The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is not as pure as it seems. [View all]

[alfredo]

We've all known there were strings attached to his philanthropy. Now we see he is associated with some real bad players like Monsanto.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/07/the_gates_foundations_leverage.html


Donor nations were shocked last month, when UNICEF disclosed that it has been forced to pay artificially elevated prices for vaccines under an arrangement called the Advance Market Commitment, which was brokered by Gates Foundation-dominated GAVI alliance, to greatly increase drug company profits. Stakeholders also worry that industry reports of particular vaccine's effectiveness might be skewed by marketing goals. .

There is no doubt that vaccines save lives, but a 2009 analysis by the British medical journal Lancet flagged a number of concerns about the Foundation's pattern of expenditures, particularly questioning the propriety of making "charitable" contributions to the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC). Others have expanded on those concerns.

The 2010 Gates Foundation announcement of $1.5 billion for maternal health in developing countries over five years was welcomed, but it came heavily leveraged. Gates launched the Health in Africa Fund, through the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to establish new mechanisms to invest world health funding and national health budgets in private-sector healthcare facilities in Africa. The Gates Foundation's funding category for Global Maternal Health includes research and development in the US of technology and treatments, and also advocacy in vulnerable African nations for government policies. Since Gates believes sustainable health systems must be privately profitable, he leverages his "maternal health" funding to effectively divert investment of available in-country funds, as well as NGO funding, into private ventures that he favors, instead of into national health plans.

The pursuit of profitability for the Foundation's corporate marketers warps the design and implementation of delivery programs. The Gates Foundation leverages its own contributions to dominate and focus external funds into its own intensive, vertically integrated programs.