“Indeed, it is becoming ever more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer but man himself who is man's greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes.” (Carl Jung)
Introduction In 2008 the world was plunged into a financial crisis with the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank. The financial system only survived through taxpayer bailouts and huge programme of monetary and fiscal stimulus.
A few months after the start of the recession in 2008, unemployment started to rise sharply. In the UK many blamed the policies of the then Labour government for their predicament. In 2010 UK voters elected a Conservative led coalition government. The newly elected government started to implement an agenda of reducing public expenditure by imposing public sector wage freezes, cutting welfare benefits, and reducing the numbers of police and military personnel. Loss of employment and reduced welfare benefits saw an increase in child poverty, foodbanks, and homelessness. Notwithstanding government-imposed austerity, in 2019 the Tories won another general election. Having endured nearly a decade of government austerity many looked for other institutions to blame for their situation. Encouraged by Tory Brexiteers many had sought to blame the European Union which in 2016 resulted in a vote for the UK to leave the union. On the back of the referendum many felt in 2019 that the Conservatives were the only party who would honour the Brexit vote. What you may ask has all this to do with Dancing Plagues and Mass Hysteria? Dancing Plagues
The Dancing Plagues were not just one event there were several occurrences between the late 1100s and 1600s. In several towns across Europe people were seized by a compulsion to dance. They rarely paused to rest or eat, often dancing for hours or even days in succession. The involuntary urge to dance coincided with an altered state of consciousness. Rational thoughts were overwhelmed by a mass hysteria. There have been many discussions as to what brought about the circumstances in which the dancing plagues took place. Many scholars are now agreed that they were often preceded by an environmental or health crisis such as floods, crop failure, plague, enduring poverty, and rising food prices. “There are very strong indications that fearful and depressed communities were unusually prone to epidemic possession. And given that there is a well-established link between psychological stress and dissociation, this correlation is immediately suggestive of mass psychogenic illness.” (John Waller)
Mass hysteria was not isolated to the Dancing Plagues, Europe and America experienced similar hysteria during the Witch Hunts. The accusations of witchcraft often coincided with a misfortune experienced by the accuser, fear of being accused and in some cases a personal vendetta. Rarely except in the latter case of vendetta was there any rationality behind the accusations. Fahey (2020) links the rise in folk medicine or witchcraft to the Black Death which was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. Could the same lack of reasoning have led to the totalitarian governments of Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, and China? They all came to power during a time of crisis when people felt threatened. “The totalitarian systems of the 20th century represent a kind of collective psychosis. Whether gradually or suddenly, reason and common human decency are no longer possible in such a system: there is only a pervasive atmosphere of terror, and a projection of “the enemy,” imagined to be “in our midst.” Thus society turns on itself urged on by the ruling authorities.” (Joost Meerloo) Many people ask how it was possible for Nazi doctrine to become dominant in the 1930s. There are many reasons for the initial rise but once in power they reformed the universities, schools, media, and churches. Free critical thinking was no longer encouraged the state did not require individuals to analyse its motives.
Nazi Book Burning Rally
While many can now see the evil of the Nazi regime and understand how the leaders came to power, they rarely look to their own governments for indicators of state coercion and manipulation. Many are even unaware that it could be happening today. Politics, Education and Capitalism
In May 1979 a general election was held, and a Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher was elected to lead the country.Neo-liberalism became the dominant force in British politics.
Thatcher’s government policies accelerated a profound social and economic restructuring. As part of these reforms the education system was to be overhauled. Apart from structural changes concerns had also been expressed about the content of the school curriculum. In a 1979 report "Local Education Authority Arrangements for the School Curriculum Report", some of these concerns were highlighted. They included questions as to whether politics should be taught as a standalone subject or incorporated as part of history lessons. Additionally, there were concerns that history lessons were focusing on social issues rather than on dates and events. Furthermore, the government felt that the system was not providing the skills required for a productive workforce.
The 1980 Education Act attempted to address some of the concerns by making structural changes. The period of Tory government between 1979 and 1994 saw the enactment of 16 laws and the publication of 189 associated orders. The 1988 Education Reform Act phased in a National Curriculum with three core subjects (mathematics, English, and science), six foundation subjects (history, geography, technology, music, art and physical education). This curriculum also addressed the earlier concerns of politics being taught as a standalone subject. One might ask why politics as a standalone subject is important. The restructuring of the curriculum meant that for future generations the early understanding of political ideologies would no longer assist young adults to form an opinion when they came to vote.
While education was being reformed so was the economic, financial, and social fabric of the UK. Nationalised industries were privatised, and shares offered to employees and the public. The stock exchange was deregulated and the right to buy your council owned home was introduced. Money, individualism, and personal success entered the social fabric and became the norm. No one questioned the newfound wealth. However, by the mid to late 1990s cracks had started to develop.
There was an acceleration of a globalised world economy and the liberalisation of social attitudes The Tory government’s economic reputation was shattered after the humiliation of Black Wednesday in September 1992, forcing sterling out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Meanwhile there were several scandals including: Arms to Iraq, Cash for Questions, and Back to Basics.
Concerns about the economy and a desire for a fairer society and stability led to a Labour election victory in 1997. The scandals, faltering economy and a media backlash led to a crisis that brought about a change in government. The media had a big part to play in returning Labour to power. But this Labour Party was no longer the Socialist Party of the past but a social democratic party for the future. A party that embraced private enterprise and finance to build social infrastructure.
Returning to the introduction and the financial crisis of 2008 Labour was the political party in power at the time. Notwithstanding that the crash was caused by the collapse of a major international bank the Labour Government was held to account. Again, people clamoured for stability and in 2010 a Tory government was returned to power.
The common theme running through the 3 elections from 1979 to 2010 has been financial and economic crisis, social equality, instability and the media. But was there another underlying factor that enabled a Tory victory? Had the structure of education since 1979 in the UK hindered the ability of people to think critically? Perhaps the focus on facts and figures without any social context has limited people’s ability to analyse the circumstances in which they find themselves. The 1979, 1997 and 2010 elections all took place during economic and financial crises. In the build up to the 2010 and election the Labour government was one of many to bail out the financial institutions the same institutions that created the financial crash.
The public in part brainwashed by the media blamed the government of the day. While they may have had some responsibility in terms of policy, the real failing was the financial system within an economic capitalist system. Capitalism
“Capitalism is a dynamic and destructive system that has created self-perpetuating forces that seek the maximisation of profit and the conversion of everything into exchange values. Capitalism is an insatiable system of production and valorisation that makes everything transferable into commodified forms that serve the accumulation of capital.” (Gerard Delanty) Capitalism therefore is a system of exploitative wealth accumulation. But the real problem for capitalism is diminishing resources and the destructions of its customer base. Capitalism depends ultimately on having an income-earning population who can buy its products.
Displacement of workers by computerised systems and robots is the formula for the self-destruction of capitalism.Consumers survived the industrial revolution because it created a middle class but in the 21st Century it is the middle class who will be replaced. These concerns were highlighted by Andrew Yang in his presidential campaign in which he acknowledged that automation was displacing the workforce. His recommendation was the introduction of Universal Basic Income. Many thought the concept of UBI which is a non-means tested universal basic payment provided by government to be a positive response to a potential threat. However, the policy relies on having a benign government that does not seek to coerce and manipulate its people. Capitalism is driven by the relentless accumulation of capital. The maximisation of capital requires a hegemonic order that imposes order on the world. In other words, a ruling dominant force. Thomas Malthus was an 18th-century British philosopher and economist noted for the Malthusian growth model, an exponential formula used to project population growth. The theory states that food production will not be able to keep up with growth in the human population, resulting in disease, famine, war, and calamity. What Malthus did not foresee was that as the economic wealth of a society and its citizens grew population growth would slow. Additionally, the mechanisation of farming and harvesting of natural food chains addressed many of his concerns. However, this did not explain all the inequalities that remained.
In a capitalist system Inequality is an inevitable product of its activity, expanding equality of opportunity only increases it -- because some individuals and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that capitalism affords. Marx in the 19th Century recognised the exploitative nature of capitalism. He understood that economic growth depended ultimately on having an income-earning population consuming goods and produce. He also envisioned a point where capitalism would create so much inequality and impoverishment that the system would collapse.
While mechanisation and improving technologies have improved food production and reduced the risks of famine for many it has also seen an improvement in health care. With such advancements the world has seen a stabilisation in population albeit an ageing population. This creates a quandary for capitalism. An ageing population is not inclined to spend as much on consumer goods. On average the over 65s spend 18% less than the under 35s and 41% less than the 35 – 64 age group. They also pay the lowest taxes of all three groups. Conversely, the over 65s spent more on health and personal care, food, and utilities.
So, we now have an ageing population, and environmental challenges caused by intensive farming and harvesting of natural resources, what could go wrong for capitalism? Capitalist Hegemony In a tweet in 2018 Paul Mason a political journalist referring to Antonio Gramsci said: “taking power is not enough; behind the state, the elite have line after line of trenches with which to their defend privilege and enforced poverty and ignorance for the rest.” In other words the notion of a democratically elected representative government is meaningless. It is an illusion to pacify the populace. The illusion of democratic government fools the mind; it creates a perception that power resides in the votes of the electorate. The notion that power rests within elected government is a delusion that once implanted is difficult to correct (Joost Meerloo).
If, governments are themselves puppets of a higher power who pulls the strings? There are several institutions that hold sway or influence governments globally, the IMF (International Monetary Fund), United Nations (UN), WEF (World Economic Forum), The World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO) and the WHO (World Health Organisation).
The United Nations structure is interesting. Seventy-four percent of UN funding comes from governments. But there are a handful of non-state organizations that also contribute. They include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which donated $300 million to the UN in 2017. The Gates Foundation has also been a key donor to the WHO over the past decade, accounting for as much as 13% of the group's budget for the 2016-17 period. In February, the foundation pledged $100 million to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and it upped that to $250 million in April 2020. In addition to the WHO donations the Gates Foundation funded the establishment of GAVI (The Vaccine Alliance) in 1999 and in October 2000 they donated $210m to the University of Cambridge. The Gates Foundation is not the only source of independent donors for the WHO they include many businesses and the following foundations: David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Bloomberg Family Foundation, Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. In addition to Gates donations to Universities, the WHO and GAVI they also established the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health. The Institute is located within the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. One might be forgiven for thinking that Bill Gates and other apparent philanthropists have been reading the works of Thomas Malthus. Particularly when you consider that Gates is now the biggest owner of farmland in the United States. Gates and his wife Melinda now own 242,000 acres across 18 states. The Gates controlled investment group Cascade Investments, is also a shareholder in the plant-based protein companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, as well as the farming equipment manufacturer John Deere. Many see this as an indication that Gates want to turn farming away from animal husbandry to arable food production. While Gates has denied that he is motivated by climate change the farmland he has acquired will meet “carbon-neutral” targets for a sustainable investment portfolio while anticipating an increase of agricultural productivity and revenue. To summarise through his donations and investments Gates is addressing the concerns that Malthus expressed about human population growth, disease, and famine. The question is are these interventions benign or is something more sinister taking shape? Climate Change, Covid and Capitalism
Two significant events took place in the last few years the first was the foundation of Extinction Rebellion in 2018 and the second was the sudden appearance of Greta Thunberg in the public sphere as a champion for action against climate change. In August 2018 she started protesting in front of the Swedish parliament building, vowing to continue until the Swedish government met the carbon emissions target agreed by world leaders in Paris, in 2015. Thunberg’s action led to international action by students across the globe and In September 2019, she travelled to New York to address a UN climate conference.
Thunberg became spokesperson for the climate change movement. But what do Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion have in common? Their view is that although individuals can make personal changes their actions are insignificant in terms of the threat of climate change. For Extinction Rebellion and Thunberg climate change is a massive collective problem. They argue that it can only be satisfactorily addressed by the most powerful collective institutions and governments across the world. They want to see promises acted upon and direct intervention by policy makers.
Fifteen Months after Thunberg addressed the United Nations, China announced in December 2019 that they had experienced an outbreak of influenza cases in Wuhan and a novel coronavirus was identified. Soon after reports of cases throughout the world were being reported. In March 2020 Neil Ferguson a professor of epidemiology at Imperial College London and an advisor to the government briefed the UK government that a new respiratory virus “Covid19” would possibly result in the deaths of 500,000 British citizens. He also informed the American government that they faced a mortality rate of 2.2 million. At the time of writing (May 2021) there have been 128,000 UK deaths and 550,000 American deaths. A far cry from the original estimates. Interestingly 2 years prior to Ferguson’s announcement Imperial College received a $14.5 million donation from the Gates Foundation. The virus itself appears to have a greater impact on the elderly and people with comorbidities. Indeed, most deaths have occurred in the over 70 age group. Some doctors and scientists have questioned the mortality figures. Their concern is that people who died from an existing health problem were being certified has having died from or with Covid. Surprisingly, elderly patients prior to April 15th, 2020 being discharged from hospital to care homes in the UK were not routinely tested for Covid. It is not known how many patients discharged to care homes had covid-19 at the point they left hospital. Before the new policy of testing everyone around 25 000 people were discharged from NHS hospitals to care between 17 March and 15 April 2020. On some social media sites some people even accused the government of a cull on the elderly. In March 2020 Boris Johnson the UK Prime Minister announced a 3-week Lockdown of public movement to flatten the rate of infection. In a public address to the nation, the Prime Minister said the public will not be allowed to leave their homes except for a few specific reasons and could be fined £30 for meeting outside in groups of more than two people. All non-essential shops would close, as would outdoor gyms, kiosks, and places of worship, except for funerals.
The unprecedented measures were prompted by fears in Downing Street that its coronavirus suppression measures have been ignored by the public. On the 30th of April Boris Johnson announced that the UK had past the peak of the outbreak. He also said face masks would be "useful" as part of the strategy for coming out of lockdown.
The use of masks was controversial as previous advice from his medical advisors and Dr Fauci the chief medical advisor to the American president stated that masks for public use served no purpose and that studies did not support their use. Fauci later changed his opinion and argued that he had been trying to ensure there was sufficient PPE for frontline health care workers.
Prior to April 30th Johnson had already announced that the Lockdown would be extended for a further 3 weeks from the 16th of April. By June 2020 scientists were actively seeking a treatment for Covid and trialling several drugs. In July 2020, the UK introduced a Mask mandate. The policy stipulated that face coverings must be worn by retail, leisure and hospitality staff working in any indoor area that is open to the public and where they are likely to meet a member of the public. This includes shops and supermarkets. It was also a requirement for the public to wear a mask on entering a shop. One of the idiosyncrasies of the mandate was that the public had to wear a mask on entering a supermarket, but if it had a café a customer could sit at a table and remove the mask to eat. Similarly, a customer entering a restaurant had to wear a mask but on being seated could remove it. The public appeared to blindly accept this contradiction in logic. With the enforcement of the mask mandate people’s behaviour and attitude to others also changed. People would step out onto the road to avoid walking past someone, others held their breath as they passed a person, and some would turn their backs. This flood of negative behaviour and emotions was the direct result of government policy, advertising, media propaganda and suppression of some scientific and medical voices. Without a balanced discussion the population entered a mass or masked psychosis not too dissimilar to the Dancing Plagues. Everyone without a mask was a threat they were infected and had to be avoided. People complaining of a mild cough a tickly throat or feeling tired suddenly had Covid. UK society had become a place of insecurity where people seemed unable to think for themselves thus allowing the mask psychosis to occur.
On the 1st of June 2020 Lockdown measures were eased, with schoolchildren in England in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 returning to the classroom. Other restrictions were also relaxed but by October 2020 the UK was being told it was being placed in another national lockdown. The lockdown was eased in December 2020 but reimposed in January 2021. During this period of restrictions businesses closed and there was a gradual increase in unemployment. Access to some health care services were restricted and many people could only speak to their doctor through telephone consultations. Companies such as Amazon witnessed a leap in profits due to their high-profile internet exposure. Working from home also became the norm for many people.
By mid-summer 2020, the focus on treatment of Covid appeared to have waned and prevention now appeared to be the way forward. Moderna and Pfizer had established themselves as the leaders in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Both companies focused on an mRNA vaccine approach.
On 2nd December 2020, the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) gave temporary regulatory approval for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine, becoming the first country to approve this vaccine and the first country in the Western world to approve the use of any COVID‑19 vaccine. On the 8th of December 2020 the first Covid vaccine was administered to a patient in a hospital in the UK. It was the first administration of the Pfizer COVID-19 injection. The COVID‑19 vaccine we were all told was intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2). The public were told they would receive 2 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine at least 21 days apart and these would be required to achieve immunity. Throughout the lockdowns and mask mandate international travel was restricted for many of the UK and world population. Discussions took place on the introduction of vaccine passports or certificates to prevent further spread of the virus. Indeed, some countries have introduced policies that require proof of vaccination. In the UK people visiting hospitality venues were asked to use a track and trace mobile app. To attain freedom of movement people were now being told they would have to accept methods of monitoring to prove they had been vaccinated.
In April 2021 those who had received 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine were told they may require a 3rd injection by December 2021. During the initial roll out and because of shortages recipients were told that the second dose could be delayed. While the message from the NHS was that you needed two doses for maximum protection.
At the same time, the vaccinated were told they would need to continue to wear masks. Apparently, a vaccinated person could still become sick and be able to transmit the virus to someone else. For some the confusing messages from government and how policies were implemented defied all logic, but they also perpetuated the fear factor.
In May 2020, the NHS the UK's health care provider announced a new initiative called the NHS Reset. It was seen as a response to new health care working patterns and it is partially funded by Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Limited. An NHS virtual conference is being held in June 2021 to discuss this reset. The Fear Factor
In 2017 there were nearly 10 million deaths in India. Many deaths were the result of chronic respiratory diseases, diarrhoea, respiratory infections, cancer, stroke, road traffic accidents, and tuberculosis. A 2011 study of health care provision in India estimated that India had roughly 20 health workers per 10,000 population, with doctors comprising 31% of the workforce, nurses, and midwives 30%, pharmacists 11%, AYUSH practitioners 9%, and others 9%. Many of these professionals were in urban areas. Additionally it has also been noted that inequality in access to health care in India is related to socioeconomic status, geography, and gender, and these factors are compounded by high out-of-pocket expenditures, with more than three-quarters of the increasing financial burden of health care being met by households. Health-care expenditures exacerbated poverty, with about 39 million additional people falling into poverty every year because of such expenditures.
Clearly prior to Covid there was already a disparity in health care provision in India with limited health resources being disproportionately located in the major urban areas. On the 1st May 2021 the Washington Post reported that India’s Covid Cases had risen to 400,000 per day while stating that Fauci said the crisis was ‘like a war’. These headlines were repeated daily by international media throughout the 1st week of May. On the 9th May 2021 Reuters reported that India was experiencing over 4,000 deaths per day from Covid while suggesting that actual numbers for COVID-19 cases and fatalities could be far higher. The shock and horror was exemplified by posts on social media using the figures to reinforce the need to wear masks in the UK and to get vaccinated. No one questioned how a country with a poor resourced health care system could suddenly start testing 4,000 cases per day.
Throughout this apparent crisis the UK has seen conflicting policies implemented. Primary care remodelled into a telehealth system of care, travel restrictions implemented, homeworking being normalised, and a greater emphasis on online shopping.
Interestingly Amazon who have benefitted from lockdowns were awarded a CIA contract in 2013 worth $600 million. While Bezos the Amazon Founder is to step down in 2021 as CEO he will remain as an Executive Chairman. He stated in his announcement that he wished to focus on his other passions which included the Washington Post which is owned by Bezos and is a supporter of lockdowns. Capitalism The World Economic Forum, based in Switzerland, was founded on 24 January 1971 by Klaus Schwab. Its membership consists of over 1000 businesses. The WEF's mission is stated as "committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas. In other words, it is a cabal of capitalists promoting a capitalist agenda. In January 2020, the WEF held its 50th Annual Conference attending the meeting as one of the speakers was Greta Thunberg. There were four issues that the conference aimed to address: 1. Climate and environmental challenges that are harming our ecology and economy. 2. How to transform and manage political and economic priorities and consumption patterns. 3. How to govern the technologies. 4. How to adapt to social and technological trends reshaping education, employment. In June 2020 Schwab announced the need for a Great Reset and It became the overriding topic of the 51st WEF Conference in January 2021. As previously mentioned, the NHS Confederation had already announced the need for a reset of health care delivery. The notion that capitalists could redefine the world economic through a pandemic using fear, propaganda suppression of dissenting voices has been dismissed as conspiracy theory in mainstream media. Quinn Slobodian an associate professor of history at Wellesley College, Massachusetts in an article in the Guardian newspaper In December 2020 stated: “The great reset theory is nonsense and will probably become a prime target for the many new research centres and initiatives studying “disinformation”. What is not nonsense is that some businesses and individuals have been the beneficiaries of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) procurement in the UK. The rise in profit margins of large online internet stores have been underpinned by the closure of bricks and mortar small businesses. We have also witnessed the restructuring of health care delivery, and a reduction in motor vehicle and airline usage as a direct result of lockdowns. And let us not forget the potential profits for pharmaceutical who told us that we would only need 1-2 vaccinations to achieve Covid immunity and are now talking about annual boosters. So the beneficiaries of the great reset will be the one percent. They will dominate and control your lives through technology, health, food, media, and access to travel. It will remove some competitors from the marketplace increasing the monopoly that large companies have. It will address concerns of environmentalists as people are discouraged from using traditional modes of transport.
Interestingly Bill Gates has invested in all the sectors mentioned: health, food, technology, and transport. Whether you think that this rambling is conspiracy or not what cannot be denied is that fear, health propaganda and suppression of information has been used to change people’s behaviour. A prime example of this suppression is some of the previous posts in this blog in which links to YouTube video channels have been removed because they questioned the mainstream narrative. People need to stop or pause the plague of the Dancing Masks and start questioning some of the logic that created a mass psychosis. Vaccine Production and Distribution
"Oxford University initially said any vaccine it developed would be open to qualified manufacturers to produce without paying royalties, and priced either at cost or at a small profit. However, by August 2020, reportedly at the urging of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, the university decided to change course. It entered an exclusive licensing agreement with the British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca."
The arrival of Covid-19 vaccines has created a global market worth tens of billions of dollars in annual sales for some pharmaceutical companies. Demand for Pfizer's Covid vaccine could bolster its revenues for years, the US drugs giant has said. Pfizer said it was expecting "durable demand" for the vaccine, in a similar way to flu vaccines.In the first three months of 2021, the vaccine generated revenues of $3.5bn (£2.5bn) as governments scrambled to try to contain the pandemic. Revenue from the treatment is expected to hit $26bn this year - accounting for more than one third of Pfizer's sales. The forecast is based on already-signed contracts for 1.6 billion vaccine doses to be delivered this year. Pfizer said it expected to sign more deals this year, and was in supply talks with several countries for 2022 and beyond.
AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vowed to forego profits on the vaccine during the pandemic. However, AstraZeneca who has exclusive rights to the vaccine licence, said it reserves the right to raise the price of the vaccine when it decides the Covid-19 pandemic has ended. This will lead to a potential windfall if regular booster shots are required in the years ahead to maintain immunity against the virus and its variants.
At the beginning of May 2021 the pharmaceutical companies came under increasing pressure to waive intellectual property rights. This would allow poorer countries to develop their own vaccines in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview with Britain’s Sky News on the 2nd May 2021 Bill Gates when asked about the lifting of intellectual property rights said: The thing that’s holding things back, in this case, is not intellectual property,” Gates said. “It’s not like there’s some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines. You’ve got to do the trial on these things. And every manufacturing process needs to be looked at in a very careful way.”
Gates continued by saying:
“There’s only so many vaccine factories in the world, and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines,” he added. “Moving a vaccine, say, from a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India, it’s novel, it’s only because of our grants and expertise that can happen at all.” Guardian writer Stephen Buranyi in response to the Gates comments tweeted: Bill Gates "has a truly dismal vision of the world. We can’t make more vaccines, we can’t compromise profits, we can’t trust poor countries with our technology, and they’ll get their scraps after we eat." On 6th May 2021 it was announced by Mark Suzman, CEO at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, That the foundation is supportive of temporarily lifting coronavirus vaccine patent protections. However, Reuters reported that a pharmaceutical industry source said U.S. companies would fight to ensure any waiver agreed upon was as narrow and limited as possible, as companies working on vaccines have reported sharp revenue and profit gains during the pandemic. In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith says: "As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce." Perhaps we would do well to heed his words. Reference Links https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/issue-6/does-capitalism-require-endless-growth https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/archive/spending-patterns-by-age.pdf https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2018/01/on-capitalist-hegemony.html https://www.laprogressive.com/most-powerful-families/ https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/who_we_are_e.htm https://www.keionline.org/27708 https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2020-05-29/gates-foundation-donations-to-who-nearly-match-those-from-us-government http://open.who.int/2016-17/contributors/contributor https://www.gavi.org/investing-gavi/funding/donor-profiles https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/covid-19-pandemic-will-have-profound-impact-on-philanthropy-says-bill-gates https://www.gavi.org/operating-model/gavis-partnership-model/bill-melinda-gates-foundation https://www.gatesinstitute.org/history https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-gates-climate-crisis-farmland https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49918719#:~:text=Greta%20Thunberg%20is%20the%20Swedish,join%20protests%20around%20the%20world. https://www.who.int/news/item/27-04-2020-who-timeline---covid-19 https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/neil.ferguson https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/189502/145m-gates-foundation-grant-help-improve/ https://observer.com/2021/04/bill-gates-oppose-lifting-covid-vaccine-patent-interview/
https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/ https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2375 https://www.cuh.nhs.uk/news/cambridge-launches-fast-turnaround-experimental-drug-trial-treat-covid-19/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-latest-lockdown-panic-buying-news-cases-nhs/ https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/government-makes-wearing-face-masks-mandatory https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52493500 https://www.biospace.com/article/a-timeline-of-covid-19-vaccine-development/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/2020/12/landmark-moment-as-first-nhs-patient-receives-covid-19-vaccination/ https://factly.in/data-how-many-deaths-are-recorded-in-india-every-year/ https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/langlo/PIIS2214-109X(19)30451-6.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6166510/ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61894-6/fulltext https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-covid-19-cases-rise-by-over-400000-despite-state-lockdowns-2021-05-09/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55912878 https://www.nhsconfed.org/supporting-members/nhs-reset https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/01/defining-the-decade-of-delivery-50th-annual-meeting-calls-for-stakeholder-responsibility/ https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-bill-gates-hopeful-world-completely-back-to-normal-by-end-of-2022-and-vaccine-sharing-to-ramp-up-12285840 https://s21.q4cdn.com/317678438/files/doc_financials/2021/q1/Q1-2021-Earnings-Conference-Call-Prepared-Remarks-FINAL.pdf https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/biden-says-plans-back-wto-waiver-vaccines-2021-05-05/ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01003-6 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1468795X18810569 https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/1432/91108.pdf https://journals.openedition.org/osb/1771 https://secretsoftheserpent.com/2021/04/11/mass-psychosis/ http://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2020/08/21/magical-thinking-plague-pandemic-unconventional-cures-from-the-black-death-to-the-covid-19/ http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281b/Philosophy%20of%20Magic/Arcana/Witchcraft%20and%20Grimoires/case_witchhunts.html https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-22/edition-7/dancing-plagues-and-mass-hysteria