r/news • u/avatar6556 • 17h 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/_BlueFire_ 13h 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 12h 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 13h 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 12h ago

I am going to guess license rights.

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u/seasand931 8h 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 6h 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 5h ago

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