Note: This is the fourth in a series of articles I’ve written dealing with the coronavirus crisis pandemic in the United States. In this article we take a deeper look into the bad science and bad advice that has resulted in the crashing of the U.S. economy and the suspension of our First Amendment rights; along with some comments on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Please read on…MA

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On March 16th, 2020, an interesting article appeared in the New York Times. The article, written by Pulitzer Prize winning Times correspondent Dr. Sheri Fink[1], speaks volumes as to why President Trump, in a sudden shift of strategy, and on the same date as Dr. Fink’s article, issued new federal guidelines for combating Covid 19. The new guidelines, which were far more extreme than even the CDC had recommended just a couple days earlier, called for Americans to limit the size of gatherings to 10 or less people; to work from home; to avoid unnecessary shopping trips, and to refrain from going to bars and restaurants. Within a few days the governors of many individual states, including my home state of Washington, followed suit; issuing even more stringent “stay at home” orders for their citizens. Effectively these orders shut down their states’ economies and suspended rights to peaceful assembly, to worship in churches, and, to some extent, free speech. A short while after the new federal guidelines were issued, at a Trump press conference, one of his chief coronavirus task force advisers, Dr. Deborah Birx,[2] was asked what prompted the change in thinking. Dr. Birx responded that the changes occurred because of a new contagion model the task force had received; a model that was developed in Britain.

Just what was this “new model” that Dr. Birx alluded to? The answer to that question is illuminating. The model came from a study conducted by an epidemic modeling group at the Imperial College in London, England which was led by a British bio-mathematician and epidemiology professor named Dr. Neil Ferguson. The Imperial College report, which was sent to Trump’s coronavirus task force and the CDC several days before the new federal guidelines were issued, contained dire warnings for any country that did not act fast with drastic measures to curb the spread of the virus. Drawing on comparisons to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, Ferguson’s model stated that if effective measures were not initiated the United States could expect a death total in excess of two million; while the United Kingdom could lose as many as 500,000.  According to Dr. Fink’s article, Ferguson’s model stated that,

“To curb the epidemic, there would need to be drastic restrictions on work, school and social gatherings for periods of time until a vaccine was available, which could take 18 months…(the report) cautioned that such steps carried enormous costs that could also affect people’s health, but concluded they (the restrictions) were ‘the only viable strategy at the current time.’ “

Dr. Fink in her article then went on to quote Dr. Ferguson and the Imperial College model as follows:

“‘We don’t have a clear exit strategy,’ Dr. Ferguson said of the recommended measures. ‘We’re going to have to suppress this virus — frankly, indefinitely — until we have a vaccine. It’s a difficult position for the world to be in.’

“The report, which was not released in a peer-reviewed journal but was authored by 30 scientists on behalf of Imperial College’s coronavirus response team, simulated the role of public health measures aimed at reducing contact.

“‘The effectiveness of any one intervention in isolation is likely to be limited, requiring multiple interventions to be combined to have a substantial impact on transmission,’ the authors wrote.

“Dr. Ferguson said the potential health impacts were comparable to the devastating 1918 influenza outbreak, and would ‘kind of overwhelm health system capacity in any developed country, including the United States,’ unless measures to reduce the spread of the virus were taken.”

I could go on with more from Dr. Fink’s article about the Imperial College model, but I think you can see the picture. Unfortunately for our country, the tone, tenor and dire predictions of the report were what Dr. Birx and Trump’s other key corona virus task force advisor, Dr. Anthony (Tony) Fauci,[3] used to convince President Trump to issue the new federal guidelines when they met with him a day or two before the guidelines were released.

All of which begs the question: just who is Dr. Neil Ferguson? The answer makes one wonder why in the world anyone would credit a pandemic model developed by him and his group.  Neil Ferguson is a 52-year-old British epidemiologist and professor of biological mathematics at the London Imperial College. Until very recently he was also a key member of Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), which is the UK’s governmental advisory team, composed of scientists and specialists from academia and industry, to be called upon for advice during national emergencies. The mistake of using Ferguson’s Imperial College model to guide the U.S. covid response is perhaps best understood by looking at a couple of earlier epidemic/pandemic models he significantly authored. In 2009 one of his models predicted a potential swine flu death toll for the UK of 65,000. The final number of deaths ended up being about 400. In 2005 he issued dire warnings about a bird flu epidemic, with predictions of millions of possible deaths stemming from it worldwide. (figures as high as 200 million deaths were mentioned in his report) In fact something like 500 people ended up dying in the UK from the bird flu.

Based on his recent history, clearly something is wrong with the equations and algorithms employed by Dr. Ferguson and his Imperial college group in their modeling. So, why did Drs. Birx and Fauci, and by extension President Trump, buy in to their dire predictions so quickly? That’s a question that I cannot answer with certainty at this point, so for now it will remain a question. As far as Dr. Ferguson is concerned, however, the folly of trusting him was reinforced a few weeks later when, in early May, after testing positive for the coronavirus himself, he was caught violating his own recommended social distancing mandates by making a clandestine visit to his mistress; which resulted in forcing him to step down from his government advisory position with SAGE.

Please forgive my snideness, but why am I not surprised?

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Connection

With the advent of the corona virus pandemic, the role played by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the worldwide health maintenance network has been subjected to increased scrutiny by many. Numbers of conspiracy theories have developed regarding this role, and I want to make it clear that at this time I do not subscribe to those theories and am not promoting them. Some BMGF facts have been established, however, and I do want to ensure those facts are known. As more facts are discovered shadowy dealings may become apparent, but we are not there yet in the data collection so far done for these articles.

With that understood, we can state factually that the BMGF, which was founded in 2000, is now the largest private foundation in the world with nearly $47 billion in assets. Its purpose according to its own mission statement is as follows: 

“Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries it focuses on improving people’s health and giving themselves the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Mark Suzman and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.”

To carry out its mission one of the foundation’s prime functions resides in its grant making power, which it liberally employs to forward its purpose.  So far in 2020 the BMGF has pledged over $100 million to be disbursed in several different ways to combat the Covid 19 virus and to develop a vaccine. The foundation is also the single largest contributor to the WHO ($400 million annually), now that Trump has closed the U.S. funding spigot. Other grants dating from 2019 up to present time in 2020 include:

*$1.2 million to the University of Washington for TB research

*$10.3 million to the World Health Org (WHO) for maternal and child health

*$4 million to WHO for solutions to improve global health

*$1.5 million to Peking University for global health development and analysis

*$9 million to University of California San Fran for family planning

*$1.4 million to WHO to combat enteric and diarrheal diseases

*$11.8 million to Inventprise LLC [4] for vaccine development

*$2 million to InDevR [5] for vaccine development

*$1.1 million to Center for Disease Control (CDC) for emergency response

*$370 thousand to CDC for vaccine development

*$2.1 million to CDC for pneumonia research

And there are many more, both within the United States and internationally. In addition to the above, a search of the name “Imperial College of London” on the BMGF grants page reveals the following:

*$79 million to Imperial College London for malaria research

Wait…What?

Yup! It’s a fact. In March of 2020 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation issued a grant of nearly $80 million (the largest single grant we have found so far) to the same school Dr. Ferguson works at and which issued the dire Covid 19 model used by Drs. Birx and Fauci to close Trump on issuing the new March 16^th federal guidelines.

Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, the timing of that grant could be entirely coincidental. Or it may not be. At the minimum it can be said that with the start of the new millennium a major new player has injected itself into the U.S. and global health network—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It can also be said that, based on the grants it has recently issued, the foundation is intensely concerned with disease research; vaccine development; family planning and maternal and child health care.

Everything I have just stated about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a fact. Whether that foundation and its grants are a force for good in this world, or a force to be wary of, is less certain to me. More facts and more investigation are required.

With those facts revealed, who knows, the plot may thicken…

Copyright © 2020

By Mark Arnold

All Rights Reserved

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[1] Sheri Fink is a correspondent in the Times investigative unit. She won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and shared the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. She received her M.D. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.

[2] Dr. Deborah Leah Birx is an American physician and diplomat serving as the United States Global AIDS Coordinator for Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump since 2014; she has served as the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force since 2020. She specializes in HIV/AIDs immunology, vaccine research and global health.

[3] Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci (born December 24, 1940) is an American physician and immunologist who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984. Since January 2020, he has been one of the lead members of the Trump Administration’s White House Coronavirus Task Force addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Fauci is considered one of the most trusted medical figures in the country and is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases.

[4] Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, Inventprise is a biotechnology company specializing in vaccine product development. The company has a strong portfolio of patented technologies for chemistry and product stability, among others; it also undertakes contract development, research and manufacturing. Inventprise was founded in 2012 and has grown at a rapid pace, largely due to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grants, from a startup in downtown Seattle to a global company with development and manufacturing locations in several countries.

[5] Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, InDevR, Inc. describes itself as a leader in providing progressive analytical technologies that enhance and accelerate vaccine characterization and production. According to its website, among other projects the company is involved in currently is the development of testing kits to aid in the development of coronavirus vaccines.