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Gates Donates $500M+ To Fight Malaria and Other Diseases
jones_supa writes In the 63rd annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans, Bill Gates announced that he will donate over $500 million to fight malaria and other infectious diseases in the developing world. Gates described the Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 4,900 people in West Africa since the beginning of the year as a "critical moment in the history of global health", and said it underscores the need for stronger efforts to stay ahead of disease threats such as drug-resistant malaria and dengue fever. The more than $500 million announced Sunday includes over $150 million to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative to advance development of next-generation malaria vaccines, and $29 million to the Clinton Health Access Initiative to support malaria elimination efforts in Southern Africa and the Greater Mekong Sub-region of Southeast Asia.
Something good to come from a monopoly! Nice.
How many posts until someone finds a way to still hate on him, despite the fact that he's done more for the poor than all of us put together?
How many Apple fans will make fun of him, in spite of the fact that Steve Jobs never gave a dime to charity?
How many of you will take a potshot at Microsoft, even though Bill hasn't worked there in years?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Yes, but it is in the form of 2,500,000 Windows 8.1 licenses. That might be so repugnant that it would repel mosquitos, too.
You will not stomp on my spirit, sir.
... he took so much, he is having trouble spending it all before he dies.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Yippeeee!!!!
Bill only uses enlightened self-interest and nothing more. He is not concerned with the welfare of anybody.
"The idea that all these people are going to vote and have an opinion about subjects that are increasingly complex - where what seems, you might think the easy answer [is] not the real answer. It's a very interesting problem. ref
"The EU and India are currently negotiating a free-trade agreement, which campaigners say will restrict India's ability to produce anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, preventing the world's poor from accessing cheap drugs for their treatment." ref
First I think it's commendable that he is giving back. Fortune has been kind to him and it is only appropriate that he reciprocate in some small way.
By small I might point out that Forbes lists his net worth as $76B for 2014(1). So that $500M donation is roughly equivalent to 0.7% of his net worth. To put his donation in a more realistic perspective it is equivalent to someone of median net worth(2) donating $310. Hardly worth lionizing the man over IMHO.
1. http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mel45hdjl/1-bill-gates/
2. http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/news/economy/middle-class-wealth/
While I don't doubt the intentions of Bill and others who want to try and people alive, sadly this is natures way of making sure the world doesn't get overcrowded. It's a sad fact but people NEED to die.
'Most of the $3bn (£1.8bn) that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given to benefit hungry people in the world’s poorest countries has been spent in the US, Britain and other rich countries, with only around 10% spent in Africa, new research suggests.'
It's the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation, it's been around since 2000, He and or his Wife regularly pump money into it.
This is less news than Tim Cook being gay.
I'm starting to think those news stories about smart phones and Google running everyone's long term memories may not be such BS after all...
This is great news, however I would like to know why LondonPharma's treatment (ArTiMist) is not being rushed out to malaria prone areas.
http://www.mrc-malaria.com/artimist-product/
"ArTiMistâ was designed with a child in mind; a child living in a challenging environment where healthcare resources can be very scarce and time is of the essence."
ArTiMistâ in 2011 was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the Worldâ(TM)s 5 most promising drugs in Phase III clinical development.
Does not require medically trained personnel to administer
Not affected by GI complications
By passes the liver and the significant metabolism seen from the first pass effect.
Does not require a fatty diet for maximum effect
Rapidly absorbed
Negates risk of infection from needle injury
Can be administered in comatose patients
Does not require cold chain storage
Long shelf life
The USA is a dead cause anyway, might as well ship the resources to Africa. Who needs a jobs when there are healthy people in the heart of Africa?
just hand that money over to the government. Surely NIH or CDC or some other underfunded-but-ultra-efficient government body would know how to use that money better than Mr. Gate's sloppy private charities.
I mean, why would he want to shift $30B of his wealth and the future earnings it would generate into a foundation? A true American would have wanted the Government to get most, if not all, of that money. For the children.
And why oh why did he fund his foundation with appreciated Microsoft stock? By doing that he accidentally, I'm sure, missed his chance to pay his fair share of capital gain taxes to the Government to fund the wonderful things only the Government can do. I sure hope he didn't take a charitable donation deduction on top of that and compound his mistake?
And now I hear he's got Mr. Buffett all confused too! Mr. Buffett was so upset that his tax rates were so low, but he's making the same mistake Bill Gates made: donating appreciated stock *and* taking a charitable deduction *and* depriving the munificent folks at the Government with not only his donation but the taxes those donations avoided! Why think what his tax rates would have been had he simply sold the stock, paid the capital gains taxes, handed the proceeds to B&MGF, and chose to *not* take the deduction for doing so?!
Some one with access to over 30B, 500M seems a bit cheap. Looks more like a PR want to look good in media rather then a true want to help.
()-()
Thanks! That was an interesting article to read! Techrights has also collected some Gates Foundation Critique.