On 8 January, a Los Angeles Times report suggested that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had holdings in many companies that fail tests of social responsibility and may contribute to some of the maladies the Foundation is trying to alleviate. It is, for example, a major investor in oil companies responsible for pollution in the Niger Delta region, and in 2005 it held nearly $1.5 billion worth of stock in drug companies criticized for restricting the flow of key medicines to poor people in developing nations.