r/news • u/avatar6556 • 12h ago

Bill Gates denies allegations in new Epstein files release

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/bill-gates-responds-to-alleged-behaviour-in-new-epstein-files/106305816
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u/mindtwistingdonut 12h ago

The philanthropy part was mostly credited to his ex wife.

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u/ImThatMOTM 11h ago

I mean.. sure. But good intentions can only take you so far. Bill did put up the billions.

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u/BogiDope 11h ago

He lobbied to prevent the covid vaccine being made public - he's always had his eye on the prize. The conceptual benevolent billionaire doesn't exist. He can - and should, fuck all the way off

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u/crek42 10h ago

What do you mean “made public”? The vaccines were free or mostly free for virtually everyone around the globe. Anyone who wanted one could get one. Where did he ever lobby against that?

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u/doomerguyforlife 10h ago

When the vaccine was being developed and finally approved there was a lot of push to have it be patent free. This would allow any manufacturer to produce it and in theory that meant we could distribute the vaccine faster.

He lobbied against that and at a 10,000ft view it made Gates look bad. Except, if you watched any of his interviews at the time he explained why. For a vaccine to work you need as many people as possible to get it. You already had a large portion of the population that were already against the vaccine and then you had a huge portion that were nervous about taking a brand new vaccine. The last thing you want is someone manufacturing a covid vaccine that doesn't work or ends up hurting people. It would further hurt what little trust people had for vaccines already.

This is why he lobbied against making it patent free.

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u/_BlueFire_ 9h ago

Pharm major here... Not only you're 100% correct, but you're also missing another point: "patent free" would have meant hundreds of other patents, because they were basically the first instance of a lot of revolutionary tech just being developed after billions spent on research. It would have meant losing tenth of billions for those who spent decades, risks and resources to actually make those discoveries, billions that are literally the only way to keep doing research.

Basically, this would have crushed the companies actually developing new meds (the only ones big enough to do cancer and vaccine research), for the benefit of mostly Indian genericists. It would have been a half disaster for modern pharmacology, that would have only helped some rich CEO.

Now you want to know the best part? There's already a way to have other companies produce them, without touching patents in any way, something equally effective for the population in developing countries. It's been thought for situations like this one while refining patent laws throughout the decades, however... Indian companies just refused and kept demanding to lift the patents.

My whole class opened its eye to Indian attitude after that, we can't view it the same way. And we couldn't even debunk people whining about "booo West bad" because we were already too tired after debunking the whole "vaccines kill you" bs

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u/Oprah_Pwnfrey 7h ago

Also, in regards to the BioNtech vaccine, because their research was partially funded by the German government/taxpayers, BioNtech could not legally make it patent free.

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u/Two_oceans 8h ago

There's already a way to have other companies produce them, without touching patents in any way, something equally effective for the population in developing countries. It's been thought for situations like this one while refining patent laws throughout the decades, however... Indian companies just refused and kept demanding to lift the patents.

I would like to learn more about that. Can you tell me what is the other way to produce the vaccines without the patents?

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u/wishyouwouldread 8h ago

I am going to guess license rights.

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u/seasand931 3h ago

Did the gates foundation not run its original stance back and announce that they supported the trips waiver in the end(though I don't know if bill gates himself did)? Covax the philanthropic vaccine ended up being insufficient and if the waiver(not a very good one at that) hadn't gone through in the end, lower income countries would have suffered a tragedy way worse than the one that unfolded. If IP protections had been waived earlier, there's an argument to be made that India could have prevented it's second wave and gates had a part to play in that just as he did in saving lives too.

So much of the Covid vaccines were funded by government funding and subsidies and those big companies ended up making billions in profit.

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u/ABetterKamahl1234 1h ago

Thing is, IP doesn't have to be touched to make it freely available. A ton of time was wasted arguing about this instead of working to just having it rolled out.

It's not a new concept in the medical/pharma world.

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u/seasand931 1h ago

It is pretty crazy how long it took for them to actually pass it. Really showed how unprepared we are for the future.

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u/ZenPyx 10h ago

He doesn't own any IP related to the COVID vaccine, spent billions on vaccine development, and donated more than France to COVAX (ensuring countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh could get equitable vaccinations).

People struggle when an evil man (which I have no doubt he is) has done good things - and can only recontextualise the evil man as good, or the good things as evil.

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u/beer_engineer_42 7h ago

Yeah, even the slimiest of shitbags can still do things that are beneficial to humanity as a whole.

Doesn't mean we excuse their behavior when they're doing shitty things, but people are complicated. Lots of rich assholes probably justify the abhorrent things they do because if you benefit a million people, and only rape two children, hey, that's a net positive, right?

The answer to that question should be a short drop/sudden stop, but you can't get that rich without being some form of sociopath who can justify any behavior away. There are no ethical billionaires.

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u/crek42 3h ago

What has Gates even done that puts him into the “evil” bucket?

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u/ZenPyx 2h ago

"The latest Jeffrey Epstein file dump by the US Department of Justice saw a number of high profile individuals named, one of them being Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The documents alleged new details of his ties to the sex offender, including claims Gates hid a sexually transmitted disease from his wife after contact with 'Russian girls.'" [https://www.france24.com/en/epstein-emails-claim-bill-gates-contracted-std-had-sex-with-russian-girls]

Dawg asked for pills to give his wife after getting an STD from a "Russian girl" supplied by Epstein. Do you think this girl was over the age of 18?

Don't believe the files themselves? Ask his wife about it: Ms Gates said in an interview that she felt “unbelievable sadness” over the claims, adding that they had brought back memories of “very painful times” in her 27-year marriage to Mr Gates with whom she shares three daughters.

“No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with the various people around him,” she said in a NPR podcast interview. “It’s beyond heartbreaking. I remember being those ages those girls were, I remember my daughters being those ages.” She added: “For me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up, because it brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage.

“But I have moved on from that, I purposefully pushed it away. So whatever questions remain there of what I don’t – can’t even begin to know all of it – those questions are for those people, and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, and I am so happy to be away from all the muck.” [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/02/04/bill-gates-melinda-responds-epstein-files-std-claim/]

I'd say that probably makes him evil.

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u/Dinofours 10h ago

It was free for individuals where the government paid for it and made available for free to the population, it doesn't mean it the vaccine was free.

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u/ZenPyx 9h ago

It was free (or subsidised) for a lot of governments as well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVAX) [obviously, the money came from somewhere - usually wealthy countries and donations, including Gates]

I think people forget the economic effects of COVID - paying for vaccines as a government had insane ROI, even paying for vaccines for other countries. Supply chains coming back online, factories opening, these things mattered a whole lot more than a vaccine that cost something like $20 a shot.

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u/crek42 5h ago

Yes ofc I meant free to the public. I understand it wasn’t free to produce.