Polio Eradication Program Suspended In Pakistan After Aid Workers Shot

Hugh Pickens writes "Jamal Khan reports that the United Nations has suspended its polio vaccination drive in Pakistan after eight people involved in the effort were shot dead in the past few days. The killings dealt a grave blow to the drive to bring an end to the scourge of polio in Pakistan, one of only three countries where the crippling disease still survives. Militants accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim the vaccine makes children sterile. Taliban commanders in the troubled northwest tribal region have also said vaccinations can't go forward until the U.S. stops drone strikes in the country. Insurgent opposition to the campaign grew last year after it was revealed that a Pakistani doctor ran a fake polio vaccination program to help the CIA track down and kill Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in the town of Abbottabad in the country's northwest. The Pakistani government has condemned the attacks against aid workers, saying they deprive Pakistan's most vulnerable populations — specifically children — of basic life-saving health interventions. A total of 56 polio cases have been reported in Pakistan during 2012, down from 190 the previous year, according to the U.N. Most of the new cases in Pakistan are in the northwest, where the presence of militants makes it difficult to reach children. Clerics and tribal elders were recruited to support polio vaccinations in an attempt to open up areas previously inaccessible to health workers. 'This is undoubtedly a tragic setback,' says UNICEF spokeswoman Sarah Crowe, 'but the campaign to eradicate polio will and must continue.'"

Comments

Hillbilly regions and their conspiracy theories

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like every backward region I've ever been too has been awash in conspiracy theories, urban legends, and superstitious horseshit. Worked down in South America, where every illiterate countryside hick seems to think Americans are trying to steal their organs (resulting in shit like this). Worked in India, where half the hicks think that clean water is just a ruse to poison them. Even worked in a ghetto, where the rumor was that whitey was putting chemicals in menthol cigarettes to make black men sterile.

So it doesn't surprise me that backwater Pakistanis believe that Christians are out to give their kids drugs to make them hate Mohammad (or whatever other crazy crap runs through those heads), disguised as these things called "vaccines." Combine that with a CIA sleight-of-hand and a Taliban which is happy to use any excuse to show it's still relevant, and you get a lot of kids who are now going to die from a disease the rest of the world eradicated long ago.

Fuck, just look at this idiot as the perfect example of what happens when you mix base stupidity with just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

It's all well and good until said hillbillies start killing people or getting them killed.

Re:Hillbilly regions and their conspiracy theories

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get the danger. Most children in the west aren't vaccinated against Polio (makes no sense here and there's a small risk involved to the child), in Africa very few children are vaccinated at all in large areas. I don't know about South America or China, but I doubt the situation is much better. If even one of those tribal children gets out* with the disease, it will kill thousands and maim tens of thousands of children, maybe hundreds of thousands. This has happened before, and it is an absolute certainty it can happen again. This is what happens to ~30% of infected children take a look.

Those are the stakes. To be extremely frank, I'm ambivalent on whether it would be moral to nuke this disease out of existence. Nuking this disease would easily help more people than it would hurt, even if it does hurt millions.

The conspiracy theories of these tribes, killing and sterilizing anyone perceived as different, are simply what they would do themselves if they could. They probably perceive doing that as part of their religion. They may even be right about that, I don't know. Fortunately those aid workers don't share their religion.

* very sorry to put it that way

Re:More info

[Jeng]

Actually I will blame the CIA.

They went and took an urban legend and made it true.

Now when the Taliban says "We killed aid workers because they were spying on us." we can't say they are full of shit anymore.