260 Children Infected with Tuberculosis in Gates-Funded Study Injecting Children with Live Mycobacterium bovis Bacteria: 'New England Journal of Medicine'

Gates money also directly tied to 2013 tuberculosis gain-of-function experiments at U.S. university.

A Gates Foundation–funded tuberculosis (TB) vaccine trial has resulted in the infection of 260 previously healthy South African children with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, according to a bombshell study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on May 7, 2025.

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All participants were confirmed TB-negative at the start of the trial, yet 135 children in the vaccinated group and 125 in the placebo group became infected with tuberculosis during the 30-month follow-up.

“Overall, after day 71, an initial QFT test conversion was observed in 135 participants (15.5%) in the BCG-vaccine group and 125 participants (14.7%) in the placebo group (Table 1 and Figure 2C).” —New England Journal of Medicine, 2025

Importantly, the study only counted new TB infections that occurred after Day 71 post-vaccination. The researchers excluded any infections that occurred in the first 10 weeks of the trial—meaning any infections triggered early by the vaccine itself, or already incubating at the time of injection, were not reported. The total number of infections could be significantly higher than disclosed, but the early data was filtered out.

Despite being injected with live Mycobacterium bovis—a bacterium that causes TB in cattle and can infect humans—children in the vaccine group were not protected. In fact, they experienced a higher rate of infection than those who received a saline placebo.

"The hazard ratio for a sustained test conversion (BCG vaccine vs. placebo) was 1.04... for a vaccine efficacy point estimate of –3.8%." —NEJM, 2025

That means the vaccine not only failed to prevent TB but may have slightly increased the risk of infection—a fact underscored by the study’s own authors.

The vaccine used was the BCG Danish 1331 strain, manufactured by AJ Vaccines and originally derived from Mycobacterium bovis, a live tuberculosis-causing organism attenuated through serial passage. It is still capable of causing disease, especially in immunocompromised individuals.

“Because the BCG vaccine does not include antigens used in the QFT test, revaccination is not associated with QFT test conversion.”
—NEJM, 2025

The authors claim this rules out vaccine-induced test conversions, attributing the TB infections to real-world exposure to airborne Mycobacterium tuberculosis. But whether all post-vaccination conversions were truly unrelated to the live M. bovis strain remains open to further scrutiny. Could there have been more M. bovis infections before day 71, when they started counting? We’ll never know—those early weeks were excluded from the analysis.

To make matters worse, the vaccinated children experienced significantly more harm than the placebo group:

• 82.4% had any injection-site symptoms (vs. 41.6% in placebo)

• 72% developed swelling (vs. 27.3%)

• 2.2% developed open ulcers at the injection site (vs. 0%)

• One child required surgical removal of a 2.5 cm keloid

• Injection-site pain and redness were also significantly more frequent

The trial was sponsored and funded by the Gates Medical Research Institute, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gates Foundation.

“Supported by the Gates Medical Research Institute through grants from the Gates Foundation.”
—NEJM, 2025

The BCG strain used in the trial contains live tuberculosis-family bacteria—specifically, Mycobacterium bovis, which is fully capable of causing tuberculosis in humans, especially when injected. And it was deliberately administered to over 900 children in a region already overwhelmed by one of the highest TB burdens on Earth.

Gates-Funded Scientists Engineered TB to Grow Unchecked—Then Backed Human Trials Using Live TB Bacteria

In 2012, the Gates Foundation awarded a $1.6 million grant to a University of Texas tuberculosis research team led by molecular biologist Dr. Andrew Ellington. Just two years later, researchers from the same institution published a study describing a genetically engineered mutant of Mycobacterium tuberculosis—specifically, a version of the MtrA protein called MtrA^Y102C.

“We propose that the gain-of-function activity of MtrAY102C is in part due to its ability to function as a constitutively active protein in the absence of phosphorylation.”
—Satsangi et al., Tuberculosis, 2013

This mutated protein no longer needed its normal activation signal to turn on—it was always active. As the authors put it, “MtrAY102C could also function as a constitutively active protein,” and they concluded, “the gain-of-function activity of MtrAY102C is in part due to its ability to function as a constitutively active protein in the absence of phosphorylation.” In other words, the bacterium’s replication control system was overridden. And it wasn’t done by a foreign regime in a secret lab—it was funded by an American billionaire and conducted by U.S. scientists at a major university.

This isn’t just theoretical. The paper refers to this directly as:

“...gain-of-function MtrA that is also phosphorylation competent.”

In short, they genetically modified M. tuberculosis to bypass its natural regulatory control—a textbook case of gain-of-function. They gave the bacterium new capability: the ability to grow when it’s supposed to be off.

Then, a Decade Later, They Injected Children with Live Tuberculosis Bacteria—in a Country Already Overrun by TB

Fast forward to 2025, and Gates Foundation money is now backing clinical trials that inject children with live tuberculosis-family bacteria under the banner of “vaccine development.” The vaccine failed. The children were harmed. The infections rose.

And now the question hangs:

Why did Gates fund U.S. scientists to engineer one tuberculosis-causing species (M. tuberculosis) to grow uncontrollably—then back a human trial injecting another live tuberculosis-family bacterium (M. bovis), its close cousin, into South African children?

Bottom Line:

In total, this Gates-backed TB campaign:

• Failed to prevent infection

• Infected more children in the vaccinated group than in the placebo

• Caused serious adverse effects in nearly a third of vaccine recipients

• Excluded early post-vaccine infections from its final data

• Follows Gates-funded genetic gain-of-function work that made TB harder to regulate

And it’s still being promoted as “public health.”

This isn’t science advancing medicine—it’s a billionaire-funded biological experiment on vulnerable children, and the world’s most prestigious medical journal just published the damage.

Follow Jon Fleetwood: Instagram @realjonfleetwood / Twitter @JonMFleetwood

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