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.
On the page’s commentaries, a lot of people praises Bill for what he’s done. The usual stuff - when you see a shiny package, you think that it contains something very nice too.
But, the comment by shazeubaa caught my eye.
Shazeubaa gave a few pointers, which can be used to see what’s under the “skin”.
Here’s what I’ve found so far :
1. Sure, Bill gives big. But, do you realize that most of those are related to drugs / vaccinations? Here’s one of it. And, do you realize that he has invested quite a lot in medical companies ?
Can we draw a line connecting these ?
- Bill sells MSFT, takes Prozac
- Bill and Big Pharma companies : Bill now own shares on many drug companies.
2. An investigative journalism into Bill’s donations and agendas. Basically, the donations will bring him even more money from drugs, by blocking cheap drugs, therefore potentially killing more than he saved.
3. Just as with Microsoft, Bill staunch support of strict intellectual-property protections for drugs in poor countries. They argued that this is necessary, so they can recoup the R&D costs. However, turned out that Big Pharma’s marketing cost are 2.5 over their R&D cost.
Also, when you read something like this paragraph below, you can’t help but to start question the real intentions of Gates’ Foundation:
A report issued last year by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, chaired by economist Jeffrey Sachs, made a strong defense of intellectual-property protection as critical to continued investment in drug research and development. The Gates foundation was a major sponsor of the commission.
4. With vaccinations becoming mandatory in many countries, he could get very good returns on his “donations” (read: investment) to vaccine researches. But, vaccines are not without problems:
- [ Politicians messing with vaccinations ]
- [ A Salon/Rolling Stone joint investigation on vaccines ] - they could do this to US citizens, imagine what they’d do to the aliens ? (read: non-US citizens)
- [ Tetanus vaccination for Philippines, or sterilization scheme ? ] - This one is quite scary because my wife here (Indonesia) was advised not to take her pre-marital vaccination. A bit of background - here in Indonesia, a girl who’s going to get married was suggested to be vaccinated, “in case her husband is not clean“. However, people have observed that girls that took this vaccination tend to become sterile / have problems getting pregnant. Could this be the same problem with the Philippines ? Anyway, my wife avoided the vaccination, and now have 4 kids.
note: apparently, this case is pretty widespread; here’s a report from BBC on polio vaccine outrage in Nigeria. - [ Bill Gates and Tetanus vaccination] - History going to repeat itself ? (see point above)
- And when I was in UK, there was an uproar over a combined vaccination. Before that, 11 people died after getting a meningitis vaccine, and tens thousands complained.
- [ vaccination - a scheme to make drug companies richer ? ] - quoted: ” If it is true, that “Polio usually infects children under the age of 5 through contaminated drinking water and attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and, in some cases, death”, then should we not help these countries to supply healthy, uncontaminated drinking water to their population?” — Good point.
- Vaccines can be used to even wipe out certain race; example: Israel has been developing an “ethnic bullet”, a chemical / disease which target only certain race. Slip this into one of the vaccination programme, and there you go.
This list is by no means comprehensive. I already use up too much time, and need to stop at the moment. I’ll try to continue later, but do feel free to inform me if you know similar investigative research into Bill’s donations.
Note that I don’t judge that indeed Bill have hidden agenda in his donations. It requires much more exhaustive investigation, which I simply don’t have time/resource for.
I’m just simply against looking on the shiny skin / package, and decided that it’s good - straight away. With no effort whatsoever to look further / underneath all of it. This is why we can be fooled by many parties (gov’t, corporations, celebs, etc) so easily, for their own benefit.
We need to stop taking things so literally, and start to be smarter in regard to a lot of things. As Kakashi said; we need to start to “look underneath the underneath“.
Hopefully many will be inspired by this article to start doing this.
January 31st, 2006 06:39
Wired News: Jobs vs. Gates: Who’s the Star?
January 31st, 2006 10:48
coba nonton Constant Gardener deh.
August 28th, 2006 10:21
i really appreciate your great and benevolent atitude in sponsoring major project from thecgoood of humanity. I am a Medical practioner under Pan Africa Academy of Christian Surgeon, traning christian surgeon to help in Africa. I will with my entire life live to thank you if u can be my sponsor. This is request from a young and propecting surgeon. I am Nigeria , presently doing my Residency in Surgery at Ethiopia. i hope to hear from you . God bless.
August 5th, 2007 03:38
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.) t…
August 5th, 2007 03:39
Gates obsessed - battling virus plague…
According to a recent story in BBC News, a foundation set up by Bill Gates - founder and chairman of Microsoft Corporation - is giving $ 83 million for fighting tuberculosis. The money will not be going towards providing clean water or decent living co…
February 19th, 2008 20:04
I think Bill Gates should focus more on the Sub Saharan regions.
Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from chronically overburdened water systems under increasing stress from fast-growing urban areas. Weak governments, corruption, mismanagement of resources, poor long-term investment, and a lack of environmental research and urban infrastructure only exacerbate the problem. In some cases, the disruption or contamination of water supply in urban infrastructures and rural area has incited domestic and cross-border violence. Experts say incorporating water improvements into economic development is necessary to end the severe problems caused by water stress and to improve public health and advance the economic stability of the region.
February 19th, 2008 20:13
I think Bill Gate should focus more on Sub-Saharan Africa.
Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from chronically overburdened water systems under increasing stress from fast-growing urban areas. Weak governments, corruption, mismanagement of resources, poor long-term investment, and a lack of environmental research and urban infrastructure only exacerbate the problem. In some cases, the disruption or contamination of water supply in urban infrastructures and rural area has incited domestic and cross-border violence. Experts say incorporating water improvements into economic development is necessary to end the severe problems caused by water stress and to improve public health and advance the economic stability of the region.
May 21st, 2008 17:20
It’s not interesting for me. These all investigations, scandals, obsessions etc etc. What if Bill Gates is not guilty? How he fells helping people and people are saying bad words about him?
May 22nd, 2008 20:28
@Thomasooo - What if Bill Gates is not guilty?
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That’s just “what if”. We should focus on facts.
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And the fact is, being a “philantrophist” can bring significant financial reward.
Such massive tax breaks. Or, helping your new businesses to grow.
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We need to be more critical in these issues. It’s easy for the rich to become richer, at our expense. If we’re not critical, and kept easily wowed by the blings, expect to be the external sucker.