NIH (US): H3Africa (Human Herdity & Health), announced in June 2010, is organized and supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Wellcome Trust, a global charity based in London.

So a DNA collecting initiative in Africa, funded by NIH (Dr. Francis Collins) and Wellcome (Sir Jeremy Farrar). Money which buys you the holy grail of data - personalized DNA. (We’ll check back with Dr. Collins and Sir Jeremy soon - spoiler: both were frontline CCP-covid narrators.)

H3Africa website: There is currently a global effort to apply genomic science and associated technologies (big-tech algorithms - Kristian Andersen’s specialty) to further the understanding of health and disease in diverse populations.

Sure is. It’s this global effort to apply genomic science that worries me. There’s a truck-load of ethical issues that need to be worked through before we catapult into some genomic surveillance wet-dream of CCP-aligned scientists.

Nature: H3Africa researchers realized they needed to revise research regulations and procedures for gaining the public’s trust .. rather than just collecting blood and leaving — the approach disparagingly referred to as helicopter research.

Helicoptered off to the NIH/Wellcome Trust’s computers.

H3Africa website: (T)here exists an enormous opportunity to utilize such approaches to benefit African populations and to inform global health.

If you really want to benefit African populations and inform Global Health, then work to reduce entrenched corruption. That’s the upstream problem. Plain as the nose on your face.

But wait … that’d mean we couldn’t be corrupt (for the common good) ... so ... let’s ‘take the politics out’ and dig in while the DNA is there to be gobbled up! If we don't, someone else will …’

H3Africa website: H3Africa empowers African researchers (to be DNA helicopter pilots), .. establishes and nurtures effective collaborations (with NIH and Wellcome).. and generates unique data that could be used to improve both African and global health.

Could be. Could be used for a lot of things.

Nature: Last year, for example, the (Wellcome)Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, came under fire for licensing a gene chip based on African genome data to US biotechnology company Thermo Fisher, which was planning to manufacture the chip for a profit. (Thermo Fisher - another unscrupulous actor we’ll get around to later)

Springer: Gene chips are postage stamp-sized glass wafers that contain half a million or more tiny cells. Each cell holds DNA from a different gene. This array makes it possible to carry out a very large number of genetic tests on a single sample of genomic DNA at one time.

Nature: This infuriated both the African researchers who had collaborated with the British team and the Ugandan study participants, who had not consented to the deal.

The above only came to light after whistleblowers raised concerns.

Deepti Gurdasani: It’s great to see the silence around this being broken. Myself, and another whistleblower were dismissed after we raised concerns about this to senior management at @sangerinstitute and @JeremyFarrar at @wellcometrust. Eight more people were made redundant.