Francis Collins asks for a count of Gates Foundation money, May 2018

The 25 May 2018 email, the answer, and the records around it: Gates at NIH, Epstein’s draft of a Gates announcement, the BioNTech agreement, and the book manuscript Fauci passed to Morens.

Francis Collins was on his way to a plane. He typed an email on his phone to his deputy Lawrence Tabak, with a subject line that began “Need info on BMGF,” the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and ended “Urgent.”¹

For reasons I can’t currently explain, I need answers to the following: 1) are we giving any grants to BMGF (I assume no) 2) what are our current collaborative projects with BMGF? For each one, what is the rough NIH annual spend, and what is it from BMGF?

He set a deadline: a rough version by Saturday at 4 pm. He signed off “Getting on a plane in 10 minutes.” The director of the country’s biomedical research agency needed a count of what his own agency and the Gates Foundation were doing together, and he wanted it in a day.

What came back

Tabak put his team on it that evening and sent his draft findings to Fauci and the Fogarty Center directors for a check. His summary: BMGF has never been an applicant for NIH grants, and “BMGF has funded various components of NIH” through its Grand Challenges program. He listed eight Gates grants in four institutes, NIAID, the Fogarty Center, NHLBI and NICHD, going back to 2015.¹

Anthony Fauci answered that evening at 8:07 pm. BMGF “is co-funding with NIAID the Cabotegravir PrEP study. I do not know how much they are in for.” And a second line: Bob Seder of the Vaccine Research Center “heavily advises and consults for the BMGF; however, no $ is involved.”¹

In the same chain sits a one-page attachment titled “Select Recent Highlights: NIH-Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Cooperation.” It lists what the two organizations were running together:¹

• HVTN 702, the first HIV vaccine efficacy study in seven years, launched in South Africa in November 2016.
• Imbokodo (HVTN 705), a Phase 2b trial of an Ad26 mosaic HIV vaccine, launched November 2017.
• HPTN 084, a Phase III trial of long-acting cabotegravir, launched November 2017.
• The BMGF-funded “TB Drug Accelerator,” where NIAID scientists work with GSK and Merck.
• A single-dose HPV vaccine program, with the ESCUDDO trial in Costa Rica.

The “Cooperation” in that title is the point. NIH was running vaccine studies jointly with the largest private funder in global health, and its director asked for the list with a day’s notice.

How the relationship got there

Gates comes to NIH for a lecture and a roundtable. Collins’s office briefs the scientists: a conversation, not presentations, “lead discussants” for each topic, three minutes each. “Given Bill’s extensive knowledge in global health R&D and scientific savvy,” Collins writes, the format “should work well.” The Gates advance team walks the building while NIH staff finish a “minute-by-minute itinerary.”¹

The same year, Jeffrey Epstein is writing for Gates. On 29 August Epstein sends Larry Cohen, who runs Gates’s private office, a draft announcement in Gates’s own voice about the departure of Gates’s science adviser Boris Nikolic. It begins: “Boris has decided to leave the Foundation. He was tasked by me with the difficult job of finding unique opportunities.” The next evening Cohen writes back to Epstein and Nikolic: “Bill edited the email and it’s a better reflection of his voice.” On 6 September the announcement goes out over Gates’s name to the foundation’s leadership and bgC3 staff, in the version Gates edited.²

Epstein coaches the president of the International Peace Institute on how to invite Gates to its Geneva conference “Preparing for Pandemics.” His note on the draft: it “needs to start with the title and who else is going.” The September conference lists Gates Foundation president Chris Elias among its participants.³

Gates returns to NIH for a dinner event and a morning workshop, with Collins moderating a panel. The printed agenda: Gates arrives at 8:20 am “with a 3 car convoy,” NIH Police are “waiting at Center Drive and Old Georgetown to escort the 3 vehicles to Building 35,” Collins welcomes him at the door, an NIH photographer is asked to take pictures of the welcome, Gates speaks for ten minutes and sits with Collins at the front table. The workshop’s HIV breakout lists Emilio Emini, the Gates Foundation’s HIV director, as co-chair beside NIAID’s Carl Dieffenbach.¹

The email above.

The Gates Foundation buys $55,000,000 of BioNTech ordinary shares: 3,038,674 shares at $18.10. The agreement, filed as Exhibit 10.37 to BioNTech’s SEC registration, ties the money to an HIV and a TB project. Section 3(e) is titled “Pandemic Response”:⁴

If during the conduct of the HIV Project Statement of Work or TB Project Statement of Work there is a need for an emergency response to a pandemic of an infectious disease that has not already been partnered with a third party [redacted], the Foundation can request the Company to accept a grant-funded project in response to such pandemic, and the Company may elect to accept such funding at its sole discretion, which may include the development of a drug, vaccine or diagnostic.

That is four months before the first reported COVID-19 case.

Fauci’s own diary logs the calls. 1 April 2020: Gates “wants the BMGF to partner with me (NIAID) and BARDA in the advanced development and scaleup of vaccines, therapeutics.” 11 June 2020: “having these every 2 weeks.” 13 January 2021: “regular every 2 weeks call.”⁵

Gates emails Fauci a manuscript of his book How to Prevent the Next Pandemic and asks for his thoughts, “especially chapter 9, which is the plan I am proposing for the world.” Fauci replies on 8 January with his tracked edits to chapter 9 and a second document of comments from Morens. His description of where the second one came from:¹

I gave the manuscript in close confidence to a trusted colleague who destroyed it after reading it. His name is Dr. David Morens and he has read the entire book and have provided comments on every chapter.

The attachment is named BG_book_comments_from_David_Morens_01_06_2022. Morens was federally indicted on 16 April 2026 and pleaded guilty on 19 August 2026 to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States (map card). Sentencing is set for 12 November 2026.

What the documents show

On the record: Collins asked for a count on a one-day deadline; the answer listed joint trials and eight Gates grants into NIH institutes; Fauci said Gates co-funds a trial and he did not know the amount. Gates had the NIH director at the door, a three-car convoy with a police escort and a workshop built around his preferences. Epstein supplied the first draft of an announcement issued over Gates’s name. The foundation bought into BioNTech with a pandemic clause four months before the pandemic. Fauci and Gates spoke every two weeks. Fauci and Morens edited Gates’s book.

Why Collins needed the answer that day is the open question. He wrote that he could not explain it.

Records to request

1. The spreadsheet attached to Collins’s 25 May 2018 email (SR_25May2018_053723_24581657.xlsx) and the final package sent to him on 26 May 2018.
2. Every NIH and Foundation for the NIH record of Gates Foundation funds and joint projects, 2013 to 2022, including the Grand Challenges grants.
3. The two attachments Fauci sent Gates on 8 January 2022: his tracked edits to chapter 9 and Morens’s comments dated 6 January 2022.
4. Collins’s calendar and the visit files for 2 December 2013 and 18 April 2016.
5. The Gates Foundation’s external review of its Epstein contacts, launched in March 2026, and everything it holds on the 2013 Nikolic announcement.

Sources

1. Senate HSGAC, Chairman Rand Paul’s release “Gates Q Clearance,” 31 July 2026 (paul.senate.gov/readingroom). Collins email “Need info on BMGF — Urgent” and replies, pp. 277-330 of the PDF; “Select Recent Highlights,” p. 328; 2013 visit emails, pp. 514-524; 2016 visit agenda and workshop program, pp. 472-483; Gates and Fauci book emails, pp. 871-874.
2. DOJ Epstein release: EFTA01962961 (Epstein draft, 29 Aug 2013), EFTA01959124 (Cohen, “Bill edited the email,” 30 Aug 2013), EFTA00717772 (Gates announcement, 6 Sept 2013).
3. DOJ Epstein release: EFTA00854590 and the IPI chain of 11 June 2015; participants list EFTA01182120. Compiled in ELIAS_IPI_GATES_EPSTEIN_2015_DOSSIER_20261004.md.
4. BioNTech SE, Exhibit 10.37, Foundation Investment Agreement, Section 3(e).
5. Fauci’s diary: 1 Apr 2020, 11 Jun 2020, 13 Jan 2021.