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Steven Todd Kirsch (born 1956 in
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
) is an American
entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...
. He has started several companies and was one of two independent inventors of the optical mouse. Kirsch has been both a philanthropic supporter of medical research, and a promoter of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.


Education

Kirsch received a
Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...
and a
Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...
in
electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
and
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
in 1980.


Career

In 1980, Kirsch and Richard F. Lyon independently invented the first versions of the optical mouse. Kirsch has started several companies. In 1993, he founded the search engine Infoseek, which in 1999 was sold to the Walt Disney Co. He co-founded Frame Technology Corp., bought by Adobe in 1995. In 2002 he was CEO of Propel Software. In 2005 he founded Abaca, which made a spam filter. In September 2011, he started OneID to create a user-centric Internet-scale digital identity system using
public key cryptography Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic al ...
to replace usernames and passwords with a
digital identity A digital identity is data stored on Computer, computer systems relating to an individual, organization, application, or device. For individuals, it involves the collection of personal data that is essential for facilitating automated access to ...
compatible with the NSTIC goals. Sometime before March 2021, Kirsch started M10, which markets blockchains for banks, but the board asked him to step down in the summer of 2021 amid controversy generated by his statements on COVID treatments and vaccines.


COVID-19

In April 2020, Kirsch founded the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund (CETF) to fund research into
off-label Off-label use is the use of pharmaceutical drugs for an unapproved indication (medicine), indication or in an unapproved age group, dose (biochemistry), dosage, or route of administration. Both prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs (OTCs) ca ...
treatments for
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...
among drugs already having FDA approval for other diseases, donating $1 million himself and also fundraising from others. He recruited what '' MIT Technology Review'' called "a powerhouse board" of scientific advisors including Robert Siliciano and management by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. By October 2021 the fund had made grants totaling $4.5 million to various researchers. The fund found a "promising candidate" for further study in fluvoxamine, according to ''MIT Technology Review''. After funding a successful small trial which ended in November 2020, CETF provided further funding for a Phase 3 trial, which as of October 2021 was analyzing data. Kirsch, frustrated that CETF's scientific advisory board was not willing to promote use of the drug based on results of a small preliminary study, wrote a post on Medium titled ''The Fast, Easy, Safe, Simple, Low-Cost Solution to COVID That Works 100% of the Time That Nobody Wants to Talk About''. Medium removed his access to the site, citing misinformation concerns. Kirsch also refused to accept the outcome of a CETF-funded study on hydroxychloroquine, which had found the drug ineffective; he eventually warred with CETF's scientific advisory board over CETF's treatment of both drugs to the extent that in May 2021 all 12 members resigned.


Vaccine misinformation

In May 2021, Kirsch posted an article online claiming that COVID-19 vaccines affect fertility, while also underplaying the vaccines' ability to prevent illness and death, both statements criticized by fact checkers as being inaccurate and misleading. In September 2021, speaking at an FDA meeting and identifying himself as CETF's executive director, Kirsch claimed that the vaccines "kill twice as many as they save"; the FDA responded that Kirsch had misinterpreted data and that there was no evidence his statement was true.
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...
assessed the claim as false. In March 2023 Kirsch reported that he'd offered a woman sitting next to him on a first class Delta flight $100,000 to remove her mask for the entire flight. She refused. In October 2021, Kirsch founded the anti-vaccine group Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF), which created ads depicting deaths the group attributed to vaccines. Foundation advisors include Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, and Stephanie Seneff. Before this, in June 2021, Kirsch had appeared with Malone on the Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying podcast, which according to ''MIT Technical Review'' "introduced Kirsch to followers of the ' intellectual dark web and allowed him to access a "large and receptive audience to his claims about a fluvoxamine conspiracy".


Personal life

Kirsch and his wife, Michele, fund a charitable foundation, which by 2007 had given $75 million to different causes. Kirsch also was a noted contributor to Democratic Party related funds. In 2007, his personal fortune was estimated at $230 million; that same year he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and funded research into experimental treatments for it, eventually refocusing the family foundation on medical research. As of 1998 the couple lived in Los Altos and had two children.


References


External links

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Steve Kirsch
at Politifact {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirsch, Steve Living people American computer businesspeople 20th-century American inventors 21st-century American inventors American philanthropists American technology company founders MIT School of Engineering alumni Businesspeople from Los Angeles Year of birth missing (living people) COVID-19 misinformation American anti-vaccination activists