

The media loves the Gates Foundation. These experts are more skeptical - smanuel
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8760199/gates-foundation-criticism

======
lucb1e
TL;DR: the foundation is apparently fairly closed. The reason for skepticism
is that they spend a lot of money without a public decision making process.
They spend more money than many countries on healthcare and if they decide to
pull the plug on certain projects, those projects are going to have a very
tough time.

I personally don't really see a need to worry or be skeptical. They've been
doing this for over a decade and so far it's going great. I'd be grateful
rather than skeptical about them spending so much money on projects that
otherwise could not exist the way they do.

~~~
minthd
Yep. And to some extent the democratic process is the thing that make it hard
for public organizations to execute well. So there are some advantages to not
playing that game - so long as your intentions are good.

But why does the gates's foundation has any say in intellectual-property for
health care ? those countries should decide that by themselves.

------
nabla9
They have certainly made mistakes in the past (health clinics move people 50
miles to receive treatment for AIDS and send them back to die for diarrhea
because their focus is too narrow).

The question I'm interested in is if they have improved and learned.

The problem is that there is not enough information for outsiders to analyze
them and scrutinize the result. Gates may spend his money inefficiently
because he can't get the data he needs. They should use open data and be open
to criticism to improve.

------
ikeboy
The irony of this being published in the media is, as usual, lost on the
writer.

~~~
smanuel
Well, the writer acknowledges what the foundation has done and how much it's
helping with certain diseases and problems, but still the concerns it's trying
to raise seem valid IMO.

~~~
ikeboy
I'm not saying the criticism is invalid; I'm saying that when you're part of
the media, saying "the media refuses to deal with this issue" is wrong.

(And I'm sure I could find a bunch of articles from other mainstream media
outlets saying the same.)

