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| - Fact Check: Conspiracy theory says Bill Gates-backed polio vaccine disabled 47,000 kids
A viral message on Facebook claims that hundreds of doctors had sued Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates after a polio vaccine he had funded left over 47,000 children in India disabled, leading to his expulsion from the country. India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that neither was Gates sued nor was he expelled from India.
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India Today Fact Check
Neither was Bill Gates sued nor was he expelled from India. The allegations about the vaccine are incorrect.
A viral message on Facebook claims that hundreds of doctors had sued Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates after a polio vaccine he had funded left over 47,000 children in India disabled, leading to his expulsion from the country.
Several Facebook users have shared an image of Bill Gates administering polio vaccine to a child with the caption, “Never forget that hundreds of doctors sued Bill Gates for vaccinating over 47,000 children with the polio vaccine and that he instead created a deadly ‘Super Polio’, for this very reason he was expelled from India. In 2011 doctors in India reported that young children were becoming paralyzed in large numbers after receiving the oral polio vaccine, as a result thousands of children were disabled and disabled for life as a direct result of the Bill Gates vaccine.”
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that neither was Gates sued nor was he expelled from India. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) continues to work on several projects in the country. The allegations about the vaccine are not correct either.
The archived versions of the posts can be seen here and here. Multiple users have shared similar posts on Facebook.
Was Gates expelled from India?
It is true that BMGF has been funding research and child-immunisation programmes in several developing countries, including India. But the claim that he has been expelled from the country is not true.
In fact, on May 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with Gates through video conferencing on “the importance of global coordination on scientific innovation and R&D to combat the (Covid-19) pandemic”. PM Modi appreciated the work being done by BMGF not only in India, but also in other parts of the world, including coordinating the global response to Covid-19.
In 2017, the Indian government had published a press statement saying some news reports had suggested that all collaboration with BMGF had been stopped, but it was “inaccurate and misleading. BMGF continues to collaborate and support the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare”. The archived version of the statement can be seen here.
Allegations about the polio vaccine
The viral claim about a Gates-backed polio vaccine disabling 47,000 children in India seems to have stemmed from a report published in the “Indian Journal of Medical Ethics” in 2012.
According to the report, a huge increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) is “directly proportional to doses of oral polio received”. BMGF funds polio eradication programmes.
But while NPAFP cases () did increase in the mid-2000s, it doesn’t mean polio vaccine was necessarily the cause. As per a “BBC News” report published in 2013, polio is just one of many causes, with other viruses and bacteria also responsible for a sharp rise of acute flaccid paralysis cases in India.
However, it should also be noted that the World Health Organization has said oral polio vaccine (OPV) is an extremely safe and effective tool for immunising children against the disease. But at the same time, it said “On very rare occasions, OPV can lead to vaccine-associated paralytic polio or vaccine-derived poliovirus.”
Therefore, the viral claim saying Bill Gates was expelled from India because a polio vaccine funded by him disabled 47,000 children is not true.
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