Behind a veil of corporate media PR, the Gates Foundation has served as a vehicle for Western capital while exploiting the Global South as a human laboratory. The coronavirus pandemic is likely to intensify this disturbing agenda.
by Jeremy Loffredo and Michele Greenstein
Part 12 - A centralized stockpile to “make WHO dependent on the goodwill of Big Pharma”
In October 2019, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted “Event 201” in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Gates Foundation.
A former steering committee member of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security is now the Trump administration’s stockpile chief, and the CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine is also on the board of directors at the pharmaceutical corporation Merck.
Event 201 was an exercise simulating the outbreak of a novel coronavirus. It included representatives from the U.S. National Security Council, as well as corporate leadership from drugmakers like Johnson & Johnson.
While similarities between the mock outbreak and the real outbreak have prompted unsubstantiated theories about Bill Gates “predicting” COVID 19, it is undeniable that the policy proposals that emerged out of the exercise are being implemented today.
Following the simulation, complete with chillingly realistic mock press conferences and newscasts by an imitation network called GNN, the three organizations issued recommendations for dealing with a “severe pandemic.” One recommendation was to have a “robust international stockpile” of medical countermeasures like vaccines.
During the simulation, the Gates Foundation’s global health president, Chris Elias, urged such a stockpile. He explained that “a global stockpile would certainly help ensure a rational and strategic allocation,” but that a collaboration between the WHO and the private sector is necessary to make one effective.
From an objective standpoint, a centralized stockpile of medical countermeasures can be of value during a health crisis. But the question of who controls and distributes it raises troubling issues.
Dr. David Legge told The Grayzone that Elias’s suggestion would further increase the influence of for-profit pharmaceutical corporations, because “undoubtedly, a public-private partnership with a procurement focus and distribution focus would involve Big Pharma and make WHO dependent on the goodwill of Big Pharma.”
Gates might argue that the control and distribution of such stockpiles should also be influenced by Western institutions like NATO. In 2015, he wrote that during a “severe epidemic,” “some global institution could be empowered and funded to coordinate the [epidemic response] system,” that there should be discussion about splitting authority between the WHO and “others (including the World Bank and the G7 countries),” and that “the conversation should include military alliances such as NATO.”
Gates has also argued that “low-income countries should be some of the first to receive” the Covid-19 vaccine. If NATO is playing a role in controlling and distributing vaccines, such aid could be used to further a Western military agenda, as such “aid” has been used in past humanitarian interventions.
Gates has nearly monopolized the realm of public health policy, both nationally and internationally. “Fauci and I are in constant contact,” he has proclaimed, referring to the face of the U.S. Covid response, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci.
At the same time, the mega-billionaire is apparently talking to both CEOs of pharmaceutical companies and heads of government “every day.”
While maintaining relationships with government organizations and the profit-driven private sector, the Gates Foundation has become perhaps the most influential player in the global Covid-19 response. So if the foundation’s work has favored Western multinationals at the expense of public health in the past, why should anyone expect a different result this time?
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