http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,11268,1279305,00.html
UK leads $4bn vaccination drive
Bill Gates backs chancellor's global immunisation campaign that could save up
to 3m children a year
Larry Elliott, economics editor
Monday August 9, 2004
The Guardian
A global immunisation campaign to save the lives of two to three million
children a year in the developing world will be launched next year by a $4bn
(£2.2bn) a year vaccination project backed by Britain, France and Bill Gates,
the multibillionaire founder of Microsoft. Government-backed bonds
will be floated on financial markets to fund the programme, designed to
tackle easily preventable diseases. Treasury sources said the proposal was at
an advanced stage and would be unveiled in the first half of next year, when
Britain intends to make Africa the focal point of its presidency of the G8
industrial countries.
Britain was approached by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi)
- an umbrella body covering governments, NGOs and private sector
organisations - to see if it would back a plan to frontload extra cash
into health programmes. Mr Brown believes the plan is "an innovative
proposal" that could speed up the flow of drugs to tackle diseases such as
tetanus, measles, polio, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), hepatitis B,
yellow fever and rotavirus (gastroenteritis). The chancellor also sees it as
a pilot for his proposed International Finance Facility, a plan to double
global aid to $100bn a year through the sale of bonds.
"If, through these means, resources available to immunisation could be scaled
up significantly, we have the opportunity to avert two to three million
vaccine-preventable deaths every year, especially considering the new
vaccines becoming available in the near future." Treasury officials
said the chancellor had discussed the project with Mr Gates, who has pledged
part of his personal fortune to the immunisation campaign. The British and
French governments, with the World Bank, Gavi and the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, are now working out the final details. "Bill Gates is a big
supporter," one source said. "This is going to be a public-private
partnership.
The proposal is to float 15-year government-backed bonds in the world's
capital markets. There would be two five-year disbursement phases followed by
a five-year period in which those who bought the bonds would be repaid.
Goldman Sachs has been working on the financial details of the plan and the
City solicitors Linklaters have been handling the legal arrangements.
The Treasury expects that pledges of $400m a year in private and public
money could generate 10 times that amount by bond sales. Investors would have
confidence in the investment because they would be guaranteed by governments.
Gavi estimates that 10 million children under the age of five die every year,
and believes that immunisation is vital if the UN is to meet its target of
cutting infant mortality by two-thirds by 2015. "Two to three million
children die of vaccine-preventable diseases every year," it said. "If
95% of children in the poorest countries were to be immunised with existing,
and new vaccines by 2015, up to 2 million children could be saved every
year." Gavi said the extra money would be spent on effective programmes
in 56 low-income countries and on providing more affordable vaccines in
middle-income states. In a four-pronged strategy, it would strengthen
healthcare systems in poor
countries so they could reach the 25% of children not covered by vaccination
programmes.
It would also embark on a long-term programme of buying new and under-utilised
vaccines, launch campaigns to provide nationwide immunity, and stockpile oral
polio vaccine for an attempt to eradicate the disease.
"The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and
measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At
the same time that it is paying for inoculations to protect health, it has
invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Total
of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the
delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.
A sampling of the Gates Foundation's largest investments between $100 million
and $1 billion: Abbott Laboratories, Archer Daniels Midland, British Petroleum,
Canadian National Railway, Exxon Mobil, Freddie Mac, French Government, Japanese
Government, Merck, Schering Plough, Tyco International, Waste
Management.....Indeed, local leaders blame oil developments for fostering some
of the very afflictions that the foundation combats." - Charles Piller, Edmund
Sanders, Robyn Dixon, LA Times
Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has more than $60 billion at its
disposal - an amount higher than the gross domestic products of 70 percent of
the world's nations - is reportedly financially backing corporations which
pollute the same areas of Africa that are targeted for vaccines made by
companies that Gates also funds. A report in the LA Times points out that:
"Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that
spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting. Investigators
for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where
Ebocha is, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another
scourge the foundation is battling. The bright, sooty gas flares — which contain
toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium — lower immunity, Enyidah
said, and make children more susceptible to polio and measles — the diseases
that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate against.
There have been suggestions in the past that most of the diseases affecting
modern man have been caused by negligent multinational corporations seeking high
profits and doctors and scientists, who mistakenly believe they are helping
people by encouraging the use of many toxic drugs and vaccines marketed by
multi-national corporations. Sadly, Africa appears to be a place where this is
occurring and the poorest people are suffering the most. They are being
exploited twice: first by being sickened by manufactured toxins which poison
their bodies; and again when that sickness is used to justify purchase and use
of many vaccines to theoretically prevent the manmade illnesses.
Ironically, the clueless average American is also helping to exploit the
children of Africa and other underdeveloped countries: the more mandated
vaccines which Americans are forced to use and pay high prices for, the
wealthier the drug companies making vaccines get. The vaccine manufacturers use
the high profits they make off of American vaccine mandates to sell the stuff to
poor countries like Africa at a reduced rate.
And so the little children are exploited and suffer, American and African alike,
and will continue to suffer until Americans stand up and stop the vicious cycle.
No forced vaccination. Not in America.
Gates Foundation money works at cross purposes
Seattle Times, WA
January 7, 2007
By Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders and Robyn Dixon
Los Angeles Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003513256_gates070.html
Selina Eta, 36, and her 14-month old son, Justice, among shanties in Ebocha,
Nigeria. The baby suffers chronic respiratory problems that local doctors
attribute to the towering gas flares spewed by a nearby plant owned by the
Italian oil giant Eni. The Gates Foundation contributes to the polio clinic
where Justice was immunized and is also an investor in Eni.
EBOCHA, Nigeria — Justice Eta, 14 months old, held out his tiny thumb.
An ink spot certified that he had been immunized against polio and measles,
thanks to a vaccination drive supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
But polio is not the only threat Justice faces. Almost since birth, he has had
respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and
soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil
plant. It is owned by the Italian petroleum giant Eni, whose investors include
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The makeshift clinic at a church where Justice Eta was vaccinated and the flares
spewing over Ebocha represent a head-on conflict for the Gates Foundation. In a
contradiction between its grants and its endowment holdings, a Los Angeles Times
investigation has found, the foundation reaps vast financial gains every year
from investments that contravene its good works.
In Ebocha, where Justice lives, Dr. Elekwachi Okey says hundreds of flares at
oil plants in the Niger Delta have caused an epidemic of bronchitis in adults,
and asthma and blurred vision in children. No definitive studies have documented
the health effects, but many of the 250 toxic chemicals in the fumes and soot
have long been linked to respiratory disease and cancer. "We're all smokers
here," Okey said, "but not with cigarettes."
The oil plants in the region surrounding Ebocha find it cheaper to burn nearly 1
billion cubic feet of gas each day than to sell it. They deny the flaring causes
sickness. Under pressure from activists, however, Nigeria's high court set a
deadline to end flaring by May 2007. The gases would be injected back
underground, or trucked and piped out for sale. But authorities expect the
flares to burn for years beyond the deadline.
The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization
and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that it
is paying for inoculations to protect health, it has invested $423 million in
Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Total of France — the companies
responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond
anything permitted in the United States or Europe.
Indeed, local leaders blame oil development for fostering some of the very
afflictions that the foundation combats.
Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that
spread malaria, one of the diseases the foundation is fighting. Investigators
for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where
Ebocha is, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another
scourge the foundation is battling.
The bright, sooty gas flares — which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene,
mercury and chromium — lower immunity, Enyidah said, and make children more
susceptible to polio and measles — the diseases that the Gates Foundation has
helped to inoculate against.
Investing for profit
At the end of 2005, the Gates Foundation endowment stood at $35 billion, making
it the largest in the world. Then in June, Warren Buffett, the world's
second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion in
installments from his personal fortune. Not counting tens of billions of dollars
more that Gates himself has promised, the total is higher than the gross
domestic products of 70 percent of the world's nations.
Like most philanthropies, the Gates Foundation gives away at least 5 percent of
its worth every year, and thus avoids paying most taxes. In 2005, it granted
nearly $1.4 billion. It awards grants mainly in support of global health
initiatives, for efforts to improve public education in the United States and
for social-welfare programs in the Pacific Northwest.
It invests the other 95 percent of its worth. This endowment is managed by Bill
Gates Investments, which handles Gates' personal fortune. Monica Harrington, a
senior policy officer at the foundation, said the investment managers had one
goal: returns "that will allow for the continued funding of foundation programs
and grant making." Bill and Melinda Gates require the managers to keep a highly
diversified portfolio, but make no specific directives.
A comparison of these investments with information from for-profit services that
analyze corporate behavior for mutual funds, pension managers, government
agencies and other foundations found that the Gates Foundation has holdings in
many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of
environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights or
unethical practices.
One of these investment rating services, Calvert Group, for example, endorses 52
of the largest 100 U.S. companies based on market capitalization, but flags the
other 48 for transgressions against social responsibility. Microsoft, which Bill
Gates leads as board chairman and which is among the companies endorsed by
Calvert, is rated highly for its overall business practices, despite its history
of antitrust problems.
The Gates Foundation endowment had major holdings in:
• Companies ranked among the worst U.S. and Canadian polluters, including
ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical Co. and Tyco International;
• Many of the world's other major polluters, including companies that own an oil
refinery and one that owns a paper mill, which a study shows sicken children
while the foundation tries to save their parents from AIDS;
• Pharmaceutical companies that price drugs beyond the reach of AIDS patients
the foundation is trying to treat.
The most recent data available showed that hundreds of Gates Foundation
investments — totaling at least $8.7 billion, or 41 percent of its assets, not
including U.S. and foreign government securities — have been in companies that
countered the foundation's charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.
This is "the dirty secret" of many large philanthropies, said Paul Hawken, an
expert on socially beneficial investing who directs the Natural Capital
Institute, an investment-research group. "Foundations donate to groups trying to
heal the future," Hawken said in an interview, "but with their investments, they
steal from the future."
Investing in destructive or unethical companies is not what is most harmful,
said Hawken and other experts, including Douglas Bauer, senior vice president of
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a nonprofit group that assists foundations on
policy and ethical issues. Worse, they said, is investing purely for profit,
without attempting to improve a company's way of operating.
Such blind-eye investing, they noted, rewards bad behavior.
At the Gates Foundation, blind-eye investing has been enforced by a firewall it
has erected between its grant-making side and its investing side. The goals of
the former are not allowed to interfere with the investments of the latter. With
the exception of tobacco companies, asset managers do not avoid investments in
enterprises whose activities conflict with the foundation's mission to do good.
"Because we want to maintain a focus on the programmatic work," Harrington said
in a written response to questions, "we have made it a policy to not comment on
individual investment holdings."
Finally, the foundation does not invest any portion of its endowment in
companies specifically because they advance its philanthropic mission.
Much of the rest of philanthropy, however, is beginning to address
contradictions between making grants to improve the world and making investments
that harm it. According to recent surveys, many foundations, including some of
the nation's largest, have adopted at least basic policies to invest in ways
that support their missions.
Major foundations that make social justice, corporate governance and
environmental stewardship key considerations in their investment strategies
include the Ford Foundation, worth $11.6 billion, the nation's second-largest
private philanthropy; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the
Rockefeller Foundation; and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.
Moreover, nearly one-third of foundations participate directly in shareholder
initiatives, voting their proxies to influence corporate behavior. A few have
become shareholder activists. In recent years, for instance, the Nathan Cummings
Foundation, with an endowment of $481 million, has sponsored proxies to force
corporations to address environmental sustainability and political transparency.
Harrington said the Gates Foundation's investment managers vote proxies but
declined to give any specifics. The foundation would not make its chief
investment manager, Michael Larson, available for an interview. In May,
Harrington told the Chronicle of Philanthropy that the Gates Foundation did not
get involved in proxy issues.
Bauer said that the Gates Foundation's resources give it the unique power to
move the debate. If Gates adopted mission-related investing, he said in an
interview, the shift in the world of philanthropy would be "seismic."
The foundation did not respond to written questions about whether it might
change its investment policies.
Foundation's investments
A sampling of the Gates Foundation's largest investments:
Above $1.5 billion
• Berkshire Hathaway**
• Canadian government
Between $1 billion and $1.5 billion
• Fannie Mae
• German government
Between $100 million and $1 billion
• Abbott Laboratories
• Archer Daniels Midland
• British Petroleum
• Canadian National Railway
• Exxon Mobil
• Freddie Mac
• French government
• Japanese government
• Merck
• Schering Plough
• Tyco International
• Waste Management
*Might include stocks, bonds and other securities
**Warren Buffett committed his first installment of Berkshire Hathaway stock in
June.
Sources: Gates tax and Securities and Exchange Commission filings
— Los Angeles Times
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