this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Sure.
Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation will probably eradicate polio.
Before people jump on the bandwagon about how Gates is evil and problematic, that there are no virtuous billionaires, and a government or an NGO or an equivalent should have been the one to do it... I know. But the question was "name one billionaire that's done anything good," and I think it's pretty difficult to argue that eradicating polio isn't good.
On same tone, Warren Buffet.
He has also donated billions in the same charity and largely lives controversy free.
The company he’s synonymous with is very much not controversy free
Yeah, dude is asking the wrong question.
Bill gates is not curing polio, it's the doctors and scientists that are doing it.
Bill gates, also the guy who spent loads of time on epsteins island banging children. I guess it evens out /s
Source on that?
Pretty easy to find the connections on google. Try it. Start with his divorce and work backward. Just because you love him doesn’t mean he didn’t do bad things.
Ah, the classic 'Do your own research'
Ahh the classic dismissive “source?”
You do know Gates left day to day operations from Microsoft for like 20 years ago and his foundation has nothing to do with Microsoft?
However, one can posit that the Gates Foundation is creating a market for vaccines that aren't of interest in the industrialized nations.
I'm not sure that subsequent doses are going to be provided as generously as the first ones.
That's not how vaccines work. The illness is already there, it's not like people get sick after you introduce a vaccine into the system. So the "market" has always been there and every dose administered is great.
You don't understand my point.
And the market wasn't there, because unless there's some way to create high demand and guaranteed payment in poor countries, there's no profit in said vaccines (or any medication, for that matter; do you see any multinational farmaceutical companies giving much thought to the creation of medicine to cure Chagas disease? And it's endemic in many areas of South America. But those are poor areas, so the is no profit there).
The problem with your argument is that the Gates foundation is a non-profit. They aren't trying to make a profit, they've burned through tens of billions of dollars in the past 20 years.
Are you arguing that countries should just let people die from polio rather than accept humanitarian aid or am I missing something?
Some More News went into detail on why the “non-profit” label, especially for billionaires’ charity funds, is bullshit: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=69AtkAHkKEc
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=69AtkAHkKEc
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Awesome, most vaccines last years or even decades, Covid is an outlier because it mutates so rapidly. But "sick people" makes zero sense, you usually get the vaccine before you get sick. That's the entire point (except for rabies, where you straight up die if you don't get the vaccine quick enough).
Also great, they get a chance, instead of lifelong suffering or death.
Why would they be sick if they got the vaccine? Makes zero sense. The ones asking at this point would be the unvaccinated. Like a mom wanting to vaccinate her kids, so they don't get a crippling disease later in life.
And then the poor countries simply won't buy them. Because they straight up can't afford them. There is a reason they aren't buying vaccines right now: No money. So if they try to charge a lot of money no one will buy and we'll end up with the current state (just with thousands more who are immune against the disease, which is still an upside).
You can't suck blood from a stone, there is no money, so no profit.
Every single vaccine dose that goes to poor countries is awesome. That's it. The alternative to getting the vaccine is to catch the disease unprepared and suffer lifelong complications (or straight up die). There is no upside to not delivering vaccines.
Are you confusing vaccines with medication? For example the Polio vaccine lasts for 10+ years, "sick people" are not repeat customers for vaccines. The only time you have repeat customers is when you are still applying the vaccine (for example Polio needs 5 doses, but then you're good).
This is fundamentally incoherent, vaccines are less profitable than treatments / therapies
I thought the foundation's shady capitalist goals were pretty well known, not sure why you're downvoted. They are against releasing patent on the covid vaccine, for example, because their goal is for people to profit from it
Probably they believed the philanthropist act. Or they think the the US way of life is the only way.
The point of eradication is that once a disease is gone, you don't need to vaccinate against it any more. You've probably never been vaccinated against smallpox, for example.
Actually, I have been. But good for you for trying to guess my age and failing, buddy.
Doesn't really affect my point.