A list of donations that Bill Gates has made
youhavetocit.com
youhavetocit.com
I'm certain that I must be missing something.
http://www.engenderhealth.org/our-work/major-projects/male-c...
"There is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%."[1]
"Evidence among heterosexual men in sub-Saharan Africa shows a decreased risk of between 38 percent and 66 percent over two years"[2]
But Circumcision Rates in Africa are relatively high anyways, due to the population's religious background.[3]
Quote of New York Times Article: [4]
"Among those are 14 studies that provide what the experts characterize as “fair” evidence that circumcision in adulthood protects men from H.I.V. transmission from a female partner, cutting infection rates by 40 to 60 percent. Three of the studies were large randomized controlled trials of the kind considered the gold standard in medicine, but they were carried out in Africa, where H.I.V. — the virus the causes AIDS — is spread primarily among heterosexuals. "
"Other studies have linked male circumcision to lower rates of infection with human papillomavirus and herpes simplex Type 2."
" The procedure has long been recognized to lower urinary tract infections early in life and reduce the incidence of penile cancer."
So i guess it just all adds up in a way.
That being said, the number of over 18 billion Dollars (according to the article) being spent on this issue still astonishes me...
[1] http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision#Sexually_transmit...
[3] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Global_M...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/science/benefits-of-circu...
I find it unconvincing that it might protect against HIV. Personal incredulity and the endorsing of the WHO aside, how does that work?
I'm not an expert on the field, but it does seem a bit controversial.
I still struggle, however, to believe that a truly controlled study could ever be conducted and I wonder if the money wouldn't be better spent just providing condoms and sexual education to these at risk groups. We already know that condoms are very, very good a reducing HIV transmission rates, plus they work for both partners (circumcision studies only show reduced transmission to men from women), and also consistent use can reduce the risk of cervical cancers, HPV and unwanted pregnancies. In a way, studies and campaigns that focus on circumcision are unethical if they don't also provide access to this highly effective device.
But going back to the studies, the problem I have understanding them is that there is, as far as I'm aware, no way to perform a placebo circumcision. Any adult who has a circumcision is surely likely alter his behavior or perhaps take greater notice of the sexual education he received alongside the circumcision. Or, perhaps he may have the superhero effect, thinking he can have more unprotected sex? That's the part that makes it hard for me to believe that studies are controlled. And for those studies that look only at populations that perform infant circumcisions, it seems even more likely that differences in cultural, religious or social norms of each population would have just as much influence as the operation.
If anyone has details on how these studies control for confounding factors like that, I'd be interested to hear.
The answer is: they simply do not at all.
[1] http://www.salem-news.com/fms/pdf/2011-12_JLM-Boyle-Hill.pdf
It seems to "add up" only for experts from countries that do it traditionally (USA, Turkey, Israel) and recommend it, while basically no European country deems it medically necessary to recommend it, because there it is not traditionally practiced. In some European countries, like Sweden, Germany and Finaland, recently there were even attampts to legally consider circumcision as genital mutilation.
For me most of those 60% studies seem to be some sort of rationalisation based on a predetermined outcome: Let's find some strained statistical "evidence" that this stone age ritual that we are practicing, is somehow medically beneficial, so we can continue to cut our kids genitals to look like their father's without a bad conscience.
> There is compelling evidence that ... by approximately 60%
Did you ever read one of these 60%-papers yourselves and evaluated their reasoning, at how they arrive at their whopping 60%?
Their evidence is btw, even if published in medical journals, completely non-medical. All of those studies just claim that their strained stats show it, but they do not explain why. There is no established chain of causation and even the correlation is doubtful.
Here is a list of counter-arguments, basically claiming that the pro-arguments have been faked by circumcision proponents, many of them (like Prof Brian Morris who authored sevaral of these papers) being "circumfetishists", engaging in circumcisions for sexual pleasure, or having a Jewish background.
[1] http://www.salem-news.com/fms/pdf/2011-12_JLM-Boyle-Hill.pdf
[2] http://www.circleaks.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
[3] http://www.circumstitions.com/
[3.2] http://www.circumstitions.com/HIV-SA.html
Also, the fact that HIV rates in (mostly uncircumcized) Europe are lower than (mostly circumcized) US is confusing.
[1] http://www.wellsphere.com/men-s-health-article/bill-gates-do...
Edit: Try this Google search. The real number is almost certainly 18.5 MILLION, which makes this table total up to about 18 billion dollars instead of 37 billion. It's amusing how people are jumping through hoops to force this 18.5 billion figure to make sense rather than looking for a citation. (But rest assured that lists assembled by Internet blogs are reliable sources of information.) I'm sure we'll start seeing this "fact" start turning up in research essays and other linkbait blogs.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bill+gates+donation+male+cir...
Quick look at the wiki page says that among many global health issues, the Foundation hands out hundreds of millions in grants for AIDS research on condition that findings be public. It's notably also involved in the development of Malaria vaccines like RTS,S, the first anti-parasitic vaccine in history, I believe.
Try million instead of billion: http://www.wellsphere.com/men-s-health-article/bill-gates-do...
For example, there is huge value in standardization: having one platform that most people use at a given time saves a ton of porting effort. Same with the backward compatibility: I know several people that still get a lot of value from DOS applications. And look at the price of software over the last 30 years, adjusted for inflation. Microsoft helped bring those prices down and make these technologies more available to people.
So the Gates Foundation has contributed to improvements in health, though again, the contribution is fairly limited (as one would expect when talking about a fund with only $30 billion, which is a huge amount of money for an individual but pretty much insignificant on a global scale).
"Despite accumulating an estimated $8.3 billion fortune...there is no public record of Mr. Jobs giving money to charity..." "in 1997, when Mr. Jobs returned to Apple, he closed the company’s philanthropic programs." http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/the-mystery-of-steve-...
"And it wasn’t until after an unflattering media report about Jobs on the subject over the summer, that Apple in September initiated a “matching gifts” program, under which donations to philanthropies made by employees are matched by the company." http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-10-06/business/35277...
This was just the first 3 results of the google search. There are hundreds of more sources to choose from.
Take note of the poster's wording, and leap of accusation. He has zero basis for his position, but he's not letting that stop him from passing judgement.
There's a word for that sort of behaviour. It isn't complimentary.
This trend has now been reversed since his passing.
Oh you mean he vanquished other companies without using any kind of force what-so-ever? Oh he bundled! (which every company does) Oh he used market leverage! (which every company does)
Did they use the government + legislation to become successful? (unlike most large companies) No, they made fools out of the largest tech company on earth, IBM.
Netscape lost why? Because of their own incompetence, as proven by the rise of Firefox. Did Microsoft stop the rise of Java, nope, turns out it's slightly common these days. Did they kill Apple? Nope, Jobs would tell you himself that Apple was its own worst enemy. And on, and on, and on. Did they stop the rise of Android or iOS? Nope, couldn't even begin to. Music, movies? Nope, nada. How about search? Har har. Do they dominate tablets (despite practically inventing the field)? Nope. Do they dominate gaming? Nope. Intuit? You know that story. How about Linux? They would have loved to have killed it, they couldn't even touch it. How about Apache? Turns out it's doing pretty well these days. Social anything? Nope. Shopping anything? Nope. Payments anything? Nope. Databases? Nope, at best they're a modest player. It's a really long list.
So... the problem was what exactly? They had market power for a few years (maybe ten years tops), and then it faded.
There was nothing particularly terrible about how Gates produced that money.
You can give away what you obtain, regardless of who produced it.
Basic economics, man.
The extension of this is that if you've accumulated great wealth (through the market, rather than through dictatorship or government) then you have also generated great wealth for your business customers or clients. But that wealth will be more spread out.
That's great; "making money" however is, seeing how there is a fixed amount in circulation.
And let's not forget that Microsoft -- as a corporation -- as no responsibilities other than to make money for its shareholders and, as CEO, Bill Gates had likewise no responsibility beyond making money for his employers (i.e. shareholders). So talk about what Microsoft did or did not do is disingenuous since it is people, not corporations, that have moral or social responsibilities.
Therefore, what Bill Gates has done is extremely praiseworthy as he has spent his own personal wealth and it is not diminished by whatever Microsoft may have done to give him that wealth.
- most of his donations are for universities. and when you go any university lab all they have is Macs.
- 15 Bi to his own foundation. (August 24, 1999, January 29, 2010)
[1] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundati...
No.
Exponential growth is king.
If he had donated all he had in 1997 he wouldn't have even come close to what he's donated today.
"Warren and I share certain values. We both feel lucky that we were born into an era in which our skills have turned out to be so remunerative. Had we been born at a different time, our skills might not have had much value. Since we don't plan on spending much of what we have accumulated, we can make sure our wealth benefits society. In a sense, we're both working for charity. In any case, our heirs will get only a small portion of what we accumulate, because we both believe that passing on huge wealth to children isn't in their or society's interest. Warren likes to say that he wants to give his children enough money for them to do anything but not enough for them to do nothing. I thought about this before I met Warren, and hearing him articulate it crystallized my feelings."
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/...