Five Questions for Melinda French Gates
① Critics say philanthropy has been astonishingly ineffective at solving societal problems—that giving has increased, but problems have gotten worse.
I would beg to differ. We know millions of people are alive because of the lifesaving vaccines that have been developed and given around the world. Moms and dads in low-income countries line up to get measles vaccines for their children, because you know what? A measles outbreak in their community means that kids die. Has all of philanthropy been great? No. Philanthropy is only one tool in the toolbox. Philanthropy can take a risk that we wouldn't want government to take with our taxpayer funding, but it can prove things out at scale, and then governments can come in to scale that up.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Member of RFK Jr's new vaccine panel withdraws over conflict of interest
A member of the health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's newly overhauled federal vaccine advisory panel withdrew after a conflict of interest review, a spokesperson has told the Guardian. Dr Michael Ross, who was involved in multiple private healthcare companies, withdrew after review of his financial holdings. Kennedy unilaterally fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) in June, arguing they had too many conflicts of interest. Related: Who are the eight new vaccine advisers appointed by Robert F Kennedy? Ross was among eight of Kennedy's ideological allies appointed to the committee, after the secretary argued the old members of the committee were subject to too many conflicts of interest. 'Yesterday, Dr Michael Ross decided to withdraw from serving on ACIP during the financial holdings review,' a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said. 'The sacrifice to serve on ACIP varies from member to member, and we appreciate Dr Ross's willingness to go through this rigorous process.' The spokesperson made the comments after Guardian inquiries about conflict of interest disclosures for new members of ACIP. Although the Trump administration and Kennedy developed a conflict of interest tracker specifically for ACIP members, Kennedy's appointees have not been added. The HHS spokesperson did not respond to Guardian inquiries about when and where new, written conflict of interest disclosures would be published. Instead, the spokesperson said the department has, 'comprehensively reviewed all newly appointed ACIP members for conflicts of interests in accordance with federal law, regulations and departmental polices', and that the members were provided 'ethics training prior to discharging their duties'. The new members of the committee were asked to disclose conflicts of interest before the meeting began on Wednesday. The committee chair Dr Martin Kulldorff and committee member Dr Robert Malone omitted widely reported work in vaccine litigation, and nurse Vicky Pebsworth said she was 'asked to read' a statement disclosed ownership of a healthcare stock but said it was below the government ethics office threshold for reporting. Ethics review of the new members was also the subject of Senate testimony on Wednesday. Under questioning by the Democratic senator Patty Murray of Washington, the Trump nominee to head the CDC, Dr Susan Monarez, said she was 'not familiar whether or not the members that are participating in the meeting this week have or have not gone through the ethics review necessary to allow them to participate in those meetings'. 'If it is known that they have not gone through the ethics process and they issue recommendations, would you accept them as valid?' asked Murray. 'If they have not gone through an ethics approval process, they shouldn't be participating in the meetings,' said Monarez.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr will be ‘personally responsible' for children's deaths by halting vaccine alliance funding, experts say
Robert F Kennedy Jr will be 'personally responsible' for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children after he refused to renew US funding for a global vaccines body, public health experts said. The US health secretary said Wednesday that the United States would halt funding for Gavi, the vaccine alliance that has immunised more than one billion children since 2000, in a statement that has also been criticised for spreading disinformation on vaccine safety. Gavi is a partnership between public bodies and the private sector that works to provide vaccines in many of the world's poorest countries. It has prevented an estimated 18.8 million deaths, and hosts global emergency stockpiles against Ebola, yellow fever, meningitis and cholera. The US has long been one of its major funders, and provided around 13% of its budget. Related: First meeting of new CDC vaccine panel reveals policy chaos sown by RFK Jr Gavi announced after a pledging event on Wednesday that it had secured more than $9bn in donations for the next five years, and would continue to chase the $11.9bn total it required. But in a video played at the event, Kennedy said the US would no longer contribute to the organisation until it had worked to 're-earn the public trust'. He criticised Gavi's actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, suggested it should not recommend Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women, and said it had 'neglected the key issue of vaccine safety'. Gavi set out a detailed rebuttal to Kennedy's claims, stressing that its 'utmost concern is the health and safety of children'. Atul Gawande, a former senior official at USAID, wrote online: 'This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year – and RFK Jr will be personally responsible.' Gavi's own estimates, reported by the New York Times, suggest the loss of US support may mean 75 million children miss out on routine vaccinations over the next five years and 1.2 million die as a result. The UK government has also been criticised for lowering its funding for Gavi, although its £1.25bn ($1.7bn) pledge still made it Gavi's top donor country. Other major donors include the Gates Foundation, which committed $1.6bn, and the European Union a combined €2 billion ($2.3bn). In his video, Kennedy particularly criticised 'whole cell' DTP vaccines provided by Gavi, which protect against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough). The US and many richer countries, including the UK, have switched to a newer version that causes fewer short-term reactions but does not remain effective for as long, requiring more boosters. The World Health Organization says both types have 'excellent safety records'. Dr Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives and a former CDC director, said: 'Many countries choose to continue the whole cell vaccine. They may have decided this because their populations have a greater risk of serious illness, they have healthcare systems less able to deal with serious pertussis infections, or may simply have made the opposite decision – more short-term adverse reactions, better protection against pertussis. 'Calling this choice not 'taking vaccine safety seriously' is misinformation, plain and simple.' Seth Berkley, former chief executive of Gavi, said in a post on LinkedIn that Kennedy's claims were 'a mix of misinformation and some disinformation' and 'disingenuous', adding: 'It is irresponsible to provide disinformation from a position of political power.' A major study partly funded by Gavi and published in the Lancet this week found vaccine coverage had stalled or reversed globally, driven by persistent health inequalities and rising levels of misinformation and hesitancy.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr's new vaccine panel votes against preservative in flu shots in shock move
A critical federal vaccine panel has recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines containing a specific preservative – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability. The panel was unilaterally remade by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine skeptic who has urged against the use of thimerosal despite a lack of evidence of real-world harm. Across three votes, members voted in favor of restricting thimerosal in seasonal influenza vaccines across all age groups – with five in favor of the restriction, one abstention and one vote against. 'The risk from influenza is so much greater than the nonexistent – as far as we know – risk from thimerosal,' said Dr Cody Meissner, a panel member and professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine who was the lone 'no' vote. 'I would hate for a person not to receive the influenza vaccine because the only availability preparation contains thimerosal – I find that very hard to justify.' The panel, formally called the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is a critical link in the vaccine distribution pipeline – informing health insurers and clinicians alike about which vaccines to give patients. Kennedy fired all 17 former members of the panel in June, citing conflicts of interest, and appointed eight new members, all of whom are ideological allies of the secretary. None of the new members have published written conflict of interest disclosures or been added to a Trump administration-developed conflict of interest tracker for ACIP members, as of Thursday morning. 'There is a very big difference between what was shared at the meeting versus what is reality,' said Dr Sean O'Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases. 'The science on thimerosal is settled, and the rhetoric being used to suggest otherwise is misleading and harmful.' Rather than vote on an agenda that had once included seasonal recommendations for Covid-19 and the vaccine against human papilloma virus (HPV), ACIP added the controversial focus of thimerosal in vaccines. The panel affirmed that the influenza vaccine is recommended for Americans older than six months. Related: RFK Jr will be 'personally responsible' for children's deaths by halting vaccine alliance funding, experts say Although multiple studies have found no real-world harm, the preservative has been a talking point of anti-vaccine advocates for decades. Multiple representatives of physicians associations urged the panel to reject the recommendation against thimerosal in the meeting. Thimerosal is used in about 5% of multidose seasonal influenza vials, and is known to be more cost effective than single-dose formulations. It is unclear how the vote will impact flu vaccine availability before the upcoming flu season, particularly for clinics that rely on such formulations. Thimerosal has been used as a preservative in vaccines since before the second world war. In the early 2000s, thimerosal was removed from all routine pediatric and most adult vaccines as a precautionary measure – a decision that was criticized by experts who argued it sent mixed messages about a preservative that had not been found to cause harm. The issue has since been considered settled by mainstream medicine. Thimerosal is an ethylmercury-based preservative. Ethylmercury is different from the kind of mercury found in seafood, called methylmercury. Ethylmercury has a much shorter half-life in the blood and brain, about seven days and 30 days respectively, compared to methylmercury, which has an approximately 44-58 day half-life and accumulates in the brain. The amount of ethylmercury contained in a flu vaccine (25 micrograms) is about half of that contained in a 3-ounce serving of canned tuna fish (40 micrograms). Repeated, large studies conducted across several countries have found no association between thimerosal and neurological effects. A presentation from CDC career scientists that was initially expected to go through some of this substantial data was removed before the panel reconvened on Thursday. In response to a question about the slapped down presentation, ACIP member Dr Robert Malone, a well-known anti-vaccine activist, said: 'That article was not authorized by the office of the secretary and was removed.' The panel instead heard a presentation from Lyn Redwood, a nurse practitioner who founded the World Mercury Project, the predecessor to Kennedy's anti-vaccine advocacy group Children's Health Defense. Prior to the meeting, her presentation was found to include a reference to a study that appeared to be made up. 'This is an old issue that has been addressed in the past and there are many issues we could discuss,' said Meissner. The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods. Secure Messaging in the Guardian app The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said. If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select 'Secure Messaging'. SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post See our guide at for alternative methods and the pros and cons of each. Responding to criticism of Redwood's presentation, ACIP chair Dr Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard professor who was fired for refusing the Covid-19 vaccine, said: 'It's inappropriate to dismiss a presentation just because the person does not have a PhD or MD.' The decision from ACIP could have global implications, because vaccines used around the world rely on thimerosal as a preservative in multidose vials, which are less expensive. 'I know ACIP is focused on the US, but recommendations that the ACIP makes are followed among many countries around the world,' said Meissner. 'Removing thimerosal from all vaccines used in other countries, for example, is going to reduce access to these vaccines, it will increase costs, and I think it's important to note that no study has ever indicated any harm from thimerosal.'
