Larry Ellison a major contributor to Blair Institute vaccine database plan

Software magnate Larry Ellison is a leading contributor to the policy institute built by former UK prime minister Tony Blair. According to the Larry Ellison Foundation's IRS return filed late last year, Oracle's CTO and founder donated $33.83 million to the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) in 2021 and plans to contribute another $49 …

[Korev]

Ellison's cash is set to contribute to a joint partnership the pair established in 2020 which aims to offer African countries a database of vaccination records to help monitor and combat diseases. The Institute hopes to increase the scope of the system across Africa. It aims to create a digital database of patient records that will be free for at least 10 years.

I think the exact terms need to be clarified by any country's health system; otherwise they may get a very large bill in the 2030s.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Even a decade of increased childhood vaccination would deliver a lot of benefits.

Unicef identified around 13 million African children a year miss out on vaccination with about 8 million of those getting no vaccinations at all.

Across Africa and Asia vaccine preventable disease accounts for about a third of the deaths in the birth to 5 yr old cohort

[CowHorseFrog]

Africans dont need vaccines as much as they need birth control.

In 100 years with the way they are having kids there will be nothing left to live in.

Lagos already has tens of millions, what kind of hell will it be with 100 million in that city in 50 year time ?

Cairo is already a failed city today with nearly 20 million and doubling every other decade.

[graeme leggett]

Birth rate falls in developed countries. And reduced child mortality feeds into that.

See China, Japan, South Korea for extreme examples.

though high at about 5 Nigeria's TFR has been falling since the late 1970s when it was 7. Extrapolation to 50 years from now is unwise

Now go read the works of Hans Rosling

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes this

GapMinder - the video is very informative

[CowHorseFrog]

I did a google and the numbers they show for a few african cities including Lagos are complete;y the opposite of what you claim.

People have been parrotting your claims for years, the only problem is nobody has told the Africans ,they keep on having far too many kids and the filth keeps growing.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2013/06/13/World_Populations_WEB.pdf

Guardian claims Nigeria will have 977M by 2100.

> More than half of global population growth

predicted between now and 2050 is expected

in Africa. By 2100 the continent’s population

could rise from 1.1 billion to 4.2 billion

[hoola]

Surely the money would actually have more impact if it delivered the real healthcare, funding the medical staff, equipment, drugs and crucially training rather than expensive software.

[graeme leggett]

It's not an either or.

You need staff and vaccines but you also need to know which children need the vaccines and when they need them and then you can put the clinics into the right place at right time.

And even then there are more factors that play into uptake.

[iron]

Except it isn't an either / or, a similar database already exists free of charge and publicly available from the WHO.

This is duplicating those efforts at great cost to launder Larry's ill gotten license fee gains.

[graeme leggett]

i wasn't aware of the WHO database, what's its name?

[CowHorseFrog]

Dangerous claim thinking that Larry is doing to actually help people. Then again we dont actually know what he gave and where it is going and on what conditions.

[Pascal Monett]

"It was a disaster which was stopped early in 2011"

So you see, you can stop throwing good money after bad.

Apparently though, you cannot make a good plan for healthcare IT.

Or for ERP software.

Shame, that.

[Doctor Syntax]

And people were worried about Bill Gates and vaccines.

[OhForF']

So it was Larry and not Bill that added the 5g surveillence chips to the vaccine?

[DS999]

No he was worse, he added a chip able to run Java code!

[CowHorseFrog]

Bill Gates isnt helping Africa with his programs. The last thing they need is MORE kids to live. Sad and horrible to say but those kids but having 5 or 10 kids in each family where basically most survive to adult hood means in 100 years that one family will be hundreds in a 100 years. At those rates those countries and their env vironments will be destroyed and nobody there will have a home because the land will be raped beyojnd repair.

[s. pam]

the B.Liar effect...

Tony has too much history with luvvies and cash donations for my liking. Lining up with Red Larry will not help the country and almost certainly will leave the country with a whopping big bill!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: the B.Liar effect...

Bit like all the PFI hospitals from the Blair era.

[Chris Miller]

Re: the B.Liar effect...

It's astonishing that two egos that size can exist on the same planet, let alone in the same room.

[bregister]

I can't decide which one of the two is less likable.

Er?

[Aladdin Sane]

Fewer likeable.

[John Brown (no body)]

Thanks for reminding me, I need to order some more likeables as thanks to this article I now have too few in stock having just used up most of them.

[Steve Davies 3]

What's a few million in tax writeoffs for a billionaire

when Oracle will rake in gazillions in Oracle Software licensing.

Beware Software bosses bearing gifts. There are always strings attached.

[Andy 73]

Given that

Blair is reportedly a significant advisor to both the Labour party and some elements of the current government, his influence on current political choices should not be underestimated.

The Blair Institute is the nearest the UK has to an American style 'Policy Unit' - it employs more than 800 people worldwide, with offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Accra and it's own conference. These guys have impressively high salaries and impressive contact lists (like Ellison), so their advice carries a great deal of weight, despite being largely unknown by the public.

[anothercynic]

Re: Given that

As long as they are not doing something fundamentally stupid/nefarious like the Tufton Street gang are...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Given that

Where does all that Legatum money come from/go to, hmm?

[Andy 73]

Re: Given that

The guy that took us into an international war, initiated target culture that's destroying education and health systems, and launched crippling PFI deals?

I'm sure he wouldn't do anything stupid/nefarious...

[andy gibson]

Blair and vaccines

Blair has history when it comes to vaccine donors:

"A businessman who benefited from a lucrative contract with the government for vaccines - and was later ennobled by Tony Blair - has donated half a million pounds to Labour"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/aug/24/partyfunding.uk

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Blair and vaccines

The creatures outside looked from pig tory to man labour, and from man labour to pig tory, and from pig tory to man labour again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

[Howard Sway]

the bronzed tech leader

Ellison and Blair must like to get together now and then and share a pot of varnish, because Blair looks like the Cuprinol man these days.

[Claverhouse]

Re: the bronzed tech leader

I thought the accompanying photo of Larry with a red background on the home page made him look like a Marseilles hard man in Macron's brothel.

Maybe Macron will join their little fellowship.

I think the Clintons have a similar outfit ( whereby Hillary rented out her list of donor-contacts to the DNC, for was it the 2016 election ? Which seems a remarkably greedy gesture to the common cause. )

[Eponymous Bastard]

Prick

To paraphrase the comedy genius that is Harry Enfield . . .

Blair, Ellison - look like pricks, sounds like pricks - must be pricks.

Could have substituted that with the initialisms There We Are Now, or Can't Understand New Technology.

These pricks deny democracy with their own brand of tyranny. Ironically Edward Heath was disparaging about οι πoλλοι having much of a clue about anything too but he was pretty wet.

My father, who was a member of the Goldfish Club courtesy of a little incident in August 1942 over the Mediterranean, used to opine that we would go "the same way as the Romans".

He was wrong; at least the Romans had fun whilst enjoying unparalleled decadence.

[iron]

The WHO already has a database of vaccination records to help monitor and combat diseases across Africa, South America and Asia. It is available free of charge and without a requirement for an Oracle or MySQL license. I know because one of my open source projects is used to compile it.

I'd be impressed if Larry donated to improve that but no, he gives his money to a known liar and grifter to duplicate that effort.

[cantankerous swineherd]

this is identity cards by the backdoor.

[may_i]

Larry and Tony don't understand computer systems

and seemingly neither do those who they "advise".

Health data isn't just a database (in myriads of formats), it's also a workflow system, which may or may not influence what is in the database.

Attempting to unify more than a few such systems is an impossible task at the moment. Anyone who says otherwise is either stupid or lying.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Larry and Tony don't understand computer systems

"Attempting to unify more than a few such systems is an impossible task at the moment. Anyone who says otherwise is either stupid or lying."

Users are already being "educated" that the workflow is defined by "The System", not by them or their organisation. And "The System", being either cloud based or with enforced "updates" will change your workflow when the Tech Gods say so. That allows for world wide uniformity even if there are a few stubborn hold outs claiming they have their own local sovereign laws.

[CowHorseFrog]

If Oracle the company was basically paid to write the database, why did the US government give the rights to Larry ?