On Wednesday,February 7, conspiracy theorists had a field day when a report emerged: 'Centre shuts health mission gate on Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation'. At the heart of it was a Big Money, Big Pharma, Big Corruption plot: how the biggest philanthropic organisation in the world was "influencing" India's vaccination strategy, to the advantage of global pharma giants...
The 23 members of the country's highest advisory committee on immunisation-the National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI)-scratched their heads in bewilderment. And the Union ministry for health, with three of its seniormost bureaucrats co-chairing the NTAGI, kicked into overdrive: the vaccination strategy, after all, was one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship projects.
The very next day, on February 8, a press note was released: that the reports were "inaccurate and misleading"...
At www.indiatoday.in
