The Gates Foundation

13/04/2022 · BAM! Belgian Alternative Media
The Gates Foundation

A symbol of a new philanthropy for some, the embodiment of Evil for others, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the second-largest foundation in the world in terms of endowment. With a total of more than 73 billion dollars distributed since 1997 in 118 countries, the foundation’s influence at global level is undeniable, particularly in the pharmaceutical and health sector.

BAM! investigation analyses the Gates Foundation’s donations in detail

GAVI, the WHO and immunity

The largest beneficiaries of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), with more than 6 billion dollars, and the WHO, with more than 4 billion dollars, which points to a clear involvement in the health sector, and more particularly in the vaccination sector.

When the United States decided to withdraw from the WHO during the Trump presidency, the Gates Foundation took the place of the USA and thus became de facto the WHO’s main funder[1].

Shortly afterwards, the WHO changed its definition of herd immunity as well as its definition of a vaccine.

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Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Serology, antibodies and immunity
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): (31 December 2020)

The Foundation and the press

In addition to massive investments in the pharmaceutical and health sector, the Gates Foundation has paid 319 million dollars to various press groups around the world, including:

  • NPR- $24,663,066
  • The Guardian- $12,951,391  
  • Der Spiegel- $5,437,294      
  • NBCUniversal Media- $4,373,500
  • Le Monde (France)- $4,014,512
  • El País- $3,968,184
  • BBC- $3,668,657
  • CNN- $3,600,000  
  • The Daily Telegraph- $3,446,801
  • Financial Times- $2,309,845
  • Al-Jazeera- $1,000,000

Analysis of the donations

We analysed the donations on the basis of the table published on the website of the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation (https://www.gatesfoundation.org/-/media/files/Fondation Gates-grants.csv).

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With 61% of the donations, the United States takes the lion’s share, but relative to its population Switzerland is far ahead, with more than one and a half million dollars per inhabitant. The presence of numerous pharmaceutical firms, but above all of GAVI and the WHO, explains this particular situation.

The Foundation in Belgium

As far as Belgium is concerned, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has distributed $343,676,641, which corresponds to nearly $30,000 per inhabitant, i.e. three times more than the average per country and five times more than France. The strong concentration of the pharmaceutical sector in Belgium and the presence of the European institutions in Brussels partly explain this situation.

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Detailed analysis

Below you will find a detailed analysis of the donations and of possible links of interest.

  • The Gates Foundation has paid $3,423,524 to the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (KUL) since November 2017.
  • Emmanuel ANDRE teaches clinical microbiology at the KUL.
  • Marc VAN RANST is professor of virology at the KUL.
  • The Gates Foundation has also commissioned a study from the Rega Institute of the KUL, where Marc VAN RANST is head of clinical and epidemiological virology.
  • At Ghent University (RUG), the Gates Foundation has paid $10,859,970. Steven VAN GUCHT did his doctorate there and also worked there before joining Sciensano. He is still a guest lecturer there today.
  • Sciensano, where Steven VAN GUCHT holds the position of head of viral diseases, has indirectly received $2,141,010 from the Gates Foundation. Sciensano was born in 2018 from the merger (rationalisation) of the Scientific Institute of Public Health (ISP), which received $1,524,173 from the Gates Foundation in 2008, and the Veterinary and Agrochemical Research Centre (CERVA). The latter received from the Gates Foundation in 2015 some $616,837, intended for the development of inactivated vaccines in order to improve agricultural production. CERVA supports the work of the AFSCA. Since January 2021, Sciensano has been taking part in the Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBAD), a project co-funded by the Gates Foundation, the European Union (via DG Health) and the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, to the tune of 7 million dollars. The partnership also includes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The director of the GBAD programme at Sciensano is Brecht Devleesschauwer, researcher in zoonoses, food safety and veterinary medicine; professor and former researcher at UGent, member of the WHO’s Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group, FERG; former professor at the KUL; former WHO technical expert.
  • Quantoom, a subsidiary of Univercells (see below), obtained 7.5 million dollars from the Gates Foundation in November 2021 for the development of low-cost mRNA vaccines in low- and middle-income countries.

The team is made up of:

  • José Castillho
    CEO, co-founder and CTO of Univercells. 
    Former industrialisation manager for antiviral vaccines at GSK 1999-2004.
  • Sudir Kumar Sharma
    Vice-CTO, CSO and head of vaccine development at Univercells.
  • Yves Ghislain
    Head of technical and equipment development.
    Vaccine development manager at Univercells.
    Former manager and former researcher at GSK Vaccines 1995-2018.
  • Conor Cahill
    Head of production at Univercells.
    Former group leader working on the Polio and Zika vaccines at Janssen 2017-2019.
    Former global R&D director of vaccine development and former global and European manager for vaccines (polio, influenza, DTP,...) at GSK 2009-2017.
    Former leader working on malaria vaccines at GSK 2003-2007.

The board of directors is made up of:

  • Pierre Morgon
    Director at Univercells since 2018.
    Chairman of the board of directors of Eurocine Vaccines since 2019.
    Director at Vaccitech PLC since 2018, partner at Mérieux Développement since 2014.
    Affiliated with multiple pharmaceutical vaccine development firms.
    Former VP Global Marketing at Sanofi Pasteur 2009-2013.
    Former VP Marketing of Aventis Pasteur 1998-2003.
  • Jean-Paul Prieels, member
    Member of the boards of directors of several pharmaceutical and biotech firms.
    Former senior VP of R&D at GSK 1987-2011.
  • Michel de Wilde
    Member of the boards of directors of several pharmaceutical and biotech firms, including:

CureVac since 2016, which received $898,637 in November 2016 for the development of an mRNA vaccine to protect the livestock of small farmers.

Variation Biotechnologies Vaccines Inc. since 2014.

Former adviser to the CEO of Sanofi Pasteur 2013-2016.
Former senior VP R&D of Sanofi Pasteur 1999-2013.
Former VP R&D at SmithKline Biologicals, which became GSK Vaccines, 1987-1999.

  • Andrin Oswald
    CEO of Centogene.
    Member of the board of directors of Univercells.
    Delegate for covid-19 vaccines of the Swiss federal administration, 2020.
    Former member of the board of directors of the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHITF) from 2017 to 2020. In 2012, the GHITF was created through a cooperation between the Gates Foundation, the Japanese government and pharmaceutical industry giants such as Takeda, Daiichi Sankyo and Astellas, all of which had members on the board of directors. The Gates Foundation funded the GHITF to the tune of more than €70 million. However, the name of one member of the board of directors of GHITF is striking: Peter Piot of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who also appears further below as well as in a BAM! article on the KUL. The current partners also include Merck, Johnson & Johnson, the Wellcome Trust and Zoom.
    Former CEO of Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics and former manager at Novartis from 2005 to 2015. Former director of Life Science Partnerships at the Gates Foundation from 2016-2020.
    Former director at GSK from 2015 to 2016
    Former member of the Global Health Investment Corporation (GHIC) from 2012 to 2020. The GHIC has as its investors the governments of Germany, Canada and Sweden as well as GSK, Merck, Pfizer, AXA, JP Morgan and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF, which BAM! has already discussed here (in French)). The GHIC is the commercial arm of the Global Health Investment Fund (GHIF) created in 2012 by the Gates Foundation and JP Morgan Chase and whose partners and sponsors are more or less the same as those of the GHIC.
  • Beate Kampmann
    Director of the Vaccine Center of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, since 2018.
    Professor at Imperial College London from 2005 to 2018.

Among the voting members of the board of directors are:

  • Doug Neugold, chairman of the board of directors, private equity investor in the field of life sciences.
  • Hugues Bultot
    CEO and co-founder.
    CEO of Exothera, CEO of Unizima.
    Former CEO of MaSTherCell, various other pharmaceutical firms.
    Alumni of UCL and of Solvay.
  • José Castillo, member of the board of directors of Quantoom (see above).
  • Pierre Morgon, member of the board of directors of Quantoom (see above).
  • Glenn Rockman, member since 2018.
    Founder of Adjuvant Capital (a life sciences investment fund).
    Director of multiple pharmaceutical firms (biotech, vaccine, genomic research and automated data analysis).
    Treasurer of the Global Health Investment Corporation since 2015.
    Partner of the Global Health Investment Fund 2014-2019.
    Former VP and former managing director at JP Morgan 2007-2014.
  • Céline Vaessen
    Adviser, then CIO of the Société Fédérale de Participations et d’Investissement de Belgique (SFPI).
    Assistant, then professor of finance at Solvay since 2002.
    Former manager at Crédit Agricole.
  • Andrin Oswald, member of the board of directors of Quantoom (see above).

The non-voting members of the board of directors (i.e. observers) are:

  • Rodolphe de Spoelberch
    De Spoelberch family, one of the three majority shareholder families of AB Inbev. It is involved in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, read more here.
  • Andre Ostachkov
    Director of the Innovation Fund, an investment fund interested in start-ups in chemistry and life sciences.
    Member of the boards of directors of several chemical, pharmaceutical and biotech firms.
    Former member of the board of directors of Unizima, a subsidiary of Univercells that focuses on access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries.
    Former employee, VP and director at BNP Paribas 2001-2018.
  • Jean-Marc Legrand.
    Several board positions in pharmaceutical and biotech firms, including Exother, interested in ethical and (eco-)responsible capitalism, as owner of WELL – Wealth Ethics Lifestyle & Leadership.
    Former member of the board of directors of ZEN Car.
    Former deputy CEO of UBS 2008-2012.
    Several former executive positions at BBL, which became ING, 1992-2007.
  • Olivier De Duve
    Venture capitalist and founder of Inventures VC Impact, member of the boards of directors of several pharmaceutical and biotech firms.
    Former banker at Bear Stearns and Deutsche Bank.
  • Gil Yeong Mok, analyst, investor and venture capitalist.
  • Kerstin Laudemann
    Portfolio Director at Takeda 2017-2021.
    Former head of public-private partnerships at Shire 2016-2017.
    Several former executive positions at Baxter BioScience 2001-2015.
  • GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has received from the Gates Foundation nearly 59.2 million dollars since 2011.
  • Zoetis Belgium (LLN), a subsidiary of the no. 1 veterinary pharmaceutical firm among the Fortune 500, received almost 14.4 million dollars from the Gates Foundation in February 2017 to lobby for reducing the regulations limiting access to the veterinary market in sub-Saharan Africa, officially to help small farmers. 
    Zoetis was originally the agri-food and veterinary division of Pfizer, Pfizer Animal Agriculture (1952), then Pfizer Animal Health (1988), before becoming Zoetis (2013). Between 1995 and 2011, Pfizer acquired a whole array of veterinary pharmaceutical companies, concentrating them in its veterinary division, before finally separating from it and creating Zoetis in 2013.
    Since then, Zoetis has continued to acquire other firms, in particular those that focus on genomic research. A champion of the “One Health” concept, according to which human and veterinary medicine are linked and according to which the danger of infectious diseases for humans comes above all from the animal kingdom, Zoetis launched its “Driven to Care” programme in 2021, which advocates sustainability and a socio-economic benefit for all, in particular small farmers in low- and middle-income countries, through advances in veterinary medicine.

Notable members of the board of directors of Zoetis:

The management team is made up of:

  • Petra DE SUTTER, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Civil Service and Public Enterprises in the De Croo government, also works at the RUG (Ghent University), as an extraordinary professor, and at Ghent University Hospital, as head of the department of reproductive medicine.

Petra DE SUTTER was also president (until October 2020) of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF, see below, formerly: European Parliamentary Forum for Population and Development), a member of the Belgian Parliament for the Greens and therefore involved in SENSOA, via APPG Belgium. SENSOA comes under Planned Parenthood, which has received $28,965,012 from the Gates Foundation. The EPF has received $7,419,151 from the Gates Foundation.

  • Alexander DE CROO worked at the Boston Consulting Group, where his wife, Annik Penders, is managing director and partner in Brussels. The Boston Consulting Group has a partnership with the Gates Foundation.

Also in 2015, DE CROO joined the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, which is an extremely elitist organisation that is driving the transformation of the economy in the wake of the corona crisis and openly promotes The Great Reset. The World Economic Forum, together with the Gates Foundation, was one of the organisers of EVENT 201, which simulated a pandemic shortly before it became a reality for everyone.

DE CROO seems to be a good acquaintance of Bill Gates, judging by the photos and the YouTube video: Belgium pledges towards gender eqaulity #GlobalCitizenFestival

In 2006, he founded Darts IP, now an American company, where Alexander DE CROO’s sister, Ariane, works, and whose clients include Google, LVMH (world leader in luxury goods, owned by Bernard Arnault) and Proctor & Gamble (Dit is het zakelijk netwerk van Alexander De Croo | De Tijd).

The Chatham House academy only gives 6 to 10 fellowships a year to researchers, and Stefan Cibian (see above) obtained one in 2020. His research region of interest is Africa. The academy is supported, among others, financially by the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the oil multinational Chevron, and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) of George Soros, which BAM! has already discussed here (in French).

The management of Chatham House is far too vast for it to be possible to discuss each person in detail. Among numerous British (former) MPs and (former) government officials, particularly from the Foreign Office, the Bank of England (BoE) and the British intelligence services, the UN and the European institutions, there are also many (former) representatives of companies and banks, foundations, think tanks and lobbies. Here is a selection of the most striking profiles and their most intriguing affiliations:

  • Chairs:
    • Eliza Manningham-Buller, Co-Chair.
      Life member and former director general of MI5.
      Former member and former chair of the board of directors of the Wellcome Trust 2008-2021.
      Former chair of the board of directors of Imperial College London.
      Interest in international security, medical research and global health.
    • Helen Clark, Co-Chair.
      Co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response of the WHO.
      Former administrator of the development programme of the UN.
      Former Prime Minister of New Zealand; her areas of interest are climate change, sustainable development and the Asia-Pacific region.
  • Council:
    • Heide Baumann, initiator of the digital committee. 
      Executive at Vodafone. 
      Former executive at Liberty Global, Microsoft and Bertelsmann.
    • Ann Cormack
      Former global head of government relations at Rolls Royce (Rolls Royce has already been mentioned here under Tijl De Bie).
      Director of the UK Government’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
      Member of the board of directors of the Confederation of British Industry.
      Former energy director at Xyntéo.
      Former CEO of a biofuel company belonging to BP.
      Former SME director at the UK Department for Trade and Industry.
      Former manager at Shell.
      Former adviser to the British Institute of Energy Economics.
    • Anita Lowenstein
      Producer/documentary maker at the BBC, focusing her programme on initiatives active in international development.
    • Kenneth Cukier
      Editor-in-chief of The Economist, member of the CFR.
      Has published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs. 
      Economics and technology columnist at CBS, CNN, NPR, BBC.
      Speaker at TED Talk on artificial intelligence, data and society.
  • Management:
    • Robin Niblett, CEO. 
      Co-chair of the geopolitical council of the World Economic Forum.
      Former chair of the expert group of NATO in 2014.
      Columnist for Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Bloomberg ‘Surveillance’, BBC News, CNN International.
      Former COO and former director of the European programme of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank funded by the financial, digital, energy and military industry of the USA and the world, as well as by foundations and NGOs, such as the Gates Foundation, the OSF, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies (which we have already discussed here (in French)), Novartis Foundation, Munich Security Conference, etc., or by governments and public institutions, such as the FAO, the EU, the WTO, the German, American, Canadian, French and Qatari governments, those of the UAE, etc., and which counts among its members influential former diplomats and strategists such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski[2].
    • Pr Tim G. Benton, research director for emerging risks, director of environment and society (Dr. honoris causa of the 
      Interested in food issues, he was behind the UK Global Food Security Program, former collaborator of the British governments, the EU and the G20.
      Former head of the global agenda of the World Economic Forum.
      Author of the Special Report on Food, Land and Climate of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
    • Bernice Lee
      Research director for futures, adviser to the Sustainability Accelerator, former group leader of EU-China Interdependencies on energy and climate security.
      Member of the UK Global Resource Initiative Task Force.
      Adviser to the UK Climate Change Committee.
      Member of the board of directors of the Energy Foundation China.
      Has published in Financial Times, New York Times, Wired, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Caijing, Harvard Business Review and The Americas Quarterly.
      Former director of Climate Change and Resource Security at the World Economic Forum.
      Former collaborator of the Secretary-General of the UN.
      Former collaborator of the Rockefeller Foundation, read more about the RF here (in French).
      Former climate change adviser at CIFF, read more about CIFF here (in French). Former collaborator of Shell.
  • Senior Advisers:
    • Shumeet Banerji
      Founder of Condorcet, which focuses on the intersection between data, biology and health.
      Member of the board of directors of Tala Energy.
      Member of the board of directors of Hewlett Packard.
      Alumni of the Kellogg School of Management.
      He emphasises the influence of technologies and data on human life.
    • José M. Barroso
      Director at Goldman Sachs.
      Former Prime Minister of Portugal.
      Former President of the European Commission.
    • Nicholas Burns
      Member of the boards of directors of the think tanks/lobbies the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Trilateral Commission, the Atlantic Council.
      Former member of the US State Department under John Kerry.
      Chief US negotiator on the Iranian nuclear programme.
      Former US ambassador to NATO.
      Former US ambassador to Greece.
      Former spokesperson of the US State Department under Clinton. 
      Former staff member at the White House’s National Security Council, 1990-1995, on Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia under Clinton and on Soviet affairs under H.W. Busch.
      Former diplomat at the American consulate in Jerusalem, 1985-1987, at the US embassies in Egypt, 1983-1985, and in Mauritania.
    • Clara Furse
      Chair of HSBC UK.
      Director at Vodafone.
      Chair of the UK Voluntary Carbon Markets Forum, which aims to establish a market in carbon licences.
    • André Hoffmann
      Director at Roche Holding.
      Member of the board of directors of Genentech Inc.
    • Michael Klein
      Former CEO of Citigroup
      Former adviser to the UK Prime Minister on the bank rescue plan during the last financial crisis.
      Former adviser to the UN’s World Food programme.
    • Majid H. Jafar
      CEO of Crescent Petroleum and VP of the Crescent Group.
      Director of the board of directors of Dana Gas, of which Crescent is the largest shareholder.
      Member of the Atlantic Council.
      Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
      Former collaborator of Shell.
    • Ali Y. Koç
      Member of the global board of Bank of America.
      Member of the CFR.
    • Marc E Leland
      Former member of the boards of directors of several oil firms and investment funds.
      Former co-chair of the German Marshall Fund.
      Former member of the CFR.
    • Rachel Lomax
      Director at HSBC Holdings.
      Member of the board of directors of CityUK.
      Member of the board of directors of Imperial College London.
      Former deputy governor of the Bank of England.
    • Simon Patterson
      Member of the board of directors of FlixBus.
      Director at Tesco.
      Former member of the board of directors of Skype.
      Former manager at the Financial Times.
    • Lubna S. Olayan
      Member of the boards of directors of Allianz, McKinsey & Co., Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.
      Trustee of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Asia Business Council.
      Chair of Alfanar, a venture philanthropy organisation in the Middle East.
    • Kevin Rudd
      Former Prime Minister and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia.
      Applauded by the IMF for his fiscal policy.
      Co-founder of the G20.
      Distinguished statesman of Strengthening America’s Health Security, read more above.
    • Daniel Sachs
      Member of the global board of directors of the Open Society Foundations and chair of the investment committee.
      Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, read more here.
    • Sir John Sawers
      Former head of MI6.
      Former member of the UK National Security Council.
      Former UK ambassador to the UN.
      Former director at the Foreign Office.
      Former special envoy to Iraq.
      Former UK ambassador in Cairo.
      Former foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair.
    • Sir Jonathan Symonds
      Chair of the board of directors of GSK.
      Director at Genomics England Ltd.
      Director at Proteus Digital Health Inc.
      Former director and former group VP at HSBC Holdings.
      Former CFO of Novartis.
      Former CFO of AstraZeneca.
      Former manager at Goldman Sachs.
      Member of the European Round Table, read more about it here.
  • Young advisers:
    • Sam Alvis
      Adviser at the Tony Blair Institute.
      Former employee of the Wellcome Trust.
    • Lara Hollmann
      Adviser at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, mentioned below, for the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation on pandemic prevention and the “One Health” concept, see above.
      Former employee of the European Commission at the “Civil Protection” and “Humanitarian Aid” DGs.
    • Fergus Kell, columnist for Al Jazeera, RFI, AFP, Le Figaro.
    • T. Omoniyi, founder and CEO of Common Sense Networks, a British media network.
    • Natia Seskuria
      Member of the National Security Council of Georgia.
      Former foreign editor of the Sunday Times.
      Lecturer on Russian government policy.
  • Another organisation that has received money from the Gates Foundation is the EurActiv Politech Foundation (“Europe’s MediaLab”), an international media cooperation project overseen by the EurActiv Foundation, which has received a total of nearly 2.5 million dollars for Belgium alone ($2,368,300 to be precise). EurActiv brings together a network of media partners that includes many major European newspapers (Tagesspiegel, Wirtschaftswoche, The Guardian, El Pais, Corriere della Sera, Gazeta Wyborcza, Ouest France, ...).
    The Guardian has also been regularly funded by the Gates Foundation. In all, since 2011 it has received more than 12.7 million dollars from the Gates Foundation.
    EurActiv has as its first editorial line to be “pro-European”, i.e. for EurActiv European integration may be criticised but not called into question, while 17% of its revenue comes from European public projects. A good third of its revenue comes from industry and another third from professional associations (often linked to industry), parties and NGOs that are members.
    • The members of the board of directors of EurActiv are:
      • Marc Sundermann from 04/2020 to 12/2021.
        Former director of government relations at Bertelsmann 2012-2020.
      • Bart Becks since 12/2016.
        Member since 11/2021 of the board of directors of the new European Innovation Council (EIC), of the European Commission, intended to invest in innovative technologies.
        Director of the board of directors of E-Health Valley since 10/2020, a fund investing in start-ups in the field of digital health.
        Co-founder of BeCentral in 2016, a campus promoting digital skills and the creation of start-ups.
        Former director of the board of directors of iMinds from 2011 to 2016, which became IMEC, focused on nanotechnologies and digital technologies.
        Former CEO of Belgacom Skynet from 1998 to 2006.
      • Pedro Ortún Silván, director of several DGs of the European Commission since 1988.
      • Julian Oliver, secretary and chair of the board of directors since 2004.
        Former VP at American Express from 1987 to 1994.
      • Luciano Morganti
        Researcher with IMEC at the VUB since 2006.
        Professor since 2013 in the field of media and technologies.
        Since 2021: coordinator of the European Commission Stars4Media project, a pilot project stemming from a proposal by the European Parliament aimed at improving cooperation between media in Europe and overseen by EurActiv. The project also enjoys the support of a group of MEPs, who would like a permanent line in the European budget to be dedicated to supporting the information sector. The 2nd edition has, among other aims, “supporting democracy in the fight against disinformation” and rebuilding public trust in the media.
      • Christophe Leclercq, former CEO since 07/2020, founder, adviser and majority shareholder since 2000.
        Member of the European Digital Media Observatory, an agency officially independent of the European Commission, but created by it in order to combat online disinformation, in cooperation with industry. BAM! has already discussed it here (in French).
        Former official of the European Commission at DG Competition, in charge of coordinating policies related to telecoms and the internet.
        Former consultant, then senior project manager at McKinsey from 1988 to 1995.
    • The Gates Foundation also supports the think tank Re-Imagine Europa to the tune of around 1.5 million dollars, dedicated specifically to agri-food development using genetic technologies (GMOs). This is part of a medium/long-term strategy, which aims at the deregulation of GMOs at European level in three moves:
  1. Presenting GMOs as an innovative and “green” solution to the climate problem.
  2. Presenting SMEs as incubators of this innovation.
  3. Presenting SMEs as crushed by bureaucracy and regulations.

One of the strategic spaces forming part of this stake appears to be the African continent, judging by the focus of some of the partners, such as the Confédération Européenne des Associations de Petites et Moyennes Entreprises (CEA-PME) of Re-Imagine Europa.

At the World Economic Forum from 2004 to early 2021:

Young Global Leaders.

Adviser to the CEO.

Regional Director Europe and Eurasia.

Director of the Young Global Leaders.

Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Former employee of Nestlé.

  • Nora Khaldi, mathematician, microbiologist and bioinformatician.

Founder and CEO of Nuritas, a pharmaceutical firm benefiting from the support of Horizon 2020 and the European Investment Bank (EIB), betting on AI and big data to promote genomic, therapeutic and agri-food research, which cooperates with BASF, Nestlé and Johnson & Johnson and of which several members of the board of directors and investors have links with the digital, agri-food, chemical, genomic and pharmaceutical industries.

Member of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum.

CEO of Viziphar Biosciences.

Former CEO of Janssen until 2000.

Former director at Shire Pharmaceuticals.

Chair of the board of directors of the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie.

Member of the board of directors of the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp (see below).

CEO of Agile Therapeutics.

CEO of Actinium Pharma.

Director of Newton Biocapital.

Former director of Janssen until 2017 (see below)).

He is part of the institutional council of the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie.

  • Peter Piot, whom BAM! has already discussed here.
  • Biotalys is an agri-food biotechnology spin-off of the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, which received in October 2021 almost 6 million dollars from the Gates Foundation for research into agri-food products intended for small African farmers. Its CEO, Patrice Sellès, was previously, among other things, head of strategy and R&D director at Syngenta, an agri-food and chemical firm created by Astrazeneca and Novartis in 2000 by merging their agrochemical branches. Syngenta (of which Sellès was an employee from 2002 to 2019) was bought in 2015 by ChemChina.
  • The Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp (Institute for Tropical Medicine, ITM) has obtained from the Gates Foundation more than 45 million dollars between 2011 and 2021, mostly in connection with the eradication of tropical diseases in Africa and in Congo specifically. The latest support, of November 2021, amounts to 13.3 million dollars and is dedicated to the eradication of trypanosomes in Congo through a data-based strategy.
    • The board of directors is made up, among others, of:
      • Its chair, Cathy Berx
        Governor of Antwerp.
        Professor at the University of Antwerp (UIA).
        Guest of the Bilderberg in 2018.
        Official of the CD&V.
        Former adviser to Yves Leterme.
      • Ajit Shetty
        Chair of the board of directors of the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (see above).
        Actively linked to the pharmaceutical industry.
        Former CEO and director at Janssen.
      • Dirk Moens, former president of AB Inbev Asia-Pacific.
      • Steven Serneels
        CEO of European Venture Philanthropist Association, which promotes “venture philanthropy” (entrepreneurial philanthropy) as an economic model.
        EVPA, an association that promotes the business of philanthropy, with links to the Fonds Baillet Latour and the King Baudouin Foundation, as well as the European institutions and multiple foundations linked to industry. Read more about it here.
    • The scientific council of the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp is made up, among others, of:
      • Shaden Kamhawi, employee of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose director is Anthony Fauci.
      • John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Center for Disease Control.
        Covid-19 special envoy of the Director-General of the WHO.
        Member of the World Economic Forum.
        US Center for Disease Control (CDC).
      • Yodi Mahendradhata
        Alumni of the Charité in Berlin.
        Director of the South East Asia Regional Training Center for Health Research supported by the WHO.
      • Amadou Alpha Sall
        Director general of the Institut Pasteur Dakar.
        Director of the Collaborating Center of the WHO.
        Member of expert groups of the WHO, including the Global Outbreak and Alert Response Network and the Strategic Advisory Group Experts on Immunization.
        Former veterinary adviser to the WHO.
        Alumni of the Institut Pasteur.
      • Alexandra Calmy
        Assistant professor at the Institute of Global Health of the University of Geneva.
        Member of working groups of the WHO on AIDS
        Member of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force.
        Member of Médecins Sans Frontières.
        Research on HIV in partnership with Médecins Sans Frontières, the Gates Foundation and the WHO.
      • Peter Piot (read more here).
    • Among the honorary holders of the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp are:
      • Erika Vlieghe, University of Antwerp (UIA).
      • Emmanuel André, KU Leuven; Rega Institute.
    • The University of Antwerp (UIA) received 331,350 dollars in grants from the Gates Foundation between 2015 and 2016, mainly for research on polio. The UIA hosts the Center for the Evaluation of Vaccination (CEV), headed by Pierre Van Damme, who is a partner of the Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP). The VCP is headed by Heidi Larson (read more here) and funded by the European Commission, GSK, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA, the European lobby of the pharmaceutical industry) and the MacArthur Foundation. Pierre Van Damme has published with Heidi Larson, insisting on maintaining the measures, also after vaccination, in order to defeat covid-19. The article cited declares the following funding:
      • The University of Antwerp receives funding from GSK, Merck, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, Osivax, Gates Foundation, PATH (see below), the Flemish and Belgian governments and the European Commission.
      • The Vaccine Confidence Project is funded by GSK, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Merck.
      • Heidi Larson has received funding from AstraZeneca and GSK for consulting on vaccines.

Pierre Van Damme also works for NOVOSANIS of VAX-ID, a method of administering injections into the dermis, just below the epidermis, and is part of OraSure Technologies Inc, which manufactures RNA test kits for Covid-19 and is the parent company that also includes DNAGENOTEK (DNA and gene technology), DIVERSIGEN (microbiome sequencing and analysis) and URSURE (diagnostic tests).

Cathy Berx, Governor of Antwerp, works as a lecturer at the University of Antwerp (UIA), where her husband, Johan MEEUSEN, teaches European law and private international law. She is also part, among other things, of the board of directors of the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp (see above). C. Berx was invited to the Bilderberg conference in 2018.

The commitment of these foundations, all linked to one another and to the Gates Foundation, to this European parliamentary forum risks creating conflicts of interest among the MEPs involved and exerting pressure on them in other areas by threatening to withdraw their financial support for the forum.

 

BAM! Investigation

[1] https://www.lesoir.be/307216/article/2020-06-15/coro...

[2] Röper, T. (2022): Inside Corona. 85pp.

Photo source:
AdobeStock ©Casimiro

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