Polio Spreading - Nigeria's Council for Islamist Shari'a
Law, accuses Americans of lacing Polio vaccine
A Conspiracy Theory Spreads Polio by Daniel Pipes
A worldwide campaign begun in 1988 to eradicate the polio infection was on the verge of
success when, early in 2003, a conspiracy theory took hold of the Muslim population in
northern Nigeria. That conspiracy theory has single-handedly returned polio to epidemic
proportions.
The theory's source seems to be a physician and the president of Nigeria's Supreme Council
for Shari'a Law, Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, 68. Dr. Ahmed, an Islamist, accuses Americans of
lacing the vaccine with an anti-fertility agent that sterilizes children (or, in an
alternate theory, it infects them with AIDS) and considers them, according to John Murphy
of the Baltimore Sun, "the worst criminals on Earth … Even Hitler was not as
evil as that."
This fear of polio vaccines caught on because of the war in Iraq, explained a doctor with
the World Health Organization. "If America is fighting people in the Middle
East," goes the Islamist logic, "the conclusion is that they are fighting
Muslims." Local imams repeated and spread the sterilization theory, which won wide
acceptance despite vocal assurances to the contrary from the WHO, the Nigerian government,
and many Nigerian doctors and scientists.
Ibrahim Shekarau, governor of Kano, one of the three Nigerian states that refused the
polio vaccine, justified the decision not to vaccinate on the grounds that "it is a
lesser of two evils to sacrifice two, three, four, five, even ten children than allow
hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of girl-children likely to be rendered
infertile."
The Baltimore Sun offers the example of a young Nigerian mother who rejected the polio
vaccine for her child. The child contracted polio, and the mother was asked if she
regretted her decision. Unhesitatingly, she replied, "No, I would do the same."
Villagers saw the vaccination program as a threat and on occasion "chased, threatened
and assaulted vaccinators. Frustrated, some vaccination teams dumped thousands of doses of
the vaccine rather than face angry villagers."
By mid-2004 the conspiracy theory had jumped to India, where a health worker noted that in
one slum, "many poor and ignorant women regard the anti-polio drops as a deceptive
strategy to control the birth rate."
Such phobia about the West infecting Muslims with diseases is nothing new. In a 1997 book,
I surveyed some earlier accusations:
the British imported cholera and malaria to Egypt after World War II. A British midwife
who trained in the Kabylia province of Algeria got accused by his angry Algerian
supervisor of working in league with the "white-coated saboteurs passing their hands
from vagina to vagina, infecting my heroic people with syphilis!" An unnamed
enemy—presumably American—infiltrated deadly diseases into Iraq via
maggot-ridden cigarettes. Israel transmitted cancer to Palestinians by getting them to
take dangerous factory jobs or subjecting them to phosphorous searches.
The polio-vaccine conspiracy theory has had direct consequences: Sixteen countries where
polio had been eradicated have in recent months reported outbreaks of the disease –
twelve in Africa (Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad,
Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Sudan, and Togo) and four in Asia (India, Indonesia, Saudi
Arabia, and Yemen). Yemen has had the largest polio outbreak, with more than 83 cases
since April. The WHO calls this "a major epidemic."
The common element, the New York Times notes, is that incidents of polio are now located
"almost exclusively in Muslim countries or regions." That's because, scientists
hypothesize, the polio infection traveled from Nigeria in a uniquely Muslim way – via
the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, which took place in January 2005. Testing confirms that
all three Asian strains of the disease originated in northern Nigeria.
In response, the WHO is talking tough, as U.N. organizations too rarely do, complaining
that Muslim governments have contributed a trivial US$3 million to the $4 billion
anti-polio campaign and demanding more funds from them. David L. Heymann of the WHO also
said: "It would be a good sign for Islamic countries to see other Islamic countries
giving. But they've come in more slowly than we expected."
Additional money would help, yes, but more important is for Muslims themselves to argue
against and defeat the conspiracy-theory mentality. This polio episode is but one example
of how conspiracy theories originating in the Muslim world damage everyone, and Muslims
first of all.
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A Conspiracy Theory Spreads Polio by Daniel Pipes New York Sun May 24, 2005
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2644
[NY Sun title: "Conspiracy Spreads Polio"]
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