"A Swat-based pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, had reportedly opposed polio vaccination, saying it was a Western conspiracy to render Muslims infertile."
"Polio surfaces in region of Pakistan," by Sadaqat Jan for the Associated Press, July 17:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — An eight-month-old Pakistani girl has tested positive for polio in an area where militants campaigned against vaccination, a World Health Organization official said Thursday.
The girl, identified only as Tanzila, comes from Ali Gram village in the Swat Valley where militants had "beaten up" anti-polio vaccination teams, said Dr Khalid Nawaz, a WHO official supervising local health authorities.
Nawaz said the last confirmed case of the disease in Swat had been in 2003. Tanzila is infected with type 1 polio, the most dangerous and contagious strain, he said.
Threats to health workers and fighting between government security forces and militants have disrupted vaccinations in about half of the Swat Valley since September 2007, he said.
A Swat-based pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, had reportedly opposed polio vaccination, saying it was a Western conspiracy to render Muslims infertile.
Last year, armed Fazlullah supporters took control of most of the scenic valley in Pakistan's volatile northwest before the army moved in and forced them into the mountains.
Nawaz said authorities are planning to resume the vaccinations after a fragile peace deal was reached this year between militants and the government.
However, there have been sporadic attacks in recent weeks, and several girls schools have been burned down, amid signs that militants are reasserting themselves.
In the past year, Islamic militants have extended their influence across Pakistan's northwestern frontier with Afghanistan, posing a growing security threat to both countries.
Polio has been eliminated in all but about a dozen countries following a global vaccination campaign, according to WHO. The disease remains endemic in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.
And Nigeria is another place where Muslim clerics forbade vaccinations due to the same conspiracy theory.
Polio mostly strikes children under five and is spread when unvaccinated people come into contact with the feces of those with the virus, often through water. It usually attacks the nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death.
I wish I could tell if Fazlullah actually believes what he says.
Too bad for the 8 month old girl. I understand that the disease can be quite painful as well as deforming.
Too bad we don't have a modern day method for taking it out of her and giving it to him.
If we were a truly evil nation, the US, we could easily reconstitute smallpox from the samples still in storage and introduce it into these islamic backwaters, then sit back and watch it spread horrible death to all, while retarded muslims deny themselves our help.
Nobody has Smallpox immunity any more and if you think you do from the old ones it's not effective. Nor is there much of a supply of Smallpox vaccine anyway. So it would not only be evil but suicidal.
Polio and tetanus are probably the two most important vaccines and less likely to kill your child than the MMR for example, which killed ours. I really hate vaccine stories now because I never imagined myself having to tell a truly inconvenient truth.
The actual headline:
Disease is smarter than Islam.
DTAP, not MMR. For years I thought you could leave this stuff to doctors.
This level of religious bigotry and fanaticism is beyond belief.
By the warped thinking that comes from Islamania polio is a wonderful thing. It existed in Mo's time and if Mo could live with that fact then surely it should still be with us today. Fine-then let us ban immigration from the ummah so that nearly eliminated scourges like this one (I mean the polio, not the Koranism here) don't return to the West.
Beagle, I'm sorry for your loss.
The backward and down right dangerous opposition to infidel vaccinations by clerics such as Maulana Fazlullah, are not only tragic for the victims of such beliefs in muslim countries. Many immigrants are unhealthy and become a drain on the health and welfare systems of the countries to which they come.
ImNoDhimmi
Just to clafify after being clear as mud, as I rarely revisit this issue due to the sudden onset tear syndrome. The DTAP vaccine is not entirely dangerous. The Pertussis part of the vaccine has a history of causing seizures, in our case instantly fatal.
We'll get our next only son a tetanus shot as soon as he gets any sort of serious cut, and polio (by itself) within the next year or so.
What should scare anyone considering vacciantions is the degree to which the entire medical community will deny any connection between vaccines and serious complications even when it's the only proximate cause and they've exhausted every test to prove otherwise. Even then, they'll avoid writing anything on paper to avoid the stigma of seeming to even consider the dangers of vaccines. Utilitarian calculus trumps the Hippocratic Oath every time when the issue is vaccinations. In our case, our son died less than 24 hours after the accepted window for Pertussis vaccine 'adverse reactions'. So they're going to rip us a new one in cross examination for trying to get justice for our dead son.
If you dig around, soon enough you'll find real science which does link pertussis vaccine to seizure and death. Your doctor won't mention it before sticking your child however. Consent, but not informed. Nor can you sue in the traditional manner. There's limited liability in an inquisitorial system in front of a special tribunal for compensating vaccine injuries (which never happen).
Odd eh?
Nobody has Smallpox immunity any more and if you think you do from the old ones it's not effective. Nor is there much of a supply of Smallpox vaccine anyway. So it would not only be evil but suicidal.
Given the depravity of Islamic terrorists. The US government acquired enough smallpox vaccine to vaccinate all 300 million Americans.That has been the case for about four years. For those of us who were vaccinated for smallpox as children recent studies showed there may be some residual immunity to the disease. What would be suicidal is for Islamic terrorist to try to unleash smallpox on the Western world. As it's likely that many more Muslims then infidels would die of the disease.
From the CDC website about smallpox:
Smallpox Vaccine Availability
Routine smallpox vaccination among the American public stopped in 1972 after the disease was eradicated in the United States. Until recently, the U.S. government provided the vaccine only to a few hundred scientists and medical professionals working with smallpox and similar viruses in a research setting.
After the events of September and October, 2001, however, the U.S. government took further actions to improve its level of preparedness against terrorism. One of many such measures—designed specifically to prepare for an intentional release of the smallpox virus—included updating and releasing a smallpox response plan. In addition, the U.S. government has enough vaccine to vaccinate every person in the United States in the event of a smallpox emergency.
I can understand Pakistani parents not trusting Western doctors. I don't think I'd trust a Pakistani doctor, if the roles were reversed.
Beating up the vaccination teams is a bit extreme, but to be expected. Muslims do seem to overreact in their opposition to anything non-Islamic.
It's too bad--there may have been parents who wanted their children to be vaccinated against polio.
Now some of these folks will have to bear witness to the suffering of this little girl. It's horrible, but maybe it will open their eyes.
An eight-month-old Pakistani girl has tested positive for polio in an area where militants campaigned against vaccination, a World Health Organization official said Thursday.
...........................
More needless suffering, in the form of an innocent little baby, brought to you courtesy of Muslim ignorance and paranoia. Not that this little girl is likely to be the last victim in the Swat region of this horrible disease.
According to WHO, it is likely that polio could have been entirely eradicated by now--like smallpox--if not for such insane rejections of polio vaccine.
Polio vaccine was immediately recognized as a great boon in the West--in fact, a large number of doctors and scientists had been feverishly working on developing an effective vaccine throught the early and mid-20th century, before Salk and Sabin's success.
Incidently, for those posters who have the attitude that polio's resurgence serves these fanatics right--well, no disease cares for "poetic justice".
In Nigeria, particularly, polio has indeed resurfaced again in Muslim areas. It hasn't stayed there, though--it has spread to Christian and animist populations, where these people were either in areas too remote to receive vaccinations, or were pressured by local Muslims not to accept vaccination. In some areas there was such hostility from Muslims that local health organizations just pulled out of the whole area, unable to offer vaccination to people--of whatever religion--who wanted to protect their children.
Maulana Fazlullah, had reportedly opposed polio vaccination, saying it was a Western conspiracy to render Muslims infertile.
of course he would since the man who developed the salk vacine was ethnicity jewish so to these anti semitic idiots polio vaccination must be a jewish/zionist plot against muslims (sac off)
...further proof islamists still live in the Middle Ages.
Again, I reported this on the 13th. of this month over at the NER. Click on the link to see my original reports (scroll down):
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/15885
JMJ:
I see where you also accused Robert Spencer of plagiarism more openly here before backing off of that a bit:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021817.php#c559898
I also used to blog at NER back in 2006. It was a great privilege and I still have the highest regard for Rebecca Bynum, Mary Jackson, and Esmeralda Weatherwax (and, of course, Hugh Fitzgerald). I admire their work greatly, but I have not had time in quite a while to look in on the Iconoclast blog.
I take this allegation quite personally because of my past connections with NER.
If you're curious, I found this article last night through a news search of jihad- and sharia-related keywords on Google.
Coverage often overlaps a bit between blogs that deal with the subjects of jihad and sharia law-- nothing sinister about it.
Marisol Seibold
Jihad Watch News Editor
Marisol,
I most certainly was NOT accusing Mr. Spencer, nor JW/DW, of plagiarism. That really is a wrong take on my posts and I am most upset that you should have construed what I said in that way! I thought that I had been most careful to protect Mr. Spencer from any implication that he in any way would have agreed with me and my take on these issues; after I had realised that what I had posted might so be misconstrued I took great pains to ensure that this site and Mr. Spencer could not be injured by my remarks by posting my second comment. For heaven's sake, I was merely blowing my own trumpet a little bit. I was quite proud of having spotted that silly conference quite early on by virtue of having dawn.com on my feeds - actually, I have hundreds of English language publications on my feeds - and I did not mean, nor did I do so, to imply any plagiarism whatsoever.
There is no question of plagiarism because you all found it at AP and MEMRI and I didn't - I found it at http://www.dawn.com/2008/07/19/index.htm
I am deeply offended that you can interpret my innocent words - which I retracted as soon as I realised that they might be misunderstood as some sort of criticism of Mr. Spencer and this site - as an accusation of plagiarism, an accusation which I never meant, never implied, never made and never would make.
Just for the record, Mr. Robert Spencer is one of my heroes - how could he not be for anyone engaged in the anti-jihad. It is my fervent wish that one day I will get to shake him by the hand and tell him how much I appreciate his works and his words, personally, and face to face. He is a great man and this is a great site.
Frankly, I think that you have completely misinterpreted what I said and you have deeply wounded me and offended me. Your compleat failure to realise that someone like me - a very minor person in this fight - might just be a little proud of having stolen a march, of having been ahead of the game (just once), of having reported something before this important site had noticed it, is compleately reprehensible. Will you not allow we 'also rans' some tiny share of the glory of also having fought? Can you not grant me my moment of glory without indulging in a compleat misinterpretation of what I said?
Please.
I am a mere foot-soldier in this fight but I did not expect to be so villifed by you for taking a pride in my work and for instantly, as soon as I realised that I could be misintepreted, retracting a post which might have been misinterpreted to Mr. Spencer's detriment. I was instantly fully aware that what I said could be misinterpreted and therefore chose to put up my second post to that blog. For that, at least, you must give me some credit. But no, you chose not to. You chose to attack me be falsely claiming that I had accused Mr. Spencer of plagiarism when I manifestly have not done so.
Merely, I was proud of having got there before him/you. Such little, foolish pride has, according to you, been my undoing.
May I not claim to have posted this first without eliciting your wrath and having you accuse me of crimes which I did not commit, nor intended to commit? Obviously not! That has deeply upset and offended me.
I did not accuse this site, or Mr. Spencer, of plagiarism - a very serious accusation indeed - either directly or by implication. Please withdraw that deeply offensive, upsetting and deliberately, in my opinion, wounding remark. Let me state, quite plainly, I was merely pointing out that I drew attention to these issues, at the NER, earlier than this site managed to do and that no criticism of this site was intended by that comment.
You have offended, wounded and upset me deeply by your gratuitous implication that I have accused Mr. Spencer of plagiarism - which I most certainly did not do, nor intended in any way to do, and which I neither believe that I did nor imply that I wished to do.
Please withdraw your deeply offensive, wounding and deliberately belittling suggestion that I did so.
And let me state, one last time, I wholeheartedly support - under my own name, which is more than can be said for many other people - this site's, and Mr. Spencer's - take on our current struggle to preserve our hard-won freedoms.
Thank-you for insulting, offending and upsetting an ordinary 'grunt', who just wanted to take a little pride, a little reflected glory, to himself! Not!
JMJ-- I must say your original comments were unclear with respect to your intention to celebrate finding it early. And no, there's nothing wrong with that.
Now that I know what you meant, I certainly do withdraw my faulting you for what I thought was a false accusation against our work. But again, it wasn't clear from the prior comments.
I do hope we can bury the hatchet on this.
Marisol,
Ah, yes, of course we can. I thought that I was extremely clear. You thought, quite justifiably, otherwise. We really are two countries separated by a common language, aren't we? The devil is in the white space - as a printer friend of mine said to me recently. We each read differently between the lines and what I thought was clear may not be so clear to those of you on the other side of the pond. Damn, I should have remembered that and not been so tough on you!
I'm sorry, I think I might just have been a little too defensive there because of that. Of course we can bury the hatchet on this - let's bury it deep in the black heart of fundamentalist Islam together, in a metaphorical sense, of course.
So, you wrote for the NER in the past. Why not offer something to Rebecca again! It's the lighter, fun side of the struggle but it does have a serious import as I'm sure you know - it's about our culture, about what we are defending rather than how we have to defend it - which is more or less what JW/DW is about. The more, the merrier! Hugh writes there, remember. Assuming that you have time, of course.
I'm happy that we meet here and understand each other - after all, we're both on the same side! Get my email adress from Rebecca and send me an email and then I can send you anything that I find on my feeds, as and when. Who knows, it might be useful - at least you'd know what I find as soon as I find it!
Oh, and tell Mr. Spencer, and everyone else, that there is one more unafraid supporter - me!
I can understand Pakistani parents not trusting Western doctors.
"You can? Why? What have Western doctors done to earn distrust?"
I didn't say I thought it was a rational distrust.
It's xenophobia. As far as I know, you're right--Western doctors have done nothing amiss.
For the record, my distrust of a Pakistani physician would be out of concern for hygeine, as Muslims shun alcohol as an antiseptic.
A bit OT, but I'm still wondering about that... How did the law against drinking alcohol become a prohibition of its use as an antiseptic? Does anyone know?
JMJ--
I'm glad we've met, too. And this reminded me of how long it's been since I looked in on NER.
Hope to see you around here as well.
Best,
Marisol
Marisol, Thanks. I won't be a stranger. Don't be a stranger over by, either.
Yours, John.
JMJ said
On that point, ditto.
Back on-topic, people from any region that is not allowing vaccinations against communicable diseases should not be allowed to enter our country, for public health reasons.
Of course, I believe that anyone who follows a religion that mandates violent subjugation of non-believers, and that justifies pedophilia, dishonesty, rape, and slavery has serious mental health issues, and is infected with a communicable disease of a different sort.
Um, sounds to me like a remarkably cruel, as befits the Mohammedan extremists, means of breeding a biological warfare agent.
Make sure you, your children, your grand children, and great grand children are all properly vaccinated. All they need to do is infect a few people, place them on airlines, and cause a world wide panic as polio cases spring up again.
{^_^}
Ain't justice poetic?