By Shivika Sinha
Ever since the news of Bill Gates’s divorce made headlines he had become the centre of attention and controversy. People were quick to judge the reason behind the divorce that turned out to be cheating allegations. This painted the co-founder of Microsoft in a very negative light ever since. However, just as one wave of controversy was ending another was building up which is much more grave and heinous.
Bill Gates had funded an NGO in India to go ahead and carry out unauthorized clinical trials of a vaccine on tribal children. This is a very pressing issue that is incredibly grave in nature. After this issue came to light the netizens stormed social media to express their disgust over this issue and even suggested arresting the billionaire. Reports revealed that a Bill and Melinda Gates foundation had funded a Seattle based NGO to carry out the trials for HPV vaccine on over 14,000 tribal girls in 2009 in Telangana’s Khammam.
Two different types of HPV vaccines were used in this project on the girls and were directly funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Additionally the reports also said that there was no information provided about the risks involved with the vaccine. The children of Khammam were involved without their or their parent’s informed consent.
Khammam is a very poor, small tribal village and the girls who were made to take the vaccine were all between the ages of 10-14 years old. Apparently, they were roped into this project without full knowledge being shared with their parents.
The matter gained traction in 2010 when a Delhi based NGO unearthed that these vaccine trials had gone horribly wrong. Over 100 girls experienced adverse reactions to the vaccine trial resulting in epileptic seizures, stomach aches, giddiness, severe menstrual cramps and extreme mood swings. No follow up or systematic monitoring of the girls were done post administration of the vaccines. Netizens took the internet by storm and demanded Bill Gates be arrested.