Polio cases jump in Pakistan as clerics declare vaccination an American plot | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited — I wonder what happens to these clerics if the people there ever learn the truth about these things. Of course they never will because these sects do not believe in knowledge or information. Many of these people end up in the UK.
The parents of 24,000 children in northern Pakistan refused to allow health workers to administer polio vaccinations last month, mostly due to rumours that the harmless vaccine was an American plot to sterilise innocent Muslim children.
The disinformation – spread by extremist clerics using mosque loudspeakers and illegal radio stations, and by word of mouth – has caused a sharp jump in polio cases in Pakistan and hit global efforts to eradicate the debilitating disease.
found by Tallwookie
So all injections don’t have an RFID chips in them?
Gee, if these guys think that the polio vaccine is some sort of nefarious US government plot, we can probably safely assume that they also avoid fluorinated water too.
Let’s hope they don’t figure out that the US was first to mass produce toilet paper.
Still not ruling out the fact that immunizations introduce a live virus into the system.
Also, the exploding cases of Autism have nothing to do with the mercury in the vaccines….
“When I was a kid we had to walk 15 miles to get vaccinated…”
3. “the exploding cases of Autism have nothing to do with the mercury in the vaccines”
God, who knew that people suffering from Autism were exploding?! That certainly sounds like a government cover-up to me!
The U.S. knew Pakistanis would refuse our vaccinations, leading to an outbreak of Polio there. How devilishly clever we are..
5. But the Pakistanis knew that we knew that they knew that they would refuse the vaccinations, which would make us look bad for not respecting their culture. How devilishly clever they are
Maybe we can send them blankets …like the ones they gave my ancestors.
That will fix them up!
“Newcomer vaccine causes sterility.”
I wonder where they got that idea?
I think I just saw a stargate rerun about this…
I’m glad everyone enjoyed this story as much as i did 🙂
“Enjoy?” Jeez, tallwookie, the irony’s thick enough to slice, fry up and feed to a cleric.
It is a plot…
A plot to kill off a desease that Hurts many..
There’s more than one way to solve a problem.
#2 ask yourself why they never use their left hand to eat.
“I wonder what happens to these clerics if the people there ever learn the truth about these things. ”
When they die they join the ranks of the 10000 virgins. Poetic justice.
Sadly, #3 — the advocacy for mercury and/or thimerosol in vaccines being linked to autism is flatly rejected by the simplest statistical analysis.
Because of the flap from “natural” Luddites, Denmark banned mercury, etc. from vaccines in 1992. However, their rate of increase in autism continues to match the ongoing rate of increase worldwide.
And to think that people have said that evolution is no longer operative in humans.
I feel a need to defend my Muslim friends.
This fear of vaccinations comes form ignorance, not any one religion.
In predominantly Hindu India, for instance, you get similar kinds of paranoia breaking-out every time they have a vaccine drive.
Heck, even in the predominantly Christian America, you have anti-vaccine fanatics.
I will concede that rural Islam has a special problem with clerics who spend years in school but get absolutely no science or liberal arts education.
But, as you guys here love to point out, ignorance of science isn’t unique to the religion of Islam!
PS: As for the Muslim bashing — if you’re so very advanced, how come you feel a need to make petty taunts?
So why ARE we forcing vaccines on them? I realize the concept of “herd protection”, but…fine, let them not vaccinate. Let them reproduce, and watch most of their children die before they turn 5. It’s fine. It’s their choice.
We need to learn how to only help when ASKED for help. That’s the biggeset problem we have in America. Don’t help those who don’t want it or need it. We don’t make friends. We aren’t welcome. We are resented. WE are then accused of not doing enough. It’s a dumb game.
Polio is ugly. But, it’s a choice. Personally, I’ll vaccinate my kids because I don’t want them to experience these kinds of illnesses. But, if someone doesn’t…out of fear, mistaken beliefs, or sheer stupidity…that’s fine. I’ll go to their child’s funeral. I’ll bring flowers.
We have AMERICAN children going without medical, dental, without FOOD and without proper education, and families torn apart from poverty and drug abuse. Maybe we could put some money towards helping our own? Our inne-rcity kids have a low mortality rate from GUN deaths, and the narco-crime/gang violence that is at epidemic proportions. Our rural kids are dealing with poverty and meth-labs. Seems to me that we owe it to our OWN before we push vaccinations on the rest of the world.
#17, Greg, Good post. I especially liked the dig at the very end.
#19, meetsy, I totally disagree that we need a perfect society before we may extend our benevolence to help others.
Just because we still have AIDs sufferers in America doesn’t mean we can’t help those in Africa. Or even if somewhere the water isn’t perfect we couldn’t drill a well for someone in an undeveloped country. While it would be nice that everyone has good medical care and all that goes along with it, in America, the fact remains we don’t and probably never will.
These vaccination programs are usually done through UNICEF or other international health organizations. They may be partially supported with American money but are not American led.
#19 We aren’t forcing the vacinnes on them. This was Pakistan trying to vacinate their own people, and those highly enlightened muslim clerics were saying that the vacine program was some kind of US plot.
I say let Darwin take his merry course. He will sort things out for Alah.
Don
Well, all sorts of people in the UN and other countries keep insisting that these countries need population control/birth control, and there is a history of forced or secret sterilizations in these programs, so it would make sense that some people get concerned wheh they hear of vaccines from overseas. There are cases where women who went in for vaccinations were also sterilized at the same time. Perhaps if other countries would show more respect for other cultures, and stop thinking that there are too many people of a different skin color, the other countries wouldn’t be so suspicious.
Mr. Fusion,
You never lived overseas..in a middle east country, did you? What I saw as a kid (in IRAN) is the ugly American at it’s best. Aside from regularly being spat upon (literally, and I was a 10 year old girl!!) and constant insults, the other thing that the American speaking locals would do was complain to anyone who would listen how “America doesn’t care, they just throw money at us and think that it solves everything.” Many of the speakers were educated in America…and would cite the issues WE HAD. The way we treat our own.
I had to agree…as I got older, I’d hear my peers talk about “good thing there isn’t poverty like that in this country”. People said “everyone has an equal opportunity”. I heard that “we have health care available to all.”
It’s all a load of hogwash. We have people in terrible poverty — little kids who go hungry every single night. We have such a rigid caste system that very few of our populace has any opportunity, muchless equal. We have masses of people unserved by the most basic health care, and that is getting much, much worse.
It’s not about having something ideal..it’s taking care of ours, before we go out and pretend that we’re so great. We aren’t. We’re hurting. Tell me….what did YOU DO to help someone in your community this week? (And, giving money to some huge corporate charity, or religious organization does NOT COUNT.)
Don’t give me the knee-jerk “oh we need to help the world”…tell that to an little inner-city kid who’s eating top ramen and potato chips as the main meal of the day. Chances are that kid has never seen a dentist, hasn’t had more than the first few baby shots, has never had a checkup after the one the day he was born, may never learn to read very well in his class of 45 students, will probably drop out by 9th grade, and maybe has a life expectancy of 25. Tell me….how are we helping that kid by sending money everywhere, but ignoring opening a clinic in his neigborhood and improving his school? No, see, it’s easier to ship $$ overseas..than actually DO SOMETHING for our suffering population.
23, GOOD shot..
we dont need to be perfect. but what we SAY we will do for other countries SHOULD be what is happening in the USA.
For some ODDBALL reasoning, it has become Buried into OUR BRAINS, that throwing money at something will help fix it..
It wont fix,
A child that has a problem and there is NO parent to talk to, because they BOTH work.
It wont fix the idea of ‘keep you kids busy, or they find Something to do, themselves’. And this DONT count TV, video games, or the internet..
It dont answer the question, Who is responsible for MY kid…and it AINT the vilage..
We have forgotten our children. we have forgotten how it was to BE a child. We have forgotten the energy they have for Knowledge, and experience, and exercise/movement/camping and halloween..
This is shocking news what is rong with this people, to prevent ur child not ot get vaccination.