Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, with the largest foundation -- the Gates Foundation. And while, for decades, the foundation's medical director, governments and drug companies virtually ignored the millions of people who suffer from chronic malnutrition and a mass of other infectious diseases, it appears the Gates Foundation may be changing its colors.
The foundation decided a couple of years ago that it was time for the world's best scientific minds to undertake the problems that infest the world's poor; thus, the Gates Foundation created the Grand Challenges in Global Health.
Altogether, grant recipients will receive nearly half a billion dollars from Gates, $27 million from Wellcome Trust and $4.5 million from the Canadian government over a time span of five years. Winners will begin research they hope will lead to better vaccines, more nutritious food, new ways to control disease-carrying mosquitoes, improved treatment of stubborn infectious diseases and pocket-sized laboratories for on-the-spot diagnosis of diseases.
Some of the ideas, however, emit such an "out-there aura" that many question whether the technology really holds the answer to public health for the poor. Despite doubt, Gates remains firm in his belief (and financial support) that a few of the big ideas will save millions of lives.
Big Dreams
According to a member of the Gates Foundation, some of the grant applications that came in had some incredible "gee-whiz" quality to them. Specifically:
Virologist Robin Shattock of St. George's University of London and his team received $19.6 million for their proposal of developing a vaginal HIV vaccine that can be packaged in a gel or a low-cost silicone ring, similar to those used for hormone replacement therapy.
Paul Yager of the University of Washington and his team received $15.4 million to develop a portable diagnostic lab the size of a Palm Pilot that will detect infectious diseases from a drop or two of blood.
Nobel laureate David Baltimore of the California Institute of Technology and his team received $13.9 million to design an antibody that will kill HIV and then figure out how to get the human body to make it.
Abraham Sonenshein of Tufts University received $5 million to genetically engineer a bacterium so it can encase vaccine proteins within its spores.
Skeptics of the challenge claim that the technological breakthroughs will not cure every health problem faced by the poor, and that there are other problems that even the most advanced technology won't readily fix.
USA Today June 28, 2005
I have great respect for Bill Gates' business skills that have allowed him to become the most financially successful person in the world, but he is relatively clueless when it comes to health. It is noble, though, that he is seeking to use his accumulated resources for good. I actually plan to do the same with the Mercola Foundation that was formed last year.
However, if you read the article you will find nearly every one of the winners of this challenge is using fatally flawed philosophical approaches to address the problems. If someone at the Gates Foundation understood health, they could leverage those resources to really make a difference in the health of the poor of this world.
The problem is that Gates has no obvious interest in natural healing techniques and is relying on advisors that are rooted in the fatally flawed conventional medical paradigm that holds vaccines as the cure for all infectious diseases. About the only thing the Gates Foundation is doing that may have some long-term impact is their work with malaria. But if they seek to use a vaccine approach to that, it will also fail.
I firmly believe, once a critical threshold of the population strongly shares the natural medicine convictions I share with you daily on my Web site, we will see changes that will shift important institutions like the Gates Foundation and many governments to fund initiatives that will truly change human health at its deepest levels.
On another note, the 11th richest person in the world died recently in a foolish experiment.
What is the lesson here?
Even billionaires aren't immune to the law of physics. No matter how much money you have, you still need to exercise common sense.
And that, folks, is the connection between the two stories. High levels of income do not necessarily come with common sense. The older I get the clearer and more obvious it is that common sense is not very common. In fact, it is extraordinarily rare -- and definitely not related to your income level.
Hopefully this newsletter helps you to achieve higher levels of common sense as it relates to your own health. If you find that is true it would be greatly appreciate if you could encourage your family and friends to sign up for the free newsletter. You can have a major impact on improving the speed at which the migration away from current dysfunctional healthcare system to one truly based on prevention and antithetic cure occurs by sharing the information in this newsletter with as many of your friends and relatives as possible.
BUT please be sure to do it wisely. Select a Mercola.com article that addresses their particular health struggle or concern and then write a personal message in the email as to why they should seriously consider the advice -- and why they should subscribe to the free e-newsletter. It is very easy to do with our E-mail to a Friend button at the top of EVERY page on the web site.
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