In a long article titled “Gates versus the Pandemic,” Fast Company looks at the many mitigation efforts launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. – It’s one of the largest funders of the World Health Organization. – It’s partnered with the governments of Norway and India, the World Economic Forum, and the research-charity Wellcome Trust to launch an important group…
Tag: melinda gates
Could Open Source Licensing Stop Big Pharma Profiteering On Taxpayer-Funded Covid-19 Vaccines?
Two professors at the University of Massachusetts have co-authored a new essay explaining how open source licensing “could keep Big Pharma from making huge profits off taxpayer-funded research” in the international, multi-billion-dollar race for a Covid-19 vaccine: The invention of the “General Public License,” sometimes referred to as a viral or reciprocal license, meant that should an improvement be made, the…
How Bill Gates Celebrated Warren Buffett’s 90th Birthday
The seventh-wealthiest man in the world, Warren Buffett, turns 90 today. Famously the tycoon/philanthropist pledged to give away 90% of his wealth, founding with Bill and Melinda Gates “The Giving Pledge,” a campaign urging the world’s wealthiest individuals to dedicate the majority of their wealth to giving back. Over $1.2 trillion has now been pledged, with participants including Elon Musk, Ted…
Tesla to Make Molecule Printers for Gates-Backed Vaccine Developer
Tesla is building mobile molecule printers to produce a potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed in Germany by CureVac, reports Reuters: CureVac, an unlisted German company, has said it is developing portable, automated mRNA production units that it calls printers and which Musk described as “RNA microfactories”. They are being designed to be shipped to remote locations, where they can churn out…
Largest Study To Date Finds Hydroxychloroquine Doesn’t Help Coronavirus Patients
A new hydroxychloroquine study — “the largest to date” — was published Thursday in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. It concluded that Covid-19 patients taking the drug “do not fare better than those not receiving the drug,” reports Time:
Dr. Neil Schluger, chief of the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine at Columbia, and his team studied more…
Health Officials Worry About Possible Lack of Cooperation on Coronavirus Vaccines
Global health officials and diplomats are “alarmed” by America’s “apparent lack of interest in cooperation” on international efforts for a vaccine against Covid-19. Slashdot reader Charlotte Web quotes this report from Politico:
The fear is that Trump will be content with allowing the race to develop and distribute the vaccine to devolve into a global contest — and that poorer countries will…
The Most Widespread COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Target Bill Gates
In a 2015 speech, Bill Gates tried to warn that the greatest thread to humanity was an infectious virus, reports the New York Times. “Anti-vaccinators, members of the conspiracy group QAnon and right-wing pundits have instead seized on the video as evidence that one of the world’s richest men planned to use a pandemic to wrest control of the global health…
Microsoft Launching ‘Plasmabot’ To Screen Recovered COVID-19 Patients For Researchers
CNBC reports:
Microsoft is working with a consortium of pharmaceutical companies to recruit people who have recovered from Covid-19 to donate their plasma, which could be used in treatments for the disease. To help get the word out, the company is launching a chatbot, which it refers to as its “plasmabot,” to lead people through a series of questions to determine if…
Bill Gates To Spend Billions on Coronavirus Vaccine Development
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said his foundation will spend billions of dollars to fund the construction of factories for the most promising efforts to develop a vaccine to combat the novel coronavirus. From a report: Mr. Gates, a billionaire philanthropist who is one the richest people in the world, said the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will work with seven makers…
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Promises Home-Testing Kits for Coronavirus
An anonymous reader quotes the Seattle Times:
Testing for the novel coronavirus in the Seattle area will get a huge boost in the coming weeks as a project funded by Bill Gates and his foundation begins offering home-testing kits that will allow people who fear they may be infected to swab their noses and send the samples back for analysis. Results, which…