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Subscribe to RSSSo far nine health workers have been murdered while walking door to door to deliver polio vaccines to children in need because some believe the immunizations are part of a U.S. plot. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
Updated 8:00 p.m. ET: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan may be one of the world's three remaining polio-stricken countries but Sartaj Khan has decided that the government-sponsored vaccination campaign is much more sinister than it appears.
"These vaccines are meant to destroy our nation," said Khan, a 42-year-old lawyer in the city of Peshawar. "The [polio] drops make men less manly, and make women more excited and less bashful. Our enemies want to wipe us out."
Khan is not alone in the belief, propagated by extremist groups, that is gaining currency in the Pashtun belt of northwestern Pakistan: The government’s anti-polio campaign is a ruse by the Americans to sterilize or spy on Muslims.
Many also believe that much like the Pakistani physician, Dr. Shakeel Afridi, who helped the CIA run a fake vaccination program to establish the presence of Osama bin Laden, the army of health workers employed to vaccinate the country’s children are also on the United States’ payroll.
The belief has turned deadly: Nine anti-polio workers have been killed by gunmen on motorcycles this week. Some of those killed were teenage girls. Following the violence, the United Nations pulled back all staff involved in the vaccination campaign and officials suspended it in some parts of the country.
Muhammed Muheisen / AP
Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.
There are ranks of parents whose awareness is low and suspicions high when it comes to the deadly virus: A November World Health Organization study found that 41 percent of those polled had never heard of polio — and 11 percent refused to vaccinate their children.
The reality is that polio can paralyze or kill within hours of infection. It is transmitted person-to-person, meaning that as long as one child is infected, the disease can be passed to others.
Photos: Vaccination workers gunned down in Pakistan
Nuclear-armed and militancy-struck Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only countries still struggling with polio. Extremists have opposed vaccination programs in Afghanistan and Nigeria, although they haven’t resorted to the sort of violence seen in Pakistan. According to the World Health Organization, there were 213 new cases of polio worldwide in 2012, including 56 in Pakistan.
Mohsin Raza / Reuters
A female polio worker gives polio vaccine drops to a child in Lahore, Pakistan, on Thursday.
Polio also disproportionately affects members of the Pashtun population in Pakistan, who largely live in the country's northwest and border region. They account for roughly 15 percent of the population, but 75 percent of all polio cases.
Shamim Bibi, a 25-year-old mother of two who has been working in Peshawar’s suburbs as an anti-polio campaign worker for the last nine years, said she had never before faced hostility in her line of work.
"For years, we were welcomed into homes by families," she said. "In 2012, attitudes changed. Now, they look at us with a sort of suspicion. Some people have even said it to my face: that I’m an American spy."
More Pakistan coverage from NBC News
Suspicion of the United States does indeed run deep. Unknown gunmen may have assassinated 14-year-old anti-polio worker Farzana Rehman in her hometown of Peshawar but her grieving father is placing the blame for her death further afield.
"My daughter was too young to leave this world," an obviously distraught Said Rehman told NBC News. "Polio didn’t take her. This American war did. So what’s the bigger danger, huh?"
The American war refers to the post-Sept. 11, 2001, violence that has swept Pakistan and Afghanistan, in particular U.S. drone strikes that enrage many. In parts of Pakistan, the war is also called the Kharji, or "white person's" war.
In Pakistan's largest city, 'Old Glory' is flammable and profitable
As experts cite the latest violence as a new form of "low tech, high concept" attacks by Pakistan’s militants, Rehman can only wonder if those trying to stop the disease are missing the point.
"Disease didn’t take my child. A bullet did," he said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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It's no different than when the polio vaccine was introduced to the US in the 1950s. People here, specifically those who gravitated to Joseph McCarthy, thought it was some Communist plot to sterilize red blooded Americans for Soviet takeover. That, along with fluoridation and those mental health programs created under the New Deal, were dubbed "The Unholy Three" of a Communistic world government.
All the muslim migrants who apply for Visa's in the US are slowly accepting the culture. Women and children over 16 are driving cars in the US. The men that run stores sell tobacco, alcohol, ham, pornography, sexual aids and birth control products. The young girls and older woman wear make-up and perfume and start showing their hair. The medical workers see decadent Americans and their children as permanent patients making more wealth than they can imagine. Cab drivers transport rude or drunk Americans to their destination. Islam in the middle east is slowly being diluted so no chemicals are needed. It is only a matter of time before the Chinese and India absorb the land there for their burgeoning population growth. You will like the Chinese style of Discipline.
I think they would like the North Korean style of Discipline Better. The "Dear Leader" would make them very welcome.
sounds like a good plan to me....then we could bring our troops home...
If they don't want to be immunized, don't force them. Eventually a polio epidemic will take care of them. There are people in this country who refuse to vaccinate their own children.
So much for trying to eradicate the disease from the Earth.
You know that is Not a Bad idea. Sterilize all the Men so they can't reproduce. They treat their Women like Crap anyway. I don't see why the Women can't run away to another country and make their way to europe. Then for sure the Men can't reproduce.
The first thing we do is, we kill all the
lawyerschildren.Did all of you miss the part in the story that says the US used a phony vaccination program in the past in order to install bin Laden in Afghanistan, or perhaps as a means to locate bin Laden in Pakistan. (It's difficult to figure out which due to the poor writing.) If they know we have used programs like this for negative purposes in the past, why wouldn't they be suspicious of a vaccination program today? While I think it is tragic that they are rejecting medications that could save their children from death, I don't know that I can say that makes them stupid. Not if we have used such programs to further our political aims in prior times.
Idiots. If we really wanted to sterilize the entire population of an area, we'd just put the drugs in the water supply.
wow middle Eastern ignorance never cease to amaze me. but sterilizing a Muslim fanatic may not be a bad idea.....not sure how to sterilize a bad Muslim and keep the good one. that is the hard part.
What incredible ignorance. Muslim extremists are simply some of the stupidest people in the world. Of course, they're followed closely by Mormonism..... Scientology...... extremist Christianity. How about that dumbassed cracker down South with his movie and burning Korans. Actually religion tends to bring out the ignorance in people. I don't think it creates it. Just highlights it. Perhaps glorifies it.
By the way, I'm not saying Mormons are stupid. I'm saying their religion and it's origin is. Incredibly stupid.
does any pharma company make liquid muscle relaxers? Send that over there too........
These people are too stupid for any rational discussion. Geez..... Come out of the freaking dark ages and join the rest of the world.
Nice to see msn include link to cia angle on this story.
So let them all get polio, those with that kind of weak mind, need a little reality.
And the first to be interviewed is a lawyer and what garbage flowed from this man's mouth. As a Rotarian, and Rotary has sponsored immunization drives, the goal is to protect and save these children from a life of being crippled. Sadly we cannot stop paranoid people, ignorant people, stupid people, etc. What I can say, is if or when, and I honestly hope it NEVERS happens, his child contracts polio do not come crying to the USA, Rotary, WHO, UNICEF, et al. Deal with it and accept the fact that most in that country have their heads up their a$$e$.
In fairness we have idiots like this over here also. Remember Bachman and the girl who came down with mental retardation after a vaccination? These are the ones that want to be our "leaders". This is just as scary as the pin head muslims.
Please let's not let any more of these crazy, ignorant people immigrate to our country. Shut the door and turn off the money on these idiots.
A good idea but the Statue of Liberty will say no :-(
Well if they could come up with a vaccine that would eradicate all religions I'm all for it. Religion is the bane of mankind.
Why do we spend time and money in these places? Leave them to their cruelty, ignorance, corruption, suspicion and hate. Russia pretty much bankrupted themselves screwing around there. Biden said it right in 2008 concerning terrorism, utter destruction for the entire society who would act against us. Let these be crippled and die of polio or other things, it is not up to the west to help them.
Looks like someone already went and sterilized a bunch of human brains in Pakistan.
Even the Pakistan government is trying to tell people that this isn't true. I know this is early, but I nominate Pakistan as most @!$%#ed up country for this century.
There are plenty of people that believe vaccines are evil, for one reason or another. Not just in third world countries, but also in the US. They should have just destroyed the vaccine supply, taking life is not justifiable.
What a stupid culture!
On the other hand I like the sterilization idea, less Muslims = less violence.
Why are our tax dollars being spent on people that hate us??? Does our government actually think these kids will grow up to be thankful to US tax payers for eradicating Polio? Let these asz-wipes take care of their own...
Can we just nuke them? Wouldn't it be quicker?
I
do not know why we American cannot seem to get our elected official from either
party to listen to us Citizens when we demand that they stop sending our hard
earned money that we need here in the U.S. to Pakistan and other hostile
nations. The morons in Pakistan overwhelmingly hate us and even the government
is working against us.
I
wonder how many of our soldiers have dies in Afghanistan because of money that
we sent to Pakistan or Afghanistan. I bet the number is much higher than our
officials want us to know.
We
need to raise our voices and demand that all foreign aide to Pakistan ends immediately
and they are declared a hostile nation, period. Bring our troops home from
Afghanistan and stop aiding them also.
It's not the people of Afghamistan & Pakistan, certainly not a majority, & not even their governments. It's the Taliban, which needs to be classified as a death cult. They're no different than the Thuggees of India who also claimed religious justification for their savagery. The Thugs worshipped Kali, the Taliban claim to worship Allah. Let them be suppressed as thoroughly as the Thugs were.
These people are nuts let them die of polio quit wasting our tax dollars on idiots that worship Mohamed the child molester it wont take long before polio and suicide bombers kill all the nasty idiots!!!!!