[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_Foundation#Criticism
Diversion: Well, ultimately you can't win, every significant investment diverts from other things, but his endgame is to eliminate these diseases. Then the diversion will stop. It's worth bearing in mind that malaria wasn't nearly as high profile before Bill started attacking it.
Education: An awful lot of improvements to education are criticised for undermining public education. IMHO, public education needs undermining. (If you have no idea why I'd say that, I'm guessing you a) haven't got a child in a failing state school and b) haven't seen Season 4 of The Wire)
Grantee Communication: Looks like they agreed with the criticism and addressed it.
My issue isn't that they're undermining public education, but rather that they're actively making all education worse by doubling down on its worst aspects.
The only thing Gates has done w.r.t. education that I'm okay with is backing Khan Academy and the notion of flip teaching.
That said, I'm pleased that he's trying.
That's not saying that they may not be fair and relevant criticisms (but also not saying that they are - there's certainly pettiness in there). Nobody and no organisation is perfect, not by a long shot, and the inability to raise concerns at all with such a large operation would be a total failure of imagination.
http://www.infowars.com/bill-gates-dodges-questions-on-why-h...
Monsanto might be evil but it appears that Mr. Gates believes allowing people to die from starvation is a greater evil.
If there's one company that is pure evil, it is this one.
As a plant scientist who has studied the history of agriculture, I can tell you that since the 1950s, farmers have freely chosen to purchase seed every year from suppliers. This was initially because hybrids became the best-yielding varieties, and hybrids only keep their best characteristics for one generation ("hybrid vigour"). Now it's because licensing requires it to fund the massive R&D spend that improving crop productivity requires. For the vast majority of farmers, it makes economic sense to buy every year. It's not a trap, and they aren't idiots being fooled by "big ag".
Monsanto have done some evil things in the past when they were a different company. Now they're a pretty decent company with a terrible PR problem.
That, and GMO as a concept is absurdly demonized. Like everything else, it needs to be done carefully and with suitable oversight, but people act like genetic engineering means "putting poison in it." As the population keeps rising and arable land keeps disappearing, we're gonna need GMO crops to keep large parts of the world from starvation.
Well, but isn't that pretty much it, in the form of pesticides? Does Monsanto do GMO that is not just roundup-readiness?
The first, Bt crops, have the gene for a Cry protein from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis inserted so that they are toxic to the larvae of lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). The Cry protein works by aggregating into crystals in the lepidopteran larval digestive tract which then pierce the lining of the midgut, killing the larva. It doesn't affect any other animals, including us, because the crystallisation requires strong alkalinity and the presence of certain bacteria that are unique to the lepidopteran larval midgut. Bacillus thuringiensis is also widely used in organic certified agriculture. So no, this isn't poison.
The second are glyphosate resistant plants. These have a bacterial form of the ESPS gene inserted that doesn't get inhibited by glyphosate. We ingest many different forms of the ESPS gene every day - it's in basically every organism - and it's harmless. Glyphosate is one of the most harmless pesticides ever invented, which is precisely why resistance is desirable. Using glyphosate means we don't have to use the much more harmful pesticides we used to use. So no, this isn't poison.
In summary: no, it's not poison.
Regardless of how people feel, the need to use toxic pesticides and insecticides are a huge problem in agriculture and Roundup-ready and Bt crops tackle those problems.
Next-generation GM crops will be much more geared towards disease and salt/drought stress resistance.
And pesticides aren't exactly an optional luxury, either. People can die if an entire region's crop is eaten by locusts or aphids or caterpillars or whatever.