Current Events > Bill Gates says no to sharing vaccine formulas with global poor

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.salon.com/2021/04/26/bill-gates-says-no-to-sharing-vaccine-formulas-with-global-poor-to-end-pandemic_partner/

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Billionaire philanthropist humanitarian Bill Gates

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Fuck him.

Bill Gates says that anywhere that can be producing the vaccine is already producing the vaccine*

FTFY

if a headline says something, it is almost always false. Don't support clickbait.

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A billionaire being greedy and unethical. Whats new?

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Asked to explain why not, Gates whose massive fortune as founder of Microsoft relies largely on intellectual property laws that turned his software innovations into tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth said: "Well, there's only so many vaccine factories in the world and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done moving a vaccine, say, from a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India it's novel it's only because of our grants and expertise that that can happen at all."

... so if you let others produce vaccines, they suddenly become unsafe and unregulated?

sounds like a lot of bullshit, but no surprise here

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I Like Toast posted...

Bill Gates says that anywhere that can be producing the vaccine is already producing the vaccine*

FTFY

if a headline says something, it is almost always false. Don't support clickbait.

That can be producing the vaccine*

*under Imaginary Property laws

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1337toothbrush posted...

*under Imaginary Property laws

nope. Under reality and safety regulations.

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He didn't say we shouldn't share the formula with the poor. He said that doing so wouldn't help. And his reasoning is pretty sound. Quote below from the article for people who are tempted to reply without actually reading it:

Directly asked during an interview with Sky News if he thought it "would be helpful" to have vaccine recipes be shared, Gates quickly answered: "No."

Asked to explain why not, Gates whose massive fortune as founder of Microsoft relies largely on intellectual property laws that turned his software innovations into tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth said: "Well, there's only so many vaccine factories in the world and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done moving a vaccine, say, from a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India it's novel it's only because of our grants and expertise that that can happen at all."

The reference is to the Serum factory in India, the largest such institute in the country, which has contracts with AstraZeneca to manufacture their COVID-19 vaccine, known internationally as Covishield.

The thing that's holding "things back" in terms of the global vaccine rollout, continued Gates, "is not intellectual property. It's not like there's some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines. You know, you've got to do the trial on these things. Every manufacturing process needs to be looked at in a very careful way."

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That article doesn't seem to offer any information that counters his statements about the safety issues. Are you able to do that, TC?

I Like Toast posted...

nope. Under reality and safety regulations.

Yeah, the imaginary property rights are enforced for your safety*!

*the safety of their profits

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Eevee-Trainer posted...

... so if you let others produce vaccines, they suddenly become unsafe and unregulated?

sounds like a lot of bullshit, but no surprise here

ITP: Unsanitary hygiene practices and compounding doesn't happen in China, Africa, and India

he's not wrong? this isn't a line of code that he's talking about, its not even a gene sequence. its the process of either producing and encapsulating mRNA in a way that allows cells to uptake it, or genetically modifying an adenovirus to use as a vector to achieve the same goal. you're not going to be able to retool a production line that originally made pills to do that.

then the article starts acting like gates is the final decider on any of this? it really reads like a wacky qanon spinoff...

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1337toothbrush posted...

*the safety of their profits

"I think they're so greedy but their limiting their supply to make less money"

now i'm done feeding a troll, don't starve.

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ToPoPO posted...

ITP: Unsanitary hygiene practices and compounding doesn't happen in China, Africa, and India

Okay, fair point.

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I Like Toast posted...

"I think they're so greedy but their limiting their supply to make less money"

now i'm done feeding a troll, don't starve.

With how much licking you're doing, you'll never starve. Also, where did you get the idea that limiting supply decreases prices?

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I feel like his reasoning is sound after I read the entire article.

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ToPoPO posted...

ITP: Unsanitary hygiene practices and compounding doesn't happen in China, Africa, and India

Wasn't India viewed as the pharmaceutical capital of the world just a few years ago? Pretty suspect that he won't even let them have the formula.


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Weren't the trials done on poor countries in the first place to find out if they worked before giving it to the rich ones?

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BlueTigerLion posted...

Weren't the trials done on poor countries in the first place to find out if they worked before giving it to the rich ones?

IIRC only China did that with their vaccines.

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If it wouldn't have any affect, these companies wouldn't be so committed to lobbying against efforts to waive the IP protections.

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his reply to why it shouldn't be shared seems reasonable to me

Yeah, it could be dangerous... but it should be up to the countries involved to decide if it's worth the risk, not billionaires.

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