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It’s cool that a software developer who entered the philanthropy world in the late 90s to save his reputation while the federal government was probing Microsoft for violating antitrust law has basically accumulated veto power in international public health affairs. https://twitter.com/salon/status/1386637199593152518
Gates has always been an IP fanatic (didn’t think I’d ever write out the term “IP fanatic” but it’s pretty accurate with regards to Gates’s approach to public health measures). Really brilliant piece on this at TNR. https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
Every single word of the piece is worth reading but here’s a good sample (ugly vertical screenshot, sorry!) on the subject of Gates and IP.
It’s amazing how the Microsoft antitrust suit has faded completely from public memory. The company committed the most blatant violations of federal competition law imaginable and it resulted in... nothing.
For those unacquainted: Microsoft leadership spat in the face of century-old antitrust law and got away with it because, despite now feigning concern about the evils of Big Tech, conservatives totally gutted federal antitrust enforcement.
Knowing Gates's actual role in the current global vaccination nightmare makes QAnon conspiracies about MICROCHIPS even more insane. You'd think someone hellbent on "microchipping" everyone would want to, you know, not keep half of the world waiting for another two years!
Right-wing conspiracy theorists really are the ultimate useful idiots for people with power.
Since this is a thread about global vaccination disparities I’d like to boost resources to help people in India right now. I’m not totally sure what to share but I saw this list and wanted to boost. Please let me know about other resources I can boost. https://twitter.com/r_gov11/status/1386718066822709250
Let me clarify something, by the way - When I speak about Gates's veto power in international public health affairs, I'm not referring to Gates's recent public statements in 2021 when pressed about whether he supports IP waivers for vaccine patents lol.
I'm referring to Gates and his allies' documented role in killing early efforts by open science advocates to remove intellectual property from the equation re: COVID-19 vaccination R&D efforts. Unfortunately, Gates and the IFPMA won, and we're all paying the price for it.
The crusade to protect the global IP regime had entirely predictable consequences, by the way. From the jump, public health officials and policy experts warned that a vaccine development process w/o information pooling would reinforce existing inequities.
Here's the international coalition formed in *May 2020* that warned that a profit-driven approach to vaccine development would lead to inequity of access. People will try to revise history to say that no one saw this coming, but it's simply not true.
https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2020/may/20200514_covid19-vaccine-open-letter
https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2020/may/20200514_covid19-vaccine-open-letter
During the pandemic, pharma industry figures have leaned on (subtly or otherwise!) the supposed benevolence of private philanthropy efforts re: questions of vaccine equity. Gates's Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was often mentioned in particular.
The implication was obvious: IP restrictions would not pose a threat to an equitable distribution of COVID vaccine supplies, because the Good Guys With Money™ won't let that happen. The problem is that, well, they did, because private philanthropy isn't at all sufficient.
This failure is worth remembering when assessing Gates' main U.S. political initiative: the gutting of the public education system is Washington State and elsewhere.
Charter schools will never be an adequate replacement for well-funded public schools. https://apnews.com/article/92dc914dd97c487a9b9aa4b006909a8c
Charter schools will never be an adequate replacement for well-funded public schools. https://apnews.com/article/92dc914dd97c487a9b9aa4b006909a8c
Eternal respect to the fine voters of Washington State for rejecting Gates's push to gut public education in the 2012 Washington Initiative 1240 referendum. https://washingtonstatewire.com/the-gangs-all-here-tech-biggies-backing-charter-schools-gates-now-at-1-million/
