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CLAIMS THAT BILL Gates funded a project to “make H5N1 Bird Flu transmissible to humans” are unsupported by evidence.
Instead, Gates funded a study to investigate how such diseases could cross species barriers, but the purpose of the study was to learn how to detect and counter such transmission, not to encourage it.
Screenshots have spread around Facebook showing the title of an article “Bill Gates Quietly Awarded $9.5 Million to University to Make H5N1 Bird Flu Transmissible to Humans.”
One such post, published on 12 February by Ivor Cummins, an Irish conspiracy theorist who has been fact-checked by The Journal previously, has been viewed more than 20,000 times, according to the Facebook content library.
Dozens of other posts on social media make similar claims, saying Bill Gates is planning on weaponizing bird flu against the general public.
However, the headline citing the “$9.5 Million” matches an 12 January article on DissWire.com, a site that says it is “committed to delivering accurate and truthful news” with “high editorial standards”.
However, a scan of headlines on the site shows numerous references to conspiracy theories popular in right-wing US circles, on topics such as the “deep state” or mRNA vaccines being dangerous.
The article itself cites its source of information as posts on the social media platform by The McCullough Foundation, a group led by Peter McCullough, a doctor who has regularly spread health misinformation, particularly about COVID-19 and the vaccines developed to counter it.
Oddly enough, the post on X that is cited in relation to the story appears to be months-old.
“The Gates Foundation gave $9.5 million to UW-Madison and principal investigator Yoshihiro Kawaoka to modify H5N1 viruses to preferentially recognize human-type receptors and transmit efficiently in mammals,” a 8 June post reads.
“The @gatesfoundation money was also used in a project [...] where they provided the two additional mutations that would be needed in Egyptian H5N1 viruses to create variants with the mammalian “transmissibility features” identified in the Kawaoka study.”
“This indicates that the @gatesfoundation funded bioterrorist-like activities involving H5N1, providing blueprints for other bad actors who may want to create a bioweapon.”
The post was published by the account of McCullough Foundation, which carries a “Gold checkmark” on X.com, indicating that it is verified as an official organisation.
The post included links, including to a 2009 press release by The University of Wisconsin–Madison announcing a $9.5 million grant from the Gates Foundation.
“The University of Wisconsin–Madison has received a five-year, $9.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to identify virus mutations that would serve as early warnings of potential pandemic influenza viruses,” the announcement begins.
It is unclear why the McCullough Foundation and Disswire.com have chosen to investigate a more-than-15-year-old grant. However, it is likely in response to bird flu that was detected in the United States last Summer, causing a spike in egg prices.
The McCullough Foundation post also linked to two studies on bird flu, both published in 2012, and both of which credit the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for funding.
The first study, titled “Experimental adaptation of an influenza H5 HA confers respiratory droplet transmission to a reassortant H5 HA/H1N1 virus in ferrets”, involved creating Turkey red blood cells that were infected with mutated viruses, including some that “possessed mutations known to increase binding to human-type receptors”.
These were then introduced to captive ferrets to see if they were transmitted between them, with mixed results.
While the study showed that some mutations to bird flu could make it more likely to spread between ferrets, indicating it may have pandemic potential, it notes “currently, we do not know whether the mutations that we identified in this study that allowed the [...] virus to be transmissible in ferrets would also support sustained human-to-human transmission.”
A long note of the study outlines the various “Biosafety and biosecurity” precautions taken during the experiment to ensure the virus would not escape into the wild.
The study was reviewed prior to publication by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity for “details that could enable replication of the experiments by those who would seek to do harm.”
The other study, “titled Egyptian H5N1 Influenza Viruses—Cause for Concern?”, is an analysis piece, which does not include any original experimentation, let alone efforts to make Bird Flu transmissible to humans. It does, however, refer to the study with virus-infected Turkey red blood cells.
So, how accurate is the claim that Bill Gates “Quietly Awarded $9.5 Million to University to Make H5N1 Bird Flu Transmissible to Humans”?
Gates did award $9.5 Million, but he didn’t do it quietly, it was publicly announced. Nor was it to “make H5N1 Bird Flu transmissible”, but rather to identify bird flu mutations that could cause pandemics in the future.
One study funded with money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did look at mutated viruses to see if they could potentially change to become more transmissible to mammals, though explicitly noted that it was unknown if these mutations could “support sustained human-to-human transmission.”
In brief, while the Gates Foundation explicitly funds scientific research into bird flu, there is no evidence for the claim that Bill Gates funded a project to “make H5N1 Bird Flu transmissible to humans”.
Gates, the one-time richest man in the world, has been the subject of many conspiracy theories, including claims that he wants to replace the cattle industry with edible bugs.
The Journal has previously debunked claims that Gates had called for armies to arrest and forcibly vaccinate people or that he was behind a controversial feed supplement that reduces the amount of methane cows produce.
Gates regularly makes appearances in sporadic conspiracy theories, often as a character planning to depopulate the earth. Evidence for these claims are never supplied.
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