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Population Council

The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, non-governmental organization based in New York City. It is an organization with strong roots in eugenics.

It runs its Center for Biomedical Research (CBR) out of Rockefeller University in New York.1)

History

Founding

The Population Council was established in 1952 by John D. Rockefeller III in order to channel his interest in global population growth, family planning, and the health of developing nations.2) Spurred by his experience as a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, which was beginning to work on population from the standpoint of food production, Rockefeller established the Council to address the more controversial fields of human fertility and contraceptive research.

In 1955, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave almost half a million dollars for general support to help the Council establish its footing. It continued to make substantial grants through the 1970s for activities including fellowship programs, family planning studies, and international conferences.

In its 1957 Annual Report, the council explains that “the Council is increasingly in a position to contribute to the understanding and so, perhaps, to the solution of problems of world population growth and change.”3) The Ford Foundation and the Markle Foundation both provided substantial grants, the former to be spent over the course of five years and the latter to benefit the Council's medical division. Following an earlier grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Council moved ahead with construction of an enlarged laboratory space at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

Modern activities

Affiliations

Funding

The Population Council has a history of funding from Bayer, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, KPMG, the Markle Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).5) 6)

Leadership

1)
The Center for Biomedical Research. (2022). Population Council. https://www.popcouncil.org/cbr
2)
The Population Council. (2022). Rockefeller Brothers Fund. https://archive.ph/Ujl0L
3)
Osborn, F. (1957). Annual Report 1957. The Population Council. https://web.archive.org/web/20220501133413/http://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb5974338p/_1.pdf
4)
Summary report of the measuring and monitoring quality of care meeting. (2015). The Population Council. https://web.archive.org/web/20200803175946/https://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/2015RH_MeasuringMonitoringQOC.pdf
5)
Population Council Hosts Second Annual Ideas with Impact Awards. (2015, October 13). Population Council. https://archive.ph/9FNqC
6)
Population Council, Inc. (2020, February). Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. https://archive.ph/byLak
7)
Horvath, A. (2015, January 20). Frederick Osborn: “birth control and abortion are turning out to be great eugenic advances.” Eugenics and Other Evils. https://archive.ph/09Uwu
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