Monday, March 30, 2009 | Reason : Religion as Child Abuse | print version

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Taliban blocks UN polio treatment in Pakistan

by Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad and Ashfaq Yusufzai in Mingora

Reposted from.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5057026/Taliban-blocks-UN-polio-treatment-in-Pakistan.html

Miliants in northern Pakistan have triggered a medical emergency by refusing to allow health officials to conduct a polio vaccination campaign.

Taliban militants in the former tourist destination of Swat Valley have obstructed officials from vaccinating over 300,000 children.

Militants have seized control of most of Swat and its capital, Mingora, and have extended their rule since striking a peace deal with the government and army earlier this year.

“There is a real emergency there. It is urgent to go in and vaccinate children,” said Dr Nima Abid, the Polio Team leader from the World Health Organisation in Pakistan.

Extremist clerics have used mosque loudspeakers and illegal radio stations to spread the idea that the vaccinations cause infertility and are part of a US-sponsored anti-Muslim plot.

Dr Abid said that militants have not allowed polio vaccinations to take place at a critical time.

“Polio vaccination is effective in first three months of the year when virus transmission is lowest and so there is no interference with the vaccine virus,” said Dr Abid.

Militants had reportedly agreed to allow the vaccination program to take place as part of the peace agreements.

However, the militants had reneged on their word and despite assiduous efforts made by the increasingly irrelevant local administration, no vaccinations have taken place.

“It’s a US tool to cut the population of the Muslims. It is against Islam that you take a medicine before the disease”, said, Muslim Khan, Swat’s Taliban spokesman, speaking by telephone.

Yesterday government officials convened another meeting in Swat an attempt to break the impasse, according to Dr Abdul Jabbar, the WHO’s polio team leader in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Swat had recorded 4 cases of polio last year of the total 53 recorded by NWFP and the tribal areas. Pakistan had 118 cases in 2009.

The WHO recorded 39 cases of polio in Pakistan in 2006, up from 28 in 2005. The disease is concentrated in NWFP where 60% of the refusals were attributed to “religious reasons”.

Militants in the tribal areas of Bajaur and Mohmand have also opposed polio vaccinations.

Dr Abdul Ghani was killed by a roadside bomb in Bajaur in 2007 as Islamist militants tried to halt a polio immunisation campaign.

Posted: Monday, March 30, 2009 | Permalink

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1. Comment #357744 by Neuro on March 30, 2009 at 11:22 am

Not a great article choice.

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2. Comment #357748 by liberalartist on March 30, 2009 at 11:26 am

and it's the children who suffer. Once again religion kills.

It is against Islam that you take a medicine before the disease

Is that really in the Koran? I think they make this up as they go along.

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3. Comment #357749 by 82abhilash on March 30, 2009 at 11:28 am

So people in the tribal areas will not vaccinate their children against polio? Are these not the radicalized tribals that that are killing American as well as Pakistani soldiers? Have they not already given violent deaths to moderates amongst them? And now they do not want to give polio vaccination to their own children. How will these children fight the 'imperialists'? On crutches?

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4. Comment #357752 by Mango on March 30, 2009 at 11:31 am

Thank you, Neuro in comment 1, for your pointless and hyper-critical posting.

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5. Comment #357755 by Swordmaiden on March 30, 2009 at 11:33 am

I guess they're leaving it all to survival of the fittest? Let Natural Selection sort it out. Living in the Dark Ages.

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6. Comment #357757 by rod-the-farmer on March 30, 2009 at 11:35 am

Now if we could only develop a "disease" that causes rationalism in adults. Spray it in affected areas.

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7. Comment #357758 by mlgatheist on March 30, 2009 at 11:38 am

Liberalartist,

I agree with your statement "I think they make this up as they go along."

The children have always suffered from their parents' religious beliefs. Especially the children of fundamentalist theists; unfortunately not all realize the damage that has been done to them.

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8. Comment #357760 by Sciros on March 30, 2009 at 11:38 am

Swordmaiden, I'd say natural selection goes on regardless... it just doesn't favor those who aren't vaccinated for polio. Vaccinations make us "more fit," you could say, if the diseases we're vaccinated against would be selection mechanisms.

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9. Comment #357763 by Bonzai on March 30, 2009 at 11:43 am

It is tempting to say that natural selection works in mysterious ways, but it wouldn't be 'natural selection' when ignorant and thuggish adults jeopardize the chance of survival of children who are perfectly capable of being educated,--thus becoming 'fit',-- if given the chance.

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10. Comment #357764 by Sciros on March 30, 2009 at 11:46 am

Bonzai, male hippos sometimes kill juveniles for no discernible reason. Is that 'unnatural'? ...Well, what I'm really asking is, when does "natural selection" turn into "selection that isn't natural," and why? Does the paradigm change completely?

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11. Comment #357767 by Bonzai on March 30, 2009 at 11:53 am

I can't see how supersition of the parents has anything to do with the 'fitness' of the children. Beliefs are not genetic.

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12. Comment #357770 by God fearing Atheist on March 30, 2009 at 11:57 am

#357763 by Bonzai
It is tempting to say that natural selectiob works in mysterious ways, ...

Yep.

Khan looks after his people so well!

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13. Comment #357773 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on March 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Bonzai @ 11> genetics, no... memetically perhaps? The fitness of the children, if dependent on vaccination, is dependent on the beliefs of the parents (who, let's be honest, are likely to indoctrinate the children as well).

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14. Comment #357775 by ThromTheBlack on March 30, 2009 at 12:02 pm

This should be evidence to any sane person that any group that puts their religious values ahead of proven medical treatment of their children is far from capable of leading.

They have gone back on their word now, so how are we to know that they will not do it in future.

As much as I believe in the success of dialogue, with groups such as this, surely the cost of a strategic military assault and wiping them out would be less than the number of people who will die under this regime...

thoughts£

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15. Comment #357776 by Bonzai on March 30, 2009 at 12:04 pm

IST

But 'indocrination' is not a natural state. You can choose to educate someone or let him ramain in ignorance. Natural selection doesn't come into that.

It would be like saying uneducated people are uneducatable, it may seem like a small point but it has been used to justify many regressive social policies with a social Darwinist flavour.

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16. Comment #357779 by Sciros on March 30, 2009 at 12:08 pm

Bonzai, I'd say it's as natural a state as any other. I don't agree with arbitrarily drawing a line somewhere in terms of "human intervention" and saying "ok, past this line stuff is no longer 'natural.'"

The "selection" model that applies to humans is probably far more complex than one that applies to hippos, but I don't think calling it something different is therefore necessary.

Beehives are natural. Skyscrapers are also natural. They're just more complex.

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17. Comment #357781 by UncleNasty on March 30, 2009 at 12:10 pm

Just think of it as evolution in action :-\

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18. Comment #357782 by jeggers on March 30, 2009 at 12:12 pm

http://www.slate.com/id/2213246/

hitchens on the swat valley. just thought id share for thise who havent read.

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19. Comment #357783 by jshuey on March 30, 2009 at 12:12 pm

It isn't just radical Muslims - when vaccination first began in the U.S. many conservative Christian churches opposed the practice citing it as an attempt to thwart "God's will".

Even if no one ever flew an airplane into a building, or imprisoned, tortured, or murdered someone else for their religion or lack thereof, and even if their had never been a single war motivated by religion, religion would still be dangerous to the human spirit as well as to the human body.

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20. Comment #357785 by glenister_m on March 30, 2009 at 12:13 pm

I'm curious how Jenny McCarthy would react to this article. Oh sorry, my mistake, she is no longer against vaccinations and is for "safe" vaccinations.

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21. Comment #357786 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on March 30, 2009 at 12:13 pm

Bonzai> behaviour isn't natural or a product of genetics? I don't think you intend to say that, but I also doubt you'd answer yes to that question. Humans are by nature social creatures, and our actions are still subject to selection in one form or another.

I am in no way implying that uneducated people are uneducatable, and that's an awfully broad brush you're using. I am stating that selection will act on a genetic level; If someone is easily duped into extremist religion, so far as to make decisions that will affect their health, that can be selected against. There are certainly compounding influences here (kin selection, etc), but asserting that indoctrination is not a natural state is like stating the religion is not a naturally occuring phenomenon. I don't claim for a second that it makes any of it correct, but the sheer commonality of religion implies that there is something in our mental/genetic wiring that lends itself to belief and indoctrination.

EDIT: changed encoding, first sentence for clarity.

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22. Comment #357811 by F_A_F on March 30, 2009 at 12:56 pm

Has anyone but me ever noticed that all Godbots, regardless of religion, are the same in levels of paranoia? The Fundamentalists here in the Bible Belt seem to think that they are being persecuted.

I guess it's because it's far easier to define oneself in comparison to the "other". And the easiest way to convince your group to follow your lead is to suggest that the "other" is against whatever your group is for :(

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23. Comment #357817 by ina.j on March 30, 2009 at 1:13 pm

“It’s a US tool to cut the population of the Muslims. It is against Islam that you take a medicine before the disease”.

To be fair, I guess an emphasis is on the first half of the statement. Surely, if there was an idea that vaccination is against Koran it would have surfaced earlier. Quite probably militants think that US is trying to cause damage. Relying on religion may be just a shortcut for placing an argument.

In any case, it is terrible.

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24. Comment #357840 by Sargeist on March 30, 2009 at 2:15 pm

I sometimes wonder why I hate so many people. Articles like this remind me.

It is at times like these that I think to myself, surely, SURELY, there must be some way in which the rulers of these regions can simply be ignored, circumvented, removed, rendered ineffective or otherwise deleted from the planet? I fear that there can be no easy answer, or it would already have been unleashed from a distance. That there are people in the world who cause so much suffering and yet who cannot be excised from it is the cause of much dismay for me.

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25. Comment #357843 by Goldy on March 30, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Got this in my inbox the other day

YOU MAY BE A TALIBAN IF...

1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer.

2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't afford shoes.

3. You have more wives than teeth.

4. You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon"unclean."

5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.

6. You can't think of anyone you haven't declared Jihad against.

7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing.

8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs.

9. You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least two.

10. You've always had a crush on your neighbor's goat.

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26. Comment #357844 by pkruger on March 30, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Hi, I am a member of the Taliban. I am an asshole and I am proud of it. I am only interested in the misery of others as a means of gaining my own place with Allah.

( They HAVE to be thinking this )

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27. Comment #357848 by Goldy on March 30, 2009 at 2:26 pm

Of course, there are ramifications to this
http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/march/polio.htm

In October 2003 the governors of three states in northern Nigeria - Kano, Kaduna and Zamfara -decided to suspend polio immunisation until the vaccines were investigated and proven safe..........In the meantime, polio, which had been eradicated in almost all of Nigeria with the exception of Kano state - the last known reservoir - has made a comeback. Not only in Nigeria, but also in several neighbouring countries where it had previously been wiped out.

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28. Comment #357854 by Sean on March 30, 2009 at 2:35 pm

This isn't just a religious thing. Religion is just a vehicle for ignorance, albeit a very effective one.

In the west we have people being placed at risk due to scare stories about vaccines. People campaign against fluoridation of the water supply.

Hell, we have the second in line to the throne who's busy making a mint from selling quack medicine.

Those western examples aren't commonly motivated by religion, just uncritical and unfounded beliefs.

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29. Comment #357857 by Lucas on March 30, 2009 at 2:39 pm

So, preventative medicine is against Islam? Okay, then die if you want. Refusing to immunize children because it is a secret US plot to kill you all? Okay, think what you'd like, that's just less kids you can indoctrinate and strap bombs to.

The infertility claim is geographically, historically, and culturally widespread, its not unique to this instance. When I was doing AIDS education and condom distribution in Africa, one of the biggest problems I had to try to overcome was that all the traditional healers told the people that condoms made you infertile, or worse, they made your dick actually fall off. I argued with teenagers about this and they refused to believe me, even when I told them I had personally worn one many times to avoid disease and pregnancy. I even did the banana demonstration. It didn't matter. Infertility is the biggest boogie man that tribal societies have.

The irony here is that they are using the fear of an inability to create more children to stop people from making sure their children won't die of polio!

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30. Comment #357866 by Sean on March 30, 2009 at 2:54 pm

I wonder if anyone from the Muslim community will be stepping up to prove that the vaccines are safe?

I realise that the Taliban are not exactly open to reason, but it'd be a good gesture.

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31. Comment #357892 by Goldy on March 30, 2009 at 4:01 pm

Comment #357866 by Sean
They did in Nigeria (see my link). Only problem was they did it slowly enough for polio to spread, not only into neighbouring states but to other Muslim countries.

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32. Comment #357897 by SnowyDoc on March 30, 2009 at 4:10 pm

It's a pity Islam doesn't do the holy cracker thing. You could hide someone out the back of the church, whacking a few drops of oral polio vaccine onto each one every Sunday...

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33. Comment #357902 by Goldy on March 30, 2009 at 4:26 pm

Meanwhile, across the Durand line that cuts through Pashtunistan
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan-leader-accused-of-bid-to-legalise-rape-1658049.html

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34. Comment #357910 by dochmbi on March 30, 2009 at 4:57 pm

"“It’s a US tool to cut the population of the Muslims. It is against Islam that you take a medicine before the disease”, said, Muslim Khan, Swat’s Taliban spokesman, speaking by telephone."

LOL.
I thought he was going to say something like:
We have a overpopulation problem here so we would like child mortality to increase, plus we think it's good for our people that children are subjected to natural selection at an early age.

Unrelated:

Sciros wrote: "Bonzai, male hippos sometimes kill juveniles for no discernible reason."

That doesn't make any sense, because genes that cause such behaviour would be heavily selected against because it reduces fitness so much to waste all those resources on producing offspring and then killing them.
It would make sense if a male killed juveniles that are not his own to replace them with his own, but killing juveniles for no reason... I can't see any advantage in that.

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35. Comment #357913 by Lightnin on March 30, 2009 at 5:08 pm

I honestly didn't realise that Polio still existed in the world, I thought it had been eradicated.

I seriously hope people will get sick of extremist bullshit, and there is a violent uprising against the Taliban.

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36. Comment #357916 by Goldy on March 30, 2009 at 5:20 pm

Comment #357913 by Lightnin
I think most people are. Just the alternative doesn't overly inspire them with confidence either and the taliban have guns and powerful backers.

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37. Comment #357926 by dougie on March 30, 2009 at 6:03 pm

It is true that muslims do follow their mad beleifs, the medicine denial is true..Many religious groups dont accept modern medicine. My brother in law converted my wifes sister 10 years ago, they have three sons who all got their genitals mutilated at three months old.The British National Health Service refused to carry out the act so they went to a private butcher in Birmingham....I hate them for what they have done ... every sane minded person should condemn all religions ...This keeps the madness alive in the world .

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38. Comment #357937 by Alternative Carpark on March 30, 2009 at 6:29 pm

Arm medics with "Salk grenades" and let them toss a few into a few classroom windows. Oh wait, that would only benefit the boys..

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39. Comment #357940 by NakedCelt on March 30, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Comment #357844 by pkruger:

Hi, I am a member of the Taliban. I am an asshole and I am proud of it. I am only interested in the misery of others as a means of gaining my own place with Allah.

( They HAVE to be thinking this )

You'd think, wouldn't you? No, I think this is what they're thinking:

"Hi, I am a member of the Taleban. I am a decent person -- one of the very few decent people on the planet, considering nearly everybody is either not a Muslim at all or a smirking appeaser of the West or some other variety of heretic. With all these heretics around, you can see why it's desperately important to stand up for the one true faith. You can't go around believing what non-Muslims tell you just because they call themselves 'scientific', as if 'scientific' meant anything other than 'dirty Allah-denying heathen'. Them and their sad so-called 'medicine', attempting to deny Allah's power to decide who lives or dies..."

Sad but true: no matter how much of a complete arsehole someone is, they always have a justification that makes sense to themselves.

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40. Comment #357961 by noahidios on March 30, 2009 at 7:21 pm

i almost feel guilty for thinking that perhaps instead of risking the lives of people to deliver a cure that isnt wanted we should simply let them be. as a side-effect, and i havent made up my mind as to whether it is good or bad, radical Islam would have fewer followers in the future. i know that we are dealing with children but there is a good chance that some of them will become the new generation of radical Islam. i suppose things are though all over.

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41. Comment #357962 by Diocletian on March 30, 2009 at 7:28 pm

This is all so sad. Anyone who is old enough to remember the effects of polio can appreciate the horror of this. I was fortunate in that the vaccine was available shortly after I was born - but my brother, 3 years older, suffered terribly and was permanently crippled. I feel sick reading that these children (and adults) shall suffer needlessly. It is too horrific to even comprehend.

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42. Comment #357968 by theantitheist on March 30, 2009 at 7:50 pm

Goldy,

Laughed my arse off and then copied, pasted and forwarded it on.

Good Man

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43. Comment #357971 by Goldy on March 30, 2009 at 8:04 pm

Theantitheist
:-D

My aunt in Austria had polio. Didn't cripple her totally but it did ruin her legs.

Had a read online about polio - seems it is soon to be a Muslim disease as the sterilisation runour spreads...

Other Comments by Goldy

44. Comment #357972 by Bonzai on March 30, 2009 at 8:05 pm

Muslim Khan, Swat’s Taliban spokesman, speaking by telephone

Telephone is probably unIslamic as it wasn't around in the Profit's time (pbuh) Mr. Khan will soon be hung by his balls for blasphemy.

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45. Comment #357974 by Goldy on March 30, 2009 at 8:12 pm

Bonzai, see point 8 above in Comment #357843 by Goldy
He wasn't actually trying to speak to anyone ;-)
Mind you, as the Karzai thread shows, them on "our side" aren't exactly the most moderate of hippies either...

Other Comments by Goldy

46. Comment #358043 by Rodger T on March 30, 2009 at 11:17 pm

Mr. Khan will soon be hung by his balls for blasphemy.

Will that be on pay per view? : )

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47. Comment #358081 by brainsys on March 31, 2009 at 1:50 am

Sorry to say this is becoming yet another knee-jerk bash Islam thread. I would refer readers to www.jabs.org.uk (again) to show this fatal cluelessness is not confined to one or any religion.

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48. Comment #358085 by Goldy on March 31, 2009 at 1:54 am

Comment #358081 by brainsys
Aye, you're right. I apologise for the tone of my comments. Unlike me, really.
A perusal of immunisation sites online will reveal one doesn't even have to be religious to prefer horrible and easily preventable disease to a quick jab of one type or another....

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49. Comment #358105 by stephenray on March 31, 2009 at 3:00 am

This is going to make me unpopular, but:

all of this radical islam trouble is a by-product of the cold war, in which the US lost no opportunity to improve its business interests by ensuring that local governments unfriendly to the US were replaced by governments friendly to the US, and to Coca-Cola and Ford and Union Carbide and so on.

Having seen how willing the US government is to sacrifice lives in its own commercial interests, what is so surprising about the idea that vaccination programs are the way in which it is - now the cold war has ended - furthering its global objectives?

Having seen Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's programme about losing an entire generation to the Taliban in tribal pakistan, my understanding is that these people genuinely believe the nonsense about surreptitious sterilisation efforts. With the possible exception of a few right at the very top. (Go to Channel 4's website to watch the program online.)

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50. Comment #358130 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on March 31, 2009 at 5:02 am

stephenray> not necessarily you, but that idea isn't going to win you any prizes...
You make an unsupported assertion, followed by something that has nothing to do with it used as a conclusion, in the very first sentence. I'll grant you that in American haste to slow/stop the spread of communism, they adopted 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' politics, collaborating with some nasty dictatorial regimes because they weren't supporting the Soviets. Making the world safe for capitalism, rather than democracy, as it were. That being said, regardless of what was actually being supported (political vs. economic ideology), claiming the Cold War was entirely about business interests is a bit blind, as your conflating commercial interests with legitimate national survival interests (Krushchev anyone£).
This doesn't fall into the "all of this radical islam trouble", however. Radical Islam has/had issues with both sides of the Cold War (see Khomeini and the "great satan/lesser satan" comments), and continues to have them because the ideals of either culture conflict with Islamic tradition. It has nothing to do with whether or not we're trying to sell Coca-Cola to them, but quite alot to do with the fact that we don't treat our women like second-class chattel, allow others to drink beer, and don't condemn people for having thoughts of their own. For them it's an ideological conflict, and for the mullahs about power and control, more than anything else. The generation that has been "lost to the Taliban" may indeed believe that there is a covert sterilisation effort underway... that doesn't imply anything to do with corporate America.

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