Wild polio was eradicated in Africa (yay!) and I learned this morning that many people are unaware that the polio eradication program was devastated in 2011 by the Obama administration using a vaccine trial for the operation against Osama Bin Laden. vox.com/future-perfect…
The government suspected that Bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Pakistan. Among other ways to try to verify his identity, they wanted DNA samples from children in the compound. They conducted a 'vaccination campaign' during which they'd try to get the samples (this failed).
They claimed to be vaccinating kids for hepatitis, but that vaccine requires several shots, spaced a month apart, and they didn't bother with the followup shots in the poor neighborhood where they started because they had moved on to Bin Laden's area, cover established.
When this came out, it was devastating for public trust in vaccination programs. The Taliban banned vaccination programs in the area, and shot medics. I condemn murdering health care workers in the strongest terms. But we started this, by using them for military operations.
It was a horrendously evil thing to do. It set back the effort to eradicate polio by a lot. There's a lot said about 'vaccine hesitancy', but when it comes to Pakistan we need to acknowledge that 'the US endangered our kids with incorrectly administered vaccines to get DNA'
...is not a conspiracy theory! It is what happened! More than one hundred aid workers have died trying to get kids polio vaccines in Pakistan since then, and eradication was likely set back by a decade.
Anyway, wild polio eradication in Africa is great news, and I don't want to detract from all of the amazing work that went into making it happen. But I'm angry about this, you should be angry about this, and someday somehow there should be accountability. (There won't be.)
