Written by Samuel Bennett.

When COVID-19 swept the globe in 2020, a cheap, decades-old drug called hydroxychloroquine—HCQ for short—got caught in a storm of controversy, and Bill Gates’ money played a starring role in sinking its reputation. What started as a potential lifeline for millions morphed into a cautionary tale of influence, rigged studies, and silenced doctors—all under the shadow of a billionaire’s agenda.

HCQ’s Fall from Grace

Hydroxychloroquine has been a go-to malaria treatment since the 1950s, with roughly 6 million prescriptions written yearly in the U.S. alone—safe, affordable, and trusted when dosed right. Early in the pandemic, some doctors saw it as a game-changer for COVID-19, pointing to a pile of studies—420 at last count—showing it cut risks of death, hospital stays, and worsening symptoms, with no uptick in heart issues or mortality. That’s per a detailed tracker online, not some backroom guess. Yet, by mid-2020, HCQ was branded a dangerous dud, and Gates’ fingerprints were all over that shift.

The trouble kicked off with a bombshell study in The Lancet, a top-tier medical journal, claiming HCQ jacked up death rates by 35% in COVID patients. It was a gut punch—doctors prescribing it got hammered, and regulators scrambled. Then the rug got pulled: the data was fake, cooked up by a shady outfit called Surgisphere. The Lancet yanked the paper in June 2020, with editor Scott Horton calling it a “monumental fraud.” Embarrassing, sure, but the damage stuck—search “HCQ COVID” today, and you’ll still drown in headlines screaming it’s useless or worse.

Here’s where it gets messy. Gates, the biggest single funder of the World Health Organization—outranking even the U.S. when you tally his GAVI contributions—poured cash into WHO’s Solidarity Trials, a global push to test HCQ. He’d already trashed the drug as “outrageous” for COVID, so no surprise the trials were built to bury it. Five of the 25 board members steering Solidarity hailed from Gates’ foundation—not a subtle tilt. The kicker? They dosed patients with 9,600 mg of HCQ over 10 days, quadruple the safe max of 2,000 mg over four days. Predictably, heart arrhythmias and deaths spiked. It wasn’t science—it was sabotage.

The Trials That Weren’t Meant to Heal

Let’s break this down. HCQ’s standard use—say, for malaria or lupus—tops out at 400 mg daily, maybe 800 mg to start, then tapers. The Solidarity Trials slammed patients with 2,400 mg on day one alone, then kept piling it on. WHO knew the risks—back in 1979, their own consultant pegged 1,500–2,000 mg in one go as potentially lethal. Vera Sharav, a Holocaust survivor who’s spent decades exposing shady medical experiments, called it out on June 20, 2020, via her nonprofit: these doses were “designed to kill” the sickest COVID patients in ICUs.

Dr. Meryl Nass, a physician who dug into this, blew the whistle first. On June 14, 2020, she flagged Solidarity—3,500 patients across 400 hospitals in 35 countries—and a twin trial, Recovery, run in the UK with Gates and Wellcome Trust backing. Recovery dosed 1,542 patients; 396 died, a 25.7% death rate. Nass’s exposé hit hard—by June 17, WHO paused Solidarity’s HCQ arm, though only after The Lancet fiasco forced their hand. The trials weren’t testing HCQ’s promise; they were torching it with overdoses no sane doctor would touch.

Compare that to Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a New York doc who swore by HCQ. His protocol—1,800 mg over six days, paired with zinc and azithromycin—kept doses sane and showed solid results. A 2021 study on his method, posted on the NIH’s site, found it “safe and effective” for COVID, slashing mortality risks. Yet, Zelenko got smeared—his 2022 New York Times obit called his work “unfounded,” even as 76% of HCQ studies echoed his success. Meanwhile, Solidarity’s overdose data still clouds the picture, courtesy of Gates’ wallet.

Gates’ Bigger Play in the COVID Game

This wasn’t Gates’ only swing at shaping the pandemic. His $250,000 grant to Berlin’s Charité hospital in March 2020 juiced the Drosten PCR test—prone to 90% false positives, per the New York Times—into the gold standard for COVID detection that first year. Never mind that PCR wasn’t built to spot active infections; it got the job because Gates paid up. Then there’s Neil Ferguson’s “Report 9” from Imperial College—$8 million from Gates’ coffers—predicting millions dead without lockdowns. A top European scientist trashed it as “one of the most wrong” papers ever, but it locked the world down anyway.

Gates didn’t stop there. He bankrolled a 2019 pandemic simulation—Event 201—that eerily mimicked COVID months before it hit, and later funded Imperial College again for a study claiming vaccines saved 20 million lives. Critics like Denis Rancourt, a University of Ottawa professor, call that figure bunk, but it’s gospel in headlines. At WHO, Gates’ cash—over $4.8 billion via GAVI and his foundation since 2010—buys clout. A 2017 Politico piece nailed it: his priorities steer the ship, especially as U.S. and UK funding wavers.

Why sink HCQ? One angle stands out. The FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization for vaccines—rushed out in record time—can’t happen if a safe, effective alternative exists. HCQ fit that bill, with decades of use and dirt-cheap costs—pennies per pill versus vaccines’ billions in profits. FDA rules are clear: no alternative, no EUA. Overdose trials made sure HCQ looked toxic, clearing the runway for shots that normally take a decade to greenlight. Patients died to prove a point, and Gates’ influence greased the wheels.

Our Take

Gates’ role in kneecapping hydroxychloroquine via rigged trials is a stark lesson in power trumping evidence. The data’s there—hundreds of studies back HCQ’s edge against COVID when used right, yet it’s still a pariah because a billionaire’s checkbook said so. Solidarity and Recovery weren’t missteps; they were engineered to fail, dosing patients into danger zones to kill a threat to the vaccine rollout. The Lancet’s fraud was a sideshow—Gates’ WHO muscle was the main act, and it worked. Doctors like Nass and Zelenko paid the price, losing licenses while the real culprits cashed out.

Here’s the rub: this isn’t just about HCQ. It’s about who calls the shots when science meets money. Gates’ sway—over WHO, PCR tests, lockdown models—shows a pattern of bending reality to fit a narrative. Sure, vaccines moved fast, and some lives got saved, but torching a viable option with overdoses smells like a calculated play, not a public health win. Accountability? Don’t hold your breath—time’s the only judge here, and it’s got a long memory.