Comment by belter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by belter | Hacker News Reader

Dear Mr Gates,

Would you please not forget to address in your next book the following:

- Are you still of the opinion that vaccines should not be shared with the 3rd world? [1] , [2]

- In some developed countries citizens are on their nth Boost but most of the 3rd world is still struggling to get a first dose. Any suggestions to address this dichotomy?

- Could you please review in your book, what actions your foundation helped promote to help prepare the World prepare for the current pandemic, besides your well known Ted talk?

- Would you mind starting Chapter 1, by stating what makes you uniquely qualified to talk about vaccines and pandemic policies?

- If the next pandemic is even more serious than the current one, would you mind unambiguously stating your opinion concerning medical mandates?

[1] "Bill Gates under fire for saying vaccine formulas shouldn’t be shared with developing world" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bill-gates...

[2] "Bill Gates believes Covid 19 vaccine tech should not be given to India, what he said and why he said it" https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/bill-gates-b...

Please also include: - A chapter on how to setup a philanthropic foundation and a trust for making investments that will double your net worth again in the next pandemic. - How to successfully influence government organizations such as WHO through ear marked donations to ensure your investments managed in the trust pay off.

- Would you mind by starting Chapter 1, by stating what makes you uniquely qualified to talk about vaccines and pandemic policies?

This is the important one to me.

I'm so tired of every billionaire, politician, celebrity, and crackpot on the planet cosplaying an infectious disease expert.

It would be nice if the words of actual doctors could be heard over the rabble of the wannabes.

It's awesome that you made billions of dollars. Money does not make you an expert on anything at all.

I think this one is overblown. If Gates wanted to learn about viruses all the worlds bleeding edge experts are in his reach. I would be charitable and assume he took advantage of that. If so he can be a lot more educated about the subject than any doctor.

Agreed. I don't think this a cosplay, especially within the context of all the work his foundation has done to save lives around the world from a pragmatic numbers based approach.

That's a possibility, I hope it's not more a marketing stunt than a real effort (I assume he cares since he talked about that long ago).

Also, him being a used high profile spokesperson, is used to be under the light, maybe not all epidemiologists want that or can handle the fuss. Maybe he can bridge the two and have international panels with experts being set up.

Jeffrey Epstein really enjoyed the fact that wealth implies general intelligence and insight to a lot of people. Also the fact that if a rich guy wears a Harvard sweatshirt, a lot of people will insist he must have gone to Harvard without ever being asked to.

"Well he's dead so....." that is the most epic/telling statement I believe Bill Gates has every made.

Gates comments on Epstein on NPR, I don't have a link, but Google and YouTube have the details.

Gates another question for you, what's with all the farmland you now own in the US? The world doesn't need another Monsanto's. Seems fishy! Somethings afoot with that. Farming is not that profitable, so what's his interest in it?

I totally agree about Gates. However I would add that public health experts and medical doctors are very different. Doctors generally make for terrible public health policy advisors! It's a very different set of skills and way of thinking about health systems.

I am very open to critiquing Bill Gates (and other personally wealthy folks disregarding experts in a messianical manner), but isn't this kind of what he spends all of his time on now (malaria, ebola, etc.)? From the article itself, he links to a TED talk he gave about epidemics in 2015, as well as a paper he had published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It has been a hobby of his for some time. Although he hasn't credentialed that knowledge. It doesn't mean his opinion is moot, just that people should examine his points through research of their own and not just appeal to his 'authority'.

Money gives you access to experts and lets you hire them. Bill Gates takes liberal advantage of this.

That he invested heavily into both Moderna and BioNTech before the pandemic gives him lots of credibility.

But Gates is not "every billionaire, politician, celebrity, and crackpot on the planet" on this issue. He stepped away from day to day involvement in Microsoft in 2008, and it seems that since then his major focus has been his foundation. Global health is one of the main focuses of that organization.

That's a bit different from some random celebrity weighing in.

It should also be clear to everyone now that pandemics are not solely an infectious diseases issue. Presumably Gates could bring a valuable perspective on science-adjacent issues like governance, financing and global cooperation.

You can absolutely disagree with his views on this topic (and maybe should), but it's unfair to write him off as some dilettante.

(edit: Also you should absolutely question how he came to have this level of wealth and influence in global health.)

It makes him an expert at making money, which perhaps maps to being good at contract negotiation, government influence, business Management etc... (But not infectious diseases)

I've seen interviews with infectious disease experts and other health experts including research scientists in those fields that the Gates foundation deals with, and they have said that Gates has put in years of serious effort to understand these things at a deep level, including hiring experts to teach him, and when they discuss their work and projects with him it is like discussing it with a fellow scientist.

March 2015: https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_next_outbreak_we_re...

He could have used the TED platform to talk about anything, and he chose to raise the alarm bell about pandemic preparedness. A fairly niche and unpopular topic at the time.

> If the next pandemic is even more serious than the current one …

… than Bill Gates is absolutely right, and your positition of invalidating pharmaceutical patents would not only just be moral grandstanding, but stupidly harmful.

1. Hundreds of pharmaceutical companies tried to develop a vaccine and how many succedded? It is a big bet which can be lost, and we need many players in the game competing to win the big prize. 2. The vaccines turned out to be differently effective and furthermore different for the variants. J&J was good for the original Covid-19, not for Delta. 3. The capital and drive necessary for ramping up production and the complex supply chain is massive plus timing in the pandemic is essential. Can underdeveloped countries pump out hundreds of millions of doses cheaper than Pfizer/Moderna? I highly doubt it.

Capitalism and the market economy made both very cheap (AstraZeneca with under $5) and very best vaccines (Pfizer/Moderna with $20 a dose). This was the winning system! Why throw it away? The pandemic cost trillions in world GDP, the cost big pharma is profiting from the well earned solution is a trifle compared. I would be all for rich countries subsidizing poorer ones, the pandemic was a global problem, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

https://theconversation.com/cubas-covid-vaccines-the-limited... makes me think if they can do it under economic pressure due to sanctions, so anybody without these constraints should do even better. If not they are just scammers, trying to ride the wave until it breaks.

Respect for Kuba, but if it was as easy as you say Kuba wouldn't be able to export their vaccines.

> Would you mind by starting Chapter 1, by stating what makes you uniquely qualified to talk about vaccines and pandemic policies?

He wants the Nobel prize. He wants it SO badly that he met fcking Epstein to discuss the matter.

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