In 2014, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation avoided taking a position, when asked if they were in favor of ensuring all people have access to affordable, basic healthcare during a World Bank’s event dubbed ‘Toward Universal Health Coverage by 2030’.
The Gates Foundation emphasized on their belief in technological innovations like new drugs or vaccines. This Foundation was hesitant or as some would say skeptical about their commitment to Universal Health Coverage(UHC) claiming that there was a lack of robust evidence of links between UHC and the desired impact of health outcomes. So what changed? An opportunity emerged for Bill Gates and that’s why critics call him a ‘philanthropportunist’! There is nothing wrong with any investor pursuing opportunities, just not at the expense of the lives of vulnerable women and children.
In September 2019,world leaders adopted the United Declaration on Universal Health Coverage. Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation appreciated this claiming that since the world had committed to health for all, it was time to ‘get down to the hard work of turning those commitments into results’. She further added that ‘donors and country governments needed to ‘bolster primary health care systems’ that address majority of people’s needs’.
These statements were significant in that the aims of primary health care overlap with those of universal health coverage. National Institutes of Health (NIH) asserts that by strengthening primary health care systems that would help in the achievement or attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This claim by NIH further explains why the Gates’ have embraced this opportunity to push for the ‘strengthening’ of primary healthcare systems in Africa! Why?
Market for Gates-funded products (vaccines, drugs, contraceptives and diagnostic tools)
The Gates Foundation has been pushing country governments to ‘sustainably finance, improve and manage their primary health care systems’. The Gates Foundation has more than 10 program teams that tackle health delivery challenges which involve 90 products from vaccines, drugs, contraceptives and diagnostic tools.
So is it just a coincidence that the Gates Foundation would want to have governments pay for primary services that this organization provides?
Family Planning and Contraceptives.
The Gates Foundation has been providing family planning and contraceptives access to many African women, even though some of these hormonal oral contraceptives have been linked to cancer. Contraceptives as part of primary health care would mean a continuous supply of Gates-funded products, a great return on his investment at the expense of some of the women’s lives.
The Gates-funded World Health Organization claimed that cervical cancer is highest among African women. Subsequently, Bill Gates funded the controversial Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine trial in Kenya under the KEN SHE study, that we discuss later on.
Vaccines
Afribundance has been researching on some of the controversial vaccines funded by the Gates Foundation. Our article on Bill Gates’ philanthrocapitalism explored how world renowned cholera expert Professor Renaud Piarroux, exposed the cholera scandal in Haiti by the Gates Foundation.
Professor Piarroux disclosed that Bill Gates owned cholera vaccine factories in South Korea, and organized unnecessary mass cholera vaccinations in Haiti, even though cholera had disappeared two years prior in that country! The same mass cholera vaccination campaigns are now rampant in African countries driven by Gates-funded organizations, and will continue as part of what they call ‘strengthening primary healthcare systems’ to prevent purported cholera outbreaks.
The irony to this is that a video circulating on social media showed how raw sewage runs through a Kenyan Market during heavy downpour. This is very common in many markets in Africa. Other than fixing these sewer systems, ‘to prevent future cholera outbreaks’, the government and these Gates-funded organizations choose to vaccinate people against cholera! Meaning that this cycle of rainfall, raw sewage and cholera vaccinations will continue for a long time, even as all these organizations claim to want to #EndCholera soon.
So this push for primary health care systems is to have governments fund the same products that Bill Gates has invested in, even as they claim that ‘needy people receive them for free’.
Malaria Vaccine
We also exposed in another article the low-efficacy dangerous Malaria vaccine (RTS,S) that received ‘catalytic funding’ from Bill Gates. Yet, with its adverse life-threatening side effects, it was still being touted as a ‘game-changer’ in the #EndMalaria Campaign.
Polio Vaccine
We also exposed the circulating poliovirus that was vaccine-derived, from yet another Gates-funded Oral Polio Vaccine(OPV). All these vaccines are touted as necessary immunizations for children, yet their adverse effects have been detrimental to children’s health especially in Africa. African children suffered from acute flaccid paralysis related to this vaccine-derived polio.
This Gates-funded polio vaccine had received the Emergency Use Listing by the Gates-funded WHO, which raises suspicion as to why that happened when other polio vaccines were already available in the market.
None of the Gates-Funded organizations seem to want to address these concerns, vaccine injuries or compensation for the maimed African children.
Another question that we posed was ‘Are these vaccines those that are unwanted globally’? The reason being that WHO’s advisory group SAGE has endorsed calls for the ‘Oral Polio Vaccine’ cessation. This is in planning for the global end of the use of live, attenuated oral polio vaccines.
So are these mass polio vaccine campaigns a plan to use the unwanted global polio vaccine stockpile on African children? Why is Africa not receiving IPVs instead of OPVs like other children in the developed world?
HPV Vaccines
The researchers and the Gates-funded media in Kenya urged parents to have their girls vaccinated against HPV to ‘help prevent cervical cancer in future’. This KEN SHE research study used Cervarix and Gardasil 9 HPV vaccines on these girls, without disclosing that the Gardasil 9 Vaccine was the subject of a large class action lawsuit (in 50 States) due to its adverse effects and reported vaccine injuries. Our video noted the need to address these concerns.
Additionally, the court in the United States had demanded release of all the data regarding its adverse effects and vaccine injuries reported. Similar class action lawsuits against the HPV vaccines happened in Japan too, following their national vaccination programs. This led to Japan withdrawing their recommendation of these two HPV vaccines and suspended their promotion while they investigated their side effects.
Cervarix manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) chose to exit the U.S. Market claiming that this was due to ‘very low market demand’. Additionally, a leading developer and expert that was responsible for the Phase II and Phase III safety and effectiveness studies of HPV vaccines Dr. Diane Harper, has publicized the serious consequences and ineffectiveness of these HPV vaccines.
With all these information, why then would the Gates Foundation fund this KEN SHE study in Africa using the same vaccines? With all the reported vaccine injuries and adverse effects, yet African children have no way of reporting their vaccine injuries! Or was this a ploy simply to drum up support for the HPV vaccines?
A Gates-funded media outlet claimed that this trial study helped prove that the HPV vaccine was 98 % effective, while the data was missing and incomplete! This was very unethical in many ways.
It was such a coincidence that a Gates-funded newspaper reported that a Gates-funded institution found Gates-funded vaccines 98% effective.
This was rushed reporting for a research study that only began in December 2018 and by April 2023, they had ‘found’ these vaccines 98% effective while using a single-dose, and with all the missing data!
Other previous studies of these HPV vaccines by different researchers haven’t ‘found’ them that highly effective . So why the sudden jump in ‘effectiveness’ according to this questionable study funded by Gates who is invested in these vaccines? It does not take a rocket scientist to question or figure this.
In contrast, the European Pharmaceutical Review (EPR) reported that ‘researchers that analyzed the design of HPV vaccines Cervarix and Gardasil efficacy trials, found that the Phase II and Phase III had methodological problems that could have overstated the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV’.
Bill Gates funding this new vaccine study through the Gates-funded Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) seems like a desperate stunt to override what other researchers had found. Also, it seems like a frantic effort to drum up support for these vaccines, or could it be that these ‘new’ study results will be presented in fighting the class action lawsuits? Could this be the reason that Gates-funded institutions are calling for the national HPV mass vaccination for all the girls in Kenya and Africa at large? We will be watching this.
Although Japan has now recently re-launched its HPV vaccination program, many parents are still wary of this vaccine. Another notable mention is that during Japan’s 8.5 year suspension of the HPV vaccines, there wasn’t any significant increase in cervical cancer rates like those reported in Africa.
In 2021, National Institutes of Health stated that Japan is still classified as having a moderate age-standardized incidence rate of cervical cancer. Coincidentally, a Lancet study in 2022, predicted that the ‘vaccine-suspension generation’ that failed to get vaccinated against HPV will have ‘higher HPV-16/18 infection rates and higher incidences of death from cervical cancer’. This controversial study recommended that they should ‘continue to pressure their (Japan) government to resume its vaccine recommendation’ and they must recommend women of the ‘vaccine-suspension generation’ to receive catch-up HPV vaccinations.
Why would they recommend catch-up HPV vaccinations when they clearly know that researchers have stated that the ‘effectiveness was limited for females older than 20’? These study researchers clearly posed a conflict of interest. Why? The researchers had received lecture fees from Merck Sharp & Dohme (Merck manufactures Gardasil 9 HPV vaccine). Another one of the authors received lecture fees from GlaxoSmithKline/Japan and Merck Sharp & Dohme the manufacturers of Cervarix and Gardasil 9 Vaccines. Also received grants from Merck Sharp & Dohme and funding for another research. No wonder they could recommend ‘catch-up’ HPV vaccines to sell more of these vaccines!
Notably, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been working with Merck & Co in various research initiatives. Merck and the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute have also announced licensing agreement for Novel Tuberculosis antibiotic candidates. Coincidentally these tuberculosis vaccine trials are currently being carried out and tested in Africa!
Big Data Mining for Healthcare Research.
The Gates Foundation will be the biggest winner in freely acquiring Big data from the health of Africans. This data will be largely available for healthcare research by pushing governments to provide primary health care for the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) 2030 goal.
One of our previous articles explained how the Gates-funded major research institution the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) worked with NEC Corporation to conduct unethical biometric-based vaccination for newborns in Kenya after KEMRI had launched its cloud-based vaccination tracking system. This was right after NEC Corporation had strategically partnered with Microsoft in a multiyear partnership to adopt Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform in driving digitization globally.
Remember who Microsoft’s Co-Founder is? Mr. Gates! Coincidentally, this led to African governments launching the digitization of all services especially in the health sector.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute has been working with research institutes in low-and-middle-income countries in researching on tuberculosis (TB), malaria, diarrheal diseases, maternal, newborn and child illnesses. This has been through some of the unethical surveillance that we exposed in another article. The Global Fund (founded by Bill Gates) then uses all this information to have governments and other donors contribute towards ‘fighting HIV, TB and Malaria’ programs handled by this organization or other Gates-funded institutions.
The pushing for primary healthcare systems has seen the provision of ‘free’ maternity services and Gates Foundation funding research in antenatal, maternal and newborn care in Kenya. As great as this sounds, we found it suspicious that pregnant women were offered a cash incentive in Murang’a Kenya as long as they choose to have their maternity services in a healthcare facility and not through a midwife or their preferred traditional birth attendant.
As we investigated, we found that this was part of the large pregnancy-risk surveillance study being carried out in the country, yet these women are never informed that they are part of the study. They are offered ‘free maternity services and paid for it’ without them getting the disclosure that they are unsuspecting research subjects/participants, whose health information will be freely used without their consent.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health working with other Gates funded institutions have been researching on reproductive health in Africa. This includes the ‘Advance Family Planning’ (AFP) advocacy pushing for financial investment and political commitment to ensure Africans’ access to family planning.
The Gates Foundation has been working to scale up family planning services and increase uptake of contraceptive methods, among postpartum and post-abortion women at primary health care centers in Africa. This has been through the ‘accelerating postpartum family planning integration into primary health care’ in countries such as Kenya. Several African Catholic Church leaders and doctors have raised valid concerns about these controversial family planning options provided by the Gates-Foundation in Africa. We also questioned and wondered why the ‘urgency’ or need for ‘accelerating’ this family planning services into primary health care.
Kenya’s President Ruto recently gave remarks that showed that he was receiving external pressure from ‘donors and other stakeholders’ to actualize the integration of Universal Healthcare Coverage (UHC). He stated that the government had already tried and failed to implement the UHC twice before, and they would be attempting to implement this a third time using preventive interventions. According to Ruto, this would be through consultative and collaborative mechanisms involving various partnerships.
This is the same government that could not afford to pay its public servants a month ago, and some public workers have had their salaries delayed for up to three months. Some of these public servants are doctors and medical practitioners who have been threatening to go on strike over unpaid salaries. The point here is, if Kenya is struggling to meet its debt obligations and basic expenses, why the urgency to integrate the Universal Health Coverage right now? Who is behind the push for ‘preventive interventions’ such as vaccines in Kenya? And if these preventive interventions are as ‘free of charge’ and as genuine as some of these philanthro-capitalist ‘donors’ claim, why not go ahead and offer them freely then? What are they expecting in return?
The Antenatal Care/Postnatal Care (ANC/PNC) was developed by the Gates Foundation and Jhpiego as an innovations and implementation research platform in African countries that would help disseminate findings or learnings globally. The research carried out in Africa as well as through the unethical surveillance that we highlighted earlier helps in policy making at a global level including at the Gates-funded World Health Organization.
Gates-funded institutions have implemented a four-year research project in evaluating the effectiveness of delivering the controversial HIV oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) through brick-and-mortar pharmacies or e-pharmacy in Africa. Many experts have raised concerns about the effectiveness or lack thereof, in the use of PrEP drugs on healthy HIV negative people in an attempt ‘to protect them from getting HIV’ infected.
The Gates Funded institutes are collecting Big Data on healthcare in researching various diseases including TB, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, Malaria, Human Papillomavirus (HPV), Cholera, Polio and a wide range of diseases. They are gathering large health datasets and information that is then used to develop drugs and vaccines that are sold to the governments to offer as part of the primary health care in aims of achieving the elusive Universal Health coverage goal by 2030.
Conclusion
Universal Health Coverage (UHC) implies that all people and communities have access to comprehensive, appropriate and timely, quality health services without any kind of discrimination or suffering financial hardship. This would require countries to determine the primary healthcare systems determined at the national level depending on the needs, and access to safe, effective and affordable quality medicines. This is where the Gates-funded organizations have offered suggestions, advice and recommendations on how countries should ‘strengthen’ their primary health care at a national level.
Universal Health Coverage is a component of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDG3 asserts “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. This goal further expounds with SDG target3.8 specifically aiming to “Achieve UHC, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health care services and access to safe effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all”(1).
The World Health Organization has claimed that immunizations are a key component of achieving UHC during the Africa vaccination Week dubbed the ‘Big Catch-Up’, to immunize children that missed vaccines during the pandemic.
Bill Gates is funding institutions to research and collect large health datasets in Africa, then funds institutions to develop vaccines using this information. These vaccines, drugs, intervention methods and diagnostic tools are then sold to governments that will then offer them as part of primary health care. This business model would ensure that Gates gets a good return on investment in most cases at the expense of unsuspecting Africans.
The push for primary health care systems has seen the loss of livelihoods for most traditional birth attendants, midwives and traditional herbal medicine experts, who are losing their clientele as African governments offer these ‘free’ incentivized health services.