WHY HASN'T POLIO DISAPPEARED?

The big health news this week was that Bill Gates' foundation along with some others have pledged $630 million to eradicate polio. What, you ask, it's still around? Indeed, yes.

The polio virus remains endemic in only Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, but imported cases from these four countries threaten other developing nations.

A few years ago health professionals thought there were at the point of complete eradication. Only about 1,600 cases were being reported worldwide and all from identifiable locales. Nigeria had the most and a major immunization campaign was undertaken to wipe polio out there.

The target population were all Muslim located in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria. Local imams began telling their followers that the immunization program was a Western plot to infect them with incurable disease. Cooperation froze as parents refused to immunize their children. In other Muslim countries similar stories were spread. It is no coincidence that all of the countries where polio still is killing people are Muslim-majority except India which has over 100 million Muslims.

The ill-educated, paranoid Muslim imams can't comprehend that there are people in the world seeking to do good not just for members of their own tribe or nation but for the whole world, even Muslims who hate them and want to kill them.

So more than half a billion dollars more will now be spent seeking to convince those who don't want to be convinced that immunization is for their benefit. Let's hope Bill Gates and the others will realize the obstacle they must overcome is a culture which fervently believes that non-Muslims only want to do Muslims harm.

StrategyPage reported in 2006 on the successful campaign of Islamic radicals to block vaccinations for children in Nigeria. They are the chief obstacle to wiping out polio in the world.

COUNTER-TERRORISM: Killing Little Children for the Cause

November 12, 2006: A good example, of how self-destructive Islamic radicalism is, can be seen in the continuing campaign to stop polio vaccinations. Several years ago, Islamic conservatives in Nigeria began urging parents to refuse polio vaccinations for their children. Eventually, this thwarted the worldwide effort to wipe out polio, because dozens of new cases appeared in Nigeria. All this comes from paranoid rumors that the medicine was a Western attempt to sterilize Moslem children. The Nigerian government put pressure on conservative Islamic leaders to stop preaching against the vaccination program, with mixed results. Islamic radicals are preaching against other types of vaccinations as well, causing something of an "Islamic Plague" among the growing number of unvaccinated children.

This sort of illogical, self-destructive, paranoia is popular among Islamic radicals and terrorists....[S]ince Islam was founded on the use of violence to spread the faith, and enforce discipline among followers, there's no end to this custom of conjuring up imaginary threats, and then getting violent over the issue. But in this case, most of the victims are young children, who are paralyzed for life, or killed, because their parents, caught up in paranoid fervor, refuse the vaccinations. In some cases, the Islamic radicals use force to keep the vaccination teams from an area, thus preventing many parents, who want the vaccinations, from getting them.

To some extent, these irrational and destructive policies should provide some counterterrorist opportunities. But not always, because of the delusional nature of this Islamic paranoia, even the negative outcomes of, say, stopping vaccinations, can be blamed on evil infidels (non-Moslems.) It takes a lot of effort to overcome this mentality, but until that is done, Islamic terrorism will keep coming back, as it has done for centuries.

And this from Britain's London Sunday Times January 28, 2007:

'Katme's appeal reflects a global movement by some hardline Islamic leaders who are telling followers to refuse vaccines from the West.

In Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India, Muslims have refused to be immunised against polio after being told that the vaccines contain products that the West has deliberately added to make the recipients infertile.'

On August 1, 2007 it was reported, again by StrategyPage, that polio had reappeared in New Zealand:

Polio has reappeared in New Zealand, traced to northern Pakistan where Islamic clerics persuade parents to avoid vaccination as a "Western plot to poison Muslim children." Islamic imams have told the same tales in northern Nigeria, where polio cases are increasing. Conspiracy theories such as this one are common fare in the Muslim world.

Ignorance, illiteracy, hatred and suspicion are a lethal mix for those who suffer from these maladies.