AAP FACTCHECK – A video by Bill Gates promoting vaccines as a way to moderate global population growth by improving healthcare has not been “completely removed from the internet”, despite claims on social media.

This false claim has been widely shared on social media in recent years, notably in a Instagram post which says: “I FINALLY FOUND THE VIDEO OF BILL GATES ADMITTING IT”.

“This clip has been completely removed from the internet, even from the original TED Talk. Save it.”

The message includes an excerpt from a TedTalk from 2010 by Bill Gates where he discusses reducing carbon emissions.

The original TedTalk video shows Mr. Gates saying (four minutes and 36 seconds) that part of reaching net zero involves reducing global population growth, which he says is expected to drop from 6.8 billion to around nine billion people.

“Now, if we do a great job with new vaccines, health care and reproductive health services, we could reduce that number by maybe 10 or 15 percent,” Gates says, referring to the slowing population growth in the future, not reducing the current population.

But the Instagram video plays this section of the TedTalk, then cuts to a man claiming that Mr. Gates’ comments show that he would intend to kill people through vaccination.

“Well, common sense would tell you that if you have a man in front of you saying he’s going to reduce the world’s population by 10 or 15 percent through vaccines, what does that mean to you?” » says the man.

“That means someone is going to die because you gave them a vaccine. This doesn’t mean you’re going to save people.

Despite the claim in the post, Mr. Gates’ TedTalk is readily available on both the TedTalk website And YouTubewhere it has millions of views.

The Instagram clip is taken from a widely discredited 2022 anti-vaccination documentary called Died Suddenly.

The documentary includes several false claims previously debunked by Scientific comments, Associated Press, ABC, BBC, AFP, Political fact And FactCheck.org.

Since his speech in 2010, Mr. Gates has repeatedly made clear that he believes global population growth can be slowed by reducing death rates through vaccination campaigns.

Indeed, parents are likely to have fewer children if they know their children are likely to survive into adulthood, Gates says.

In a Forbes 2011 interview he explained that initially the Gates Foundation focused on promoting birth control in poorer countries to help reduce extreme poverty exacerbated by rapid population growth.

However, he later discovered that in many countries the birth rate tended to decline after a decline in the death rate.

Mr Gates said this led him to focus on funding vaccination campaigns, rather than contraception, to reduce death rates and improve living standards in developing countries.

He made similar comments in a YouTube video 2018and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is committed billions of dollars towards child vaccination programs in the poorest countries in the world.

In a 2022 interviewMr. Gates spoke about how his comments about population growth in the 2010 TedTalk were taken out of context and used in conspiracy theories that he had a nefarious global agenda.

He reiterated that his comments stem from what he acknowledges is the “counterintuitive” concept that very poor countries with high child mortality have the highest population growth rates, while healthier societies have lower population growth.

“And surprisingly, as we introduce vaccines or better nutrition – anything that can improve their health – parents choose to have fewer children,” Gates said.

In 2020, AAP Fact Check debunked a similar claim arising from Mr. Gates’ TedTalk in 2010, and it was also debunked by Poynter And FactCheck.org.

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