FACT CHECK: Instagram Post Makes False Claim About Gates Foundation, H5N1 Bird Flu

A post shared on Facebook claims the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation purportedly awarded $9.5 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to make the H5N1 bird flu transmissible to humans.

Verdict: False

The claim is false and originally stems from a June 17 article published on “Natural News,” a website that is known for promoting “disinformation.” A spokesperson for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation denied the claim’s validity in an email to Check Your Fact.

Fact Check:

Pharmaceutical company Moderna recently announced it’d received $176 million in federal funding to “develop mRNA vaccines against a potential bird flu pandemic,” according to Forbes. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provided the funding to “help pay for late-stage clinical trials that will start in 2025,” Bloomberg reported.

The Instagram video, which has received over 200 likes as of writing, claims the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation purportedly awarded $9.5 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to make the H5N1 bird flu transmissible to humans. The video features a June 17 headline that accuses the foundation of engaging in “bioterrorism.”

The claim is false, however. The headline originally stems from a June 17 article published on the website, “Natural News.” According to Wikipedia, the website, previously known as “NewsTarget,” is “a far-right, anti-vaccination conspiracy theory and fake news website known for promoting alternative medicine, pseudoscience, disinformation, and far-right extremism.” In addition, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published a report in June 2020 investigating the site for promoting “disinformation.”

Likewise, a 2009 press release from the University of Wisconsin-Madison indicates the institution received a $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.” Virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, the project lead, and his team were set to “look for mutations in viral proteins that allow avian influenza viruses to bind to human receptors or facilitate efficient replication in human cells” over the course of five years, according to the same release.

The release also noted that avian viruses “don’t generally infect human or other mammalian hosts. But every once in a while, a mutation occurs that allows avian viruses to adapt to human cells,” thus prompting a pandemic. (RELATED: Claim That Alvin Bragg Was Arrested Is Satire)

Furthermore, Check Your Fact found no credible news reports to support the claim made via the Instagram video. In fact, the opposite is true. On June 28, PolitiFact reported the claim was false. The claim also does not appear on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website.

A spokesperson for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation denied the claim’s validity in an email to Check Your Fact.

“This claim is false,” the spokesperson said.

Check Your Fact has also contacted the University of Wisconsin-Madison for comment and will update this piece accordingly if one is received.