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Why does this happen? See here for a few clues.* From AP, with thanks to citybilly:
KANO, Nigeria -- A suspected large-scale polio outbreak was reported Friday among children in a heavily Muslim northern Nigeria state that had boycotted immunization campaigns, and local authorities appealed for urgent action to stop the spread.The suspected outbreak was in Kano state, one of several in northern Nigeria that had shunned polio vaccination drives over suspicions the vaccines were part of a U.S.-led plot to render Muslims sterile.
On Friday, local officials in the Kano state city of Rogo disclosed that they had recorded dozens of suspected polio cases in recent weeks. Rogo is 60 miles southeast of the state capital, also named Kano. ...
In September, Shekarau suspended participation in a global immunization program on the grounds that local scientists had discovered traces of a hormone in foreign-made vaccines that they feared could make girls infertile.
Some local Islamic leaders accused the Nigerian federal government of being part of a U.S. plot to kill off Muslims with the vaccines.
*The "Arab world" part of the title was put on by the FrontPage editors. In the article I discuss general Muslim, not Arab, attitudes, which apply to Nigeria as much as they do to other Muslim areas.
Posted by Robert at July 3, 2004 7:37 AM
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anybody else see this coming
Posted by: jimmytheclaw![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 3, 2004 8:21 AM
This is not new. Previous vaccination campaigns have been met with distrust. "Crusaders" are attempting to infect children with HIV or to make them sterile, or some such nonsense. Children have been mutilated, arms cut off immediately after the vaccination. Better to have a live one-armed un-infected child than a dead two armed child, or worse, one that has been "infected" with "Crusader or Jewish blood and genes." Talk about racism!
Posted by: epg at July 3, 2004 8:52 AM
Don't these people know we have secret aircraft that could fly over and deliver the "sterilization" if we wanted? LOL
Posted by: Kat-Missouri/USA at July 3, 2004 8:59 AM
What form of medicine are Islamic extremists going to ban next? Something tells me that I would hate to find out.
Posted by: Christian at July 3, 2004 11:28 AM
First step is refusing all visa requests from Nigeria on the basis of unacceptable health risks.
Second step is finding a source for the vaccine in the Muslim world where quality control does not consist of "Inshallah".
jay
Posted by: jay at July 3, 2004 3:22 PM
Why should anyone worry. Muslim's are so infantile and backward, not to mention uneducated, that anything the west does is looked on with fear. Mind you that they could never figure anything out scientifically for themselves.
So let whatever happens ..... happens. And when thousands upon thousands of their children are dying from preventable childhood diseases, in their arms, maybe they will wake up. Let them die, let them go to their leaders and ask why.
at July 3, 2004 3:30 PM
The problem is that they put non-Muslim people in danger with their insane behavior as well as their own children.
Think of the people in the surrounding countries who now must fear polio outbreaks as well thanks to their "wonderful" Muslim neighbors.
Posted by: Suzan at July 3, 2004 3:51 PM
They were awaiting a pure Muslim vaccine from Indonesia, one implanted with Koranic texts, no doubt, to keep them holy, pure, undefiled, and dumb as the back of a spoon. However, the Muslims in Indonesia didn't cough up the pure Muslim vaccine in time, so polio began to spread amongst the Nigerian Muslims.
I'm somewhat amazed that they want help now. Don't they know that the polio vaccine was developed by a Jew, Jonas Salk?
Daily, I pray for the conversion of Muslims. That's the only way they'll abandon the darkness in which they live.
Posted by: caribsea at July 3, 2004 10:48 PM
Before this scare about polio vaccine (I remember taking a sugar cube laced with it when I was a kid), the East German spread a story that HIV/AIDS was invented at Fort Detrick, Maryland, as part of a US government plot to kill off the non-white people of the world. Even now, I know leftover New Leftists who swear by that story. I'm thus unsurprised that the jihadis (many from countires that were innundated with Communist propaganda before 1989) believe that polio vaccine is harmful.
I can't help but notice, though, That Jonathan Edwards, the 18th century American Puritan preacher, welcomed the news of Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccine. Perhaps a period of missionary work among the Indians, who were highly susceptible to the disease, predisposed him towards a positive view of possible means to fight it. Edwards himself took a vaccination, which went wrong, leading to his death.
As for those poor folks in northern Nigeria, I only hope that enough of them put two and two together re this polio outbreak, and reject the crazies who have misled them.
Posted by: Kepha1 at July 4, 2004 2:43 AM
An excellent background article by John Donnelly in the The Boston Globe:
Posted by: youcancallmemeyer at July 4, 2004 8:22 AM
One plague supports another: professional courtesy.
Posted by: blert at July 4, 2004 10:25 PM
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