In my humble opinion, Bill Gates should stick to computers and get his big nose out of viruses and the economy.
And the Trump admin may have just given him that very “shove” when they ordered his coronavirus testing program to shut down.
The FDA ordered Seattle officials to stop their coronavirus testing program that has been promoted by billionaire software developer Bill Gates.
MORE NEWS: Report: Bill Gates Gives Timetable Of When The U.S. Should Reopen Its Economy [1]
The reason for the shutdown is because they’re concerned that the testing program has gone beyond its “original scope.”
A Federal Drug Administration spokesperson told The New York Times that the agency had thought the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (or SCAN) project was being conducted purely for surveillance reasons so that local officials could track the virus’s spread.
“The issue in the Seattle case appears to be that the test results are being used not only by researchers for surveillance of the virus in the community but that the results are also being returned to patients to inform them,” the Times reported Friday.
“The two kinds of testing — surveillance and diagnostic — fall under different F.D.A. standards. In a pure surveillance study, the researchers may keep the results just for themselves. But coronavirus testing has largely revolved around getting results returned to doctors who can share the results with patients.”
It’s kind of like former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. While everybody thought his job was only to root out Russian collusion, he wound up going beyond his scope by, as an example, targeting Michael Flynn over an innocuous “lie.”
The difference is that, unlike Mueller, who was apparently allowed to extend as beyond his scope as he wanted, Seattle officials are actually being held accountable.
“We had previously understood that SCAN was being conducted as a surveillance study,” an FDA spokesperson bluntly said to the Times.
So had Gates, it would appear.
In a personal blog post published this past Tuesday, he described the program as a surveillance one, not a diagnostic one.
“As a surveillance program, SCAN’s goal isn’t to test every person or serve as a replacement for medical care,” he wrote. “Instead, SCAN is testing a sample of people in the Seattle region, including those who are healthy as well as those who are feeling sick.”
The program which was launched two months ago has been funded by Bill Gates.
“SCAN is being funded by Gates Ventures as well as the private office of Bill Gates – not to mention, it’s also getting technical guidance from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This piece was written by Missy Crane on May 16, 2020. It originally appeared in WayneDupree.com [3] and is used by permission.