WEF CEO Børge Brende Latest Jeffrey Epstein Casualty

Brende: "I had nothing to do with Epstein." Files reveal he met with Epstein several times and exchanged 120 messages with him, including Epstein's proposal for the WEF to replace the UN.

Børge Brende, a Norwegian politician, diplomat, and World Economic Forum (WEF) president and CEO from 2017 to 2026, is the latest casualty in the growing Epstein Files body count.

“After careful consideration, I have decided to step down as President and CEO of the World Economic Forum. My time here, spanning 8-1/2 years, has been profoundly rewarding,” Brende said in a statement, without mentioning Epstein.

Prior to the release of the Epstein Files, Brende claimed “I had nothing to do with Epstein” and further stated he didn’t know about Epstein’s 2008 criminal conviction. The following is an especially noteworthy e-mail that he received from Epstein in 2018.

Also conspicuous is the fact that the Norwegian politician became WEF CEO in the same year that CEPI became operational. As I have noted in previous posts and in our book, The Courage to Face COVID-19, CEPI was established under Norwegian law as a not-for-profit association with headquarters in Oslo and offices in London and Washington D.C.

In its Articles of Association, it describes itself as “an international multi-stakeholder initiative supported by governments, international organisations, industry, public and philanthropic funders, academia and civil society groups.”30 The association was formally launched in Davos, Switzerland in January 2017 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum—which also founded the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) in 2001—the Wellcome Trust, and the governments of Norway and India. Its primary mission is “to co-ordinate funding and stimulate R&D for vaccines against emerging infectious diseases.”31

At the heart of this funding co-ordination enterprise is soliciting enormous donations from governments—i.e., taxpayer money—and channeling the funds to pharmaceutical companies engaged in developing vaccines. In November 2016, CEPI published its “Preliminary Business Plan”—a prospectus that it sent out to donors and participants. Its executive summary set forth The Challenge and The Opportunity.

The Challenge

As the recent SARS, MERS, Ebola and Zika outbreaks demonstrate, new diseases can emerge quickly and unexpectedly. ... To ensure robust and effective private sector participation in future outbreaks, industry will require a reliable risk/reward sharing system, a prioritization system for EIDs, and a clear development pathway for emergency-use vaccines.

The Opportunity

CEPI ... will rationalize and accelerate research and development responses to new outbreaks by coordinating resources of industry, governments, philanthropic organizations and NGOs, prioritizing development goals, and facilitating the advanced development of vaccines for EIDs.

The “Preliminary Business Plan” is dedicated entirely to vaccine development. Not once does the sixty-page document refer to treating emerging diseases. Under the section Cost Coverage, the business plan states: “Vaccine developers who contribute with dedicated capacities should be reimbursed for their direct and indirect costs.” Under the section Shared benefits,” the business plan states.

It is anticipated that vaccines developed with CEPI support will not be profitable. In the event that a vaccine developed with CEPI support does develop economic value, agreements between CEPI and the reimbursed or that the economic value is shared through royalties or other risk sharing agreements.

In other words, vaccine manufacturers will be fully reimbursed for their costs, and they won’t make a profit until one of their vaccines developed with CEPI “does develop economic value,” at which point they will share the royalties with CEPI. The association’s not-for-profit status that any royalties it earned from economically valuable vaccines it supported would be tax free.

The Preliminary Business Plan’s last five pages presented CEPI’s membership roster—a who’s who of prominent persons in academia, government health agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and NGOs. All of them were given “The Opportunity” presented by the next infectious disease outbreak that was sure to come. With the arrival of SARS-CoV-2 three years later, the opportunity was upon them, and the time had come to seize it.