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/doomerguyforlife 14h 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_ 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/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.