Gates Foundation Vs. Openness In Research

An anonymous reader writes "There have been complaints within the World Health Organization of some oddly familiar-sounding tactics and attitudes by the Gates Foundation. Scientists who were once open with their research are now 'locked up in a cartel' and are financially motivated to support other scientists backed by the Foundation. Diversity of views is 'stifled,' dominance is bought, and Foundation views are pushed with 'intense and aggressive opposition.'" The article tries hard for balance. It notes that the WHO official who raised the alarm on the Gates Foundation's unintended consequences on world health research is "an openly undiplomatic official who won admiration for reorganizing the world fight against tuberculosis but was ousted from that job partly because he offended donors like the Rockefeller Foundation."

Comments

Re: It's affecting AIDS research too

[QuincyFree]

I work in AIDS research. The conflicts that are emerging in the field of malaria research are very similar to what we are experiencing in our field, which in both cases is a consequence of the severe funding bottleneck for biological sciences. The Gates Foundation has been an extremely important source of funding for basic science as well as providing resources for prevention and outreach in areas of the world suffering from the heaviest burden of these diseases. Unfortunately, the current funding philosophy seems to be to reward a massive sum of cash to a very select subset of scientists in the field. This has created some unfortunate divisions in our field. If you can access the article, see: http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v13/n5/abs/nm0507-515.html (I've also been able to Google for excerpts from the article.) Basically, both the Gates Foundation and the NIH have pumped massive funding into a single research consortium, leaving many other labs scavenging for funding to sustain their clinical research. Throw in some questionable data-sharing practices and lack of scientific collaboration by the consortium, and you'll obviously create a lot of resentment.

Re:Surprised?

[ejdmoo]

Please read TFA people...
Some quotes:

In a memorandum, the chief of the malaria program, Arata Kochi, complained to his boss, Margaret Chan, the director general of WHO, that the foundation's money, while crucial, could have "far-reaching, largely unintended consequences."

Many of the world's leading malaria scientists are now "locked up in a 'cartel' with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group," Kochi wrote. Because "each has a vested interest to safeguard the work of the others," he wrote, getting independent reviews of research proposals "is becoming increasingly difficult."

They are pointing out a general fact about research funding, and then saying that there's a lack of diversity in Malaria research/funding, because most of it is coming from the Gates Foundation. Maybe if Sergei and Larry would stop buying 767s (and NASA airfield landing rights) they could fund competing research.

(just flamebait fun on the goog guys...could have easily used Michael Dell)

Should be noted that

[djupedal]

...the B & G Foundation/MS statistically donates less money than most all other US corporate behemoths. It acts more like a giant investment fund rather than a savior.

Quote from the LA Times, Jan, 2007: "the Los Angeles Times looked into how the foundation invests some of the billions of dollars that are in the portfolio of the world's largest charity, and it found a number of instances -- perhaps 41 percent of that portfolio -- in which the foundation has invested in companies that have policies that actively undermine the social welfare goals of the foundation."