Columbia U.’s Public Health School “Corona-Gates" Scandal: Pt. 1

“…What is this medical Columbia all about? It is a medical teaching, research, and service complex concentrated in the Washington Heights-Harlem-Upper West Side area in Manhattan…It is one of the richest medical centers in the world…The medical center has vast real estate holdings in the Washington Heights area…When the School of Public Health’s reputation began to skid in the early 1960's, it was commented that much of the faculty was doing consulting work or was active somewhere else in the nation or world…and was not spending the time doing…service…in the immediate environs…”
--from a 1970 report of the Health Policy Advisory Center, titled The American Health Empire: Power, Profits and Politics

“Columbia University's Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health has been awarded $50 million from Bill and Melinda Gates…”
--from a May 19, 1999 Columbia University Record website article, headlined “GATES FOUNDATION GIVES $50 MILLION TO PUBLIC HEALTH “

One reason over 33,000 New York City residents, many with underlying health conditions or in nursing homes, are estimated to have died from COVID-19 since 2020 is that New York City’s public health system in the 21st-century was apparently unprepared to either prevent the virus from spreading rapidly or to provide effective medical care and treatment medication for many New Yorkers who contracted the virus.

Yet according to a Sept. 4, 1998 Columbia University Record article, titled “Mailman Foundation Gives $33 Million to Public Health,” then-Columbia University President George Rupp “said that this landmark gift will help the School of Public Health continue to play a leadership role in influencing and defining health care well into the next century;” and the then-Columbia University president was also quoted as claiming that “`Over the years, the School has made many important contributions to our nation's health and is widely considered one of the country's leading schools of public health.’”

In addition, the same 1998 Columbia University Record article quoted Columbia’s then-vice president for the health sciences and dean of the faculty of medicine, Herbert Pardes, as also claiming that “`the School of Public Health is taking the lead in the development of a Medical Center-wide program of research on quality of care, use of technological innovation, cost effectiveness studies and many other important health services research questions of concern to the health and well-being of the American people.’”

But if tax-exempt Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health was purportedly developing since 1998, at its 722 West 168th Street location on Manhattan's Upper West Side, “a Medical Center-wide program of research on quality of care” and “many other important health services research questions of concern to the health and well-being of the American people,” why did it apparently fail to prepare New York City’s public health system in the 21st-century to more adequately prevent COVID-19 from spreading so rapidly to local nursing homes and elsewhere in New York City in 2020? And why did Columbia’s School of Public Health apparently fail to create and provide more effective treatment medication for the thousands of New Yorkers with underlying health conditions, who are estimated to have died after becoming infected during the last 18 months? (end of part 1)