This isn’t Bill’s action, it’s Bill’s inaction. As per those articles, all he did was not support the waiver of patents, which ultimately wasn’t his decision anyway? He claimed that it would not significantly change production, or at least not quickly enough to matter.
It still seems shitty, but comparing to Elon? Who is actively cutting off the flow of medication that has already been manufactured and paid for - to dying children?
Allowing tuberculosis patients to lapse partway through treatment, thereby allowing drug resistant TB to skyrocket in impoverished communities and by extension the entite world?
Effectively guaranteeing a death sentence for infected children, who will experience a relapse of a horrifying but completely curable disease? Children who will not be able to afford the diagnostics and treatments for a second round because they are orders of magnitude more expensive for drug-resistant TB?
If you had read the article, you would know that he very actively pressured Oxford not to open license the vaccine, leveraging his $750 million donation to the university for vaccine research.
It claims that he bragged about doing so, and links to another article.
But that other article doesn’t support that claim with any evidence that he pressured them, bragged about it, or had any say in the final decision.
We went to Oxford and said, Hey, you’re doing brilliant work,” Bill Gates told reporters on June 3, a transcript shows. “But … you really need to team up.” The comments were first reported by Bloomberg.
AstraZeneca, one of the U.K.’s two major pharma companies, may have demanded an exclusive license in return for doing a deal, said Ken Shadlen, a professor at the London School of Economics and an authority on pharma patents—a theory supported by comments from CEO Soriot.
"We simply don’t know what’s in these deals,” he said. “The biopharma industry is applying old rules of commercial confidentiality in a situation that is unprecedented.”
This isn’t Bill’s action, it’s Bill’s inaction. As per those articles, all he did was not support the waiver of patents, which ultimately wasn’t his decision anyway? He claimed that it would not significantly change production, or at least not quickly enough to matter.
It still seems shitty, but comparing to Elon? Who is actively cutting off the flow of medication that has already been manufactured and paid for - to dying children?
Allowing tuberculosis patients to lapse partway through treatment, thereby allowing drug resistant TB to skyrocket in impoverished communities and by extension the entite world?
Effectively guaranteeing a death sentence for infected children, who will experience a relapse of a horrifying but completely curable disease? Children who will not be able to afford the diagnostics and treatments for a second round because they are orders of magnitude more expensive for drug-resistant TB?
If you had read the article, you would know that he very actively pressured Oxford not to open license the vaccine, leveraging his $750 million donation to the university for vaccine research.
Really? Show me where.
It claims that he bragged about doing so, and links to another article.
But that other article doesn’t support that claim with any evidence that he pressured them, bragged about it, or had any say in the final decision.
I agree. The difference between the two is stark.