Plus: "Partisanship turned out to be the strongest predictor of Americans’ knowledge, even surpassing education," and how local news organizations fought Covid-19 misinformation in their communities.
In the wake of the announcement by Bill and Melinda Gates’s divorce, rumours have been seeping out about Bill’s private life which do him no credit.
However, it’s not reports of infidelity which bother me – there, but for the grace of God go I it’s this item from a glowing description of his home in Medina, a suburb of Seattle overlooking Lake Washington.
“The lakefront shore contains sand that’s delivered in large quantities by a barge from St. Lucia each year.”
Sand from St Lucia? All the way from the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal? Each year?
POLICY
Our Call to Communicate the Truth
Science and public health have been under steady attack. It is up to medical
professionals to fight back. by Hemal Sampat
It is now possible to imagine a world recovered from COVID-19. In that future, how will medicine have changed? These 10 essays explore the technical, social and political ripples of the pandemic.
A high school acquaintance recently asked if I would speak to the staff of a small company about the COVID-19 vaccine. They had questions, and the only vetting I needed was that someone had vouched for me. I agreed, because this was a chance to provide correct information that they’d share with their friends and families. I believe this role of scientific evangelist will become more and more a part of our job descriptions in the years to come.
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How Bill Gates bankrolls the news agenda
Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage. During the pandemic, news outlets have widely looked to Bill Gates as a public health expert on covid even though Gates has no medical training and is not a public official.
PolitiFact and USA Today (run by the Poynter Institute and Gannett, respectively both of which have received funds from the Gates Foundation) have even used their fact-checking platforms to defend Gates from “false conspiracy theories” and “misinformation,” like the idea that the foundation has financial investments in companies developing covid vaccines and therapies. In fact, the foundation’s website and most recent tax forms clearly show investments in such companies, including Gilead and CureVac.