t be that much cheaper than the expensive one for long anyway. Fascinating messy area.”
We found this link in Gates Keepers, a blogger who separately adds: “Death and outmigration of seropositive sex workers are the simplest two explanations for a decrease in the percentage of sex workers infected in this brothel area. Condom use is another. Was this mentioned to the Gates Foundation?”
Gates wants to claim credit for the “end” of AIDS and all sorts of sex-related conditions. We wrote about this before. It’s all about PR, a lot less about practice. But it works — it works in the sense that it whitewashes the reputation not only of Gates but of fellow plutocrats too. It sells the fairytale that the population depends on the robber barons for survival. Watch what Warren Buffett’s son is saying. While his dad, along with Bill, is making a population dependent on patents (to help make a profit) he criticises Gates’ approach: “Buffett says the Gates Foundation approach is to focus on high-tech farming techniques including hybrid seeds and synthetic fertilizers that aren’t sustainable in poor countries. “We need to quit thinking about trying to do it like we do it in America,” Howard Buffett said about the farming programs underway at the Gates . “At some point those guys are going to go home and the money going to not be there.””
It’s about Monsanto, which Gates is investing in. They are looting Africa too; it is a long-term investment that will cost farmers dearly. This as well was covered here over the years. █
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
Quora said,
January 25, 2013 at 5:23 pm
Was Bill Gates a good CEO for Microsoft and why?…
If you believe he is. http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781 http://www.saidbyred.com/2012/03/no-good-deed-goes-unnoticedbut-bad.html http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=204600028 http://awellfedworld.wordpress.com/tag/gates-f…