KANO, Nigeria — Accusations by Islamic preachers that vaccines are part of an American anti-Islamic plot are threatening efforts to combat a measles epidemic that has killed hundreds of Nigerian children, health workers say.
Government officials play down the anti-vaccine sentiment, but all the measles deaths have been in Nigeria’s north, where authorities had to suspend polio immunizations last year after hard-line clerics fanned similar fears of that vaccine.
Nigeria, whose 130 million people make it Africa’s most populous nation, has recorded 20,859 measles cases so far this year. At least 589 victims have died, most of them children younger than 5 and all in the north, the Nigerian Red Cross and the U.N. World Health Organization say.
Southern Nigeria, which is mainly Christian, had only 253 measles cases, and no deaths.
Chicago Sun-Times
It appears that the United States has no monopoly on anti-science zealots.
And I suppose you heard about the Israelis who kidnap Palestinian children to harvest their organs?
those people aren’t entirely off the mark.
Our supplying them with measles vacines may not be an anti-Islamic plot, but it is an anti-Islamist plot, to some degree.
The theory goes something like: if we help these people to see that we can keep them alive, save their children, they will not choose to religious war on us. The problem is, the people who have already declared that war see this for the threat that it is, and try to prevent it.
So let’s keep those vacines flowing.
Opposition to the vaccine has been strengthened by a 1996 controversy in Kano involving Pfizer, the US drug company. A group of Nigerians has taken the company to court on behalf of more than 30 people who either died or were disabled after allegedly taking an experimental meningitis drug. Pfizer has denied wrongdoing. The case was reopened by a US appeal court last year.
The Pfizer case is cited by a number of people of Kano as a reason to be suspicious of the polio vaccine – and outside influence. Adamu Kachalla, a textiles trader, says northern Nigeria needs to be wary of attempts by Western countries to impose their values on Muslim societies. “They are not doing it without materialistic reason,” he says.
link
KADUNA, Nigeria- A UNICEF campaign to vaccinate Nigeria’s youth against polio may have been a front for sterilizing the nation. Dr. Haruna Kaita, a pharmaceutical scientist and Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, took samples of the vaccine to labs in India for analysis.
Using WHO-recommended technologies like Gas Chromatography (GC) and Radio-Immuno assay, Dr. Kaita, upon analysis, found evidence of serious contamination. “Some of the things we discovered in the vaccines are harmful, toxic; some have direct effects on the human reproductive system,” he said in an interview with Kaduna’s Weekly Trust. “I and some other professional colleagues who are Indians who were in the Lab could not believe the discovery,” he said.
A Nigerian government doctor tried to persuade Dr. Kaita that the contaminants would have no bearing on human reproduction. “…I was surprised when one of the federal government doctors was telling me something contrary to what I have learned, studied, taught and is the common knowledge of all pharmaceutical scientists — that estrogen cannot induce an anti-fertility response in humans,” he said. “I found that argument very disturbing and ridiculous.”
link
that adds some perspective to a seemingly senseless tragedy.
What makes this more interesting is that last week a reported asked the State Dept. spokesperson (I believe Ereli) if it was true that the US was distributing measles vaccines as an anti-Islamic plot.
His response was something like “no, absolutely not, that’s ridiculous and absurd. no.”
I say it’s “interesting” because he almost never gives such a categoric no. Funny to hear a gov’t spokesperson actually speak clear, plain, English no matter what the topic or subject. I just wish they’d do it more often..
I will add here that there are anti-vaccination groups in America, particularly in Idaho. I myself am on the fence on this subject and am inclined, for various scientific reasons, to avoid vaccines whenever possible.
Pax
vaccinations are created equal.