NationStates Jolt Archive

Disclaimer - this is not "yet another Islam bashing thread". This is a mullah bashing thread.

This is sad. Fucking sad. To think that we are in 21st century. SIGH.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1540477-2,00.html
What's Behind India's Outbreak of Polio Paranoia

A small group of Muslim clerics is spreading the myth that the vaccine is part of a conspiracy to sterilize Muslims -- and as a result, helping to spread a disease many thought was conquered

By ARAVIND ADIGA/NEW DELHI

Posted Thursday, Sep. 28, 2006

It's hard to imagine that anyone could object to a campaign to eliminate polio — a disease that maims, paralyzes, and even kills its victims, who are mostly children. Yet, in one of the more bizarre confrontations between Islamic fundamentalists and the modern world, a tiny group of clerics in India is doing just that — and giving new life to a deadly disease.

Poliomyelitis, a contagious viral disease that once crippled and killed thousands of children annually, has been eliminated in most of the Western world thanks to a vaccine invented by Jonas Salk in the 1950s, but it still survives in some of the world's poorest countries. India seemed to be on the verge of eliminating polio last year, when it reported just 66 cases of the disease, down from 1600 in 2002. This year, however, things have gone horribly wrong with India's polio elimination campaign; 325 cases have been reported already, and at least 23 of them have been fatal. What's caught people's attention is that 70% of those infected with polio this year are Muslim, even though Muslims account for only 13% of India's population. What's even stranger, and frightening, is the reason: some Muslims believe that the polio drops are part of a conspiracy to sterilize their children, and are refusing to let them be vaccinated.

This year's polio outbreak has been concentrated in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, home to over 170 million people. It is here, say health workers, that a few ultraconservative Muslim clerics have spread a myth that the polio vaccine is part of an underhanded campaign to sterilize Muslim children and lower the Muslim birth rate. Dr Hamid Jafari, the regional advisor for the World Health Organization (WHO) on polio eradication, says that the majority of Uttar Pradesh's Muslims have got their children vaccinated, but, "in certain places, fatwas have been issued against the vaccine." In those places, Muslims have stopped state health workers from entering their houses and administering the polio vaccine, which is administered orally, to their children.

Dr. Jafari adds that paranoia is not the only reason for the hostility to the polio drops. Uttar Pradesh is notorious for being one of the worst-administered regions of India, and most of the state has appallingly bad hospitals and health services. Muslims, who are among the poorest of Indians, bear the brunt of this collapse in the state's health infrastructure. Dr Jafari says: "There's a sense of frustration among many Muslims: they tell the health workers, we've never seen anyone coming to take care of us, why are you coming just to give us polio drops?

The result: India's health officials estimated recently that up to 15% of households with children in the western part of Uttar Pradesh state may have been skipped in recent vaccination drives. In a state with a very high population density and poor sanitation, that figure is large enough to ensure that polio — which spreads through contaminated water and contact with excrement — has made a comeback, just when it looked like the net was closing on it in India. Although 90% of India's districts are polio-free, the disease has spread out this year from its epicenter in western Uttar Pradesh to other parts. In March, sewage samples in three slum areas of Bombay, India's financial capital, found polio virus strains in the water. Earlier this week, a nine-year old Bombay girl was found to have got the polio virus, the first case in two years in the city.

Even more disturbing are the global implications of such paranoia. Dr. Jafari says that genetic analysis shows that the strain of polio from Uttar Pradesh, in the past couple of years, has left India, and spread to at least three African countries that had made great strides against polio — Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This year, he says, the Uttar Pradesh strain of the polio virus has leapt out of India and reinfected two polio-free neighboring countries: Bangladesh and Nepal. "This shows that the continuation of polio in one country is a threat to all the world," he says.

Some countries are taking the renewed threat of polio very seriously. Last year, Saudi Arabia announced that all travelers from countries with polio, under the age of 15, would have to show valid proofs of vaccination before they got a visa to enter the country. India's health minister, Anbumani Ramadoss, stung by criticism, announced recently that that he will step up his government's efforts to eliminate polio in the country — and make a special effort to reach out to India's Muslims. "We are going to have a special program to enlighten them," he told the press recently, adding he would be meeting Islamic leaders in Uttar Pradesh to figure out how he could dispel Muslim anxieties about the polio vaccine. Unless he can, many more parents in India, and throughout the world, will start grappling with their own worries about a disease they thought had been conquered.

... a conspiracy to... that must be some damn good opium.

Boooooo! Polio sucks!

Haven't we been here already? Apocalypse Now and all that?

... a conspiracy to... that must be some damn good opium.

Maybe they read Nationstates General :rolleyes:

Deja vu! This is the exact problem they had in Nigera a few years back.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15005238/

"It's been three years since local politicians began a campaign of fear and rumor, claiming the polio vaccine would sterilize children. Those unfounded fears still persist today, and it's this myth, and others like it, that are largely responsible for the spread of polio into almost two dozen other countries where it was once stamped out.

"The world is still paying the price for what happened in Nigeria in 2003," said Dr. David Heymann, the top official for polio eradication with the World Health Organization. Most of the new infections in other countries can be traced to Nigeria.

WHO and its partners had to give up their goal of eradicating polio globally by 2005. Responding to the cascade of outbreaks caused by Nigeria cost an extra $200 million last year alone, said Heymann.

Fears about the polio vaccine have been so prevalent in rural Nigeria that villagers have fled their homes when polio vaccinators arrive."

Geez, this is stupid. It's like the Americans who refuse vaccinations because they think they cause autism, only with more severe consequences.

I wonder...if these retards keep doing this shit, won't people eventually have enough and not attend their services anymore? Am I being too hopeful here?

Disclaimer - this is not "yet another Islam bashing thread". This is a mullah bashing thread.

This is sad. Fucking sad. To think that we are in 21st century. SIGH.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1540477-2,00.html

This same kind of stupidity was going on in Nigeria too IIRC.

Geez, this is stupid. It's like the Americans who refuse vaccinations because they think they cause autism, only with more severe consequences.

Now? Sure. Go back a few years and that was a serious issue.

Never saw the final judgement but at one time they were injecting mecury to the vaccines to increase shelf life.

That practice has been eliminated.

We had a woman in the baby class who announced that she wasn't doing shots and one of our cousins is the same. But she is a grenola eater to the core.

I wonder...if these retards keep doing this shit, won't people eventually have enough and not attend their services anymore? Am I being too hopeful here?

Yes you are.

Until they get more educated about such things.

This kind of crap happens in the sticks.....

I wonder...if these retards keep doing this shit, won't people eventually have enough and not attend their services anymore? Am I being too hopeful here?

The problem is that the area (Uttar Pradesh) is one of the heavily populated state of India (170 mill) and also one of the least developed state with poor infrastructure, incompetent corrupt politicians and bureaucrats and low economic opportunities. The govt there appeases the mullah gangs in exchange for votes. The emboldened mullahs run their own fiefdoms, issuing fatwas as it suits them. Recently a media group even did a sting on mullahs issuing fatwas for money....they gave mullah money and mullah issued fatwa and this was caught on camera.

These mullahs need to be hung by their balls. Islam does not mandate a priest class anyways.

Geez, this is stupid. It's like the Americans who refuse vaccinations because they think they cause autism, only with more severe consequences.

That's a tad different. If you think a vaccination will/could make you sick, ill or disabled, you can be anywhere between correct and ignorant. If you think that vaccinations are a conspiracy to sterilise you, you're just fucking nuts.

These mullahs need to be hung by their balls. Islam does not mandate a priest class anyways.

What, so any muslim can call themselves a holy man?

What, so any muslim can call themselves a holy man?

Well, not exactly, you would still have to go thru the system (usually a degree from a madrassah and affiliation with a recognised school) - much like the church-father thing in Christianity. But the masjid-mullah system was not mandated by Islam and was not there in the beginning. As Islam spread into non-arabic areas (Iran, India etc), the mullah system was formed.

The Mullah knows arabic and Mullah says "I know arabic, I can read the Qur'an, you know nothing, so you have to lisen to me"...this is how they control the average Abdul on the street. Currently, the mullahs wield enormous power..this was not intended at all by Mohammed.

Ass-backwardness in full flow...

Pamphlets 'warn' against polio drops
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/299746.cms
VADODARA: With the government pushing its polio campaign, pamphlets claiming that administering polio drops may lead to impotency and sterility — distributed in some areas of Godhra recently — have left both the people and the district administration in a tizzy. The Intensive Pulse Polio Immunisation programme is scheduled for November 12.

The four-page pamphlets — clandestinely distributed in Muslim-dominated pockets of the town — warn people not to let their children be administered polio drops. Sources said the printed pamphlets were in Arabic, a language that many in the town follow.

Sources also indicated that a large number of photocopies of a few original pamphlets were made for distribution. "The pamphlets mention that religious leaders were discussing the issue and would soon reach at a decision regarding the vaccine.

They also state that the vaccine was not manufactured in India and was imported from Israel. They claim that certain chemicals mixed in the vaccine ensured that those who consumed it would turn impotent or sterile.:rolleyes:

"Sujat valli, a medical practitioner and an activist based in Godhra, said, "It has been distributed only in some select pockets. The arguments made in the pamphlet are false."

"It seems to be widespread and a series of meetings were held with community leaders to decide on strategies to counter the effect of the pamphlets," said a district administration official.

Damn I hate paranoia, maybe this will wake up the moderate majority to what their insane clerics are doing, when they start seeing kids in Iron-Lungs....

This is in the mullah paradise province of Pakistan. This time lawyers and media also contribute to the paranoia.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006/11/19/story_19-11-2006_pg7_14
No to polio drops because ‘it’s a matter of manhood’:rolleyes:

PESHAWAR: The anti-polio campaign in NWFP suffered a severe setback following the unprecedented refusal of 70 percent of the province’s population to take the vaccine. According to sources, the failure of the drive has been attributed to negative propaganda that the vaccine causes impotency in male children and triggers puberty in female children.

An official of the provincial health ministry said that the three-day drive against the polio virus that ended on November 16 came at the worst possible time considering the World Health Organisation (WHO) had recently launched its campaign in the country, expecting a polio-free Pakistan by the year 2007. The official stated that a radio programme by a private FM channel a day before the drive was the reason behind the failure of the campaign:mad: . The anchorperson of the radio programme was fired the next day and the station lost all its advertisements from the drive, which were to be aired within the next three days.

Nabi, a senior member of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association :rolleyes: (PHCBA), filed a case in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) demanding an end to the WHO-backed polio vaccination, saying that the vaccine contained two additional ingredients which had harmful side effects for children. Nabi claimed that WHO had failed to give reasons for the presence of two ingredients in the vaccine: Estrogen and Estradoil, which he said were not required to fight the disease. “I am not against the anti-polio effort, nor am I against family planning, but the recipients of the vaccine should know what is being administered to them,” he said. Dr Wahdan, a WHO technical adviser on Polio Eradication Initiatives (PEI) for the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO), said that he was confident that the polio vaccine carried no anti-fertility agents and that no such agents could be added to it at any stage. “This is the same vaccine used in every country around the world and is currently being used in Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Turkey,” Dr Wahdan told a technical consultation on the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) at the Peshawar Medical College. javed afridi


Well I am glad that at least we eradicated small pox before these idiots start their rumor mill against pox vaccine too.....

I hear the religious leaders in Nigeria also oppose vaccinating people against polio, unless the vaccines are from Islamic countries.

And teh fundies do it again! W0000weeee!!!!

The Polio vaccination is an evil conspiracy by the Jewish Doctor Jonas Salk to kill the Muslims.



OK, in all seriousness, Salk is the victim of the biggest Nobel Prize snub in history. How did he not recieved the award for medicine?

Just a question. Can't we deem this refusal to recieve vaccinations as a part of Natural Selection?

After all, it is people who have no logical reasoning that refuse such vaccinations and then contract the fatal illnesses. It's evolution in action.

Geez, this is stupid. It's like the Americans who refuse vaccinations because they think they cause autism, only with more severe consequences.

Now I don't personally buy into the whole autism thing, but my uncle who is an MD with a degree from Stanford does buy it.

I honestly think that Polio, smallpox, etc is worse than autism anyways.

I don't believe it causes autism. I believe the rise in autism is more likely the result of misdiagnosing it. Many of the diagnosis are more likely AS and not Autism.

Well, back to the point, at least that refusal is based more on scientific proof than refusing vaccines out of hating a group of people.

Well, back to the point, at least that refusal is based more on scientific proof than refusing vaccines out of hating a group of people.

It is not "hating" per se. It is more about the hold that the mullah has over his flock and the total lack of exposure to information in those parts.

Not every mullah is bad though. There are mullahs in India who are actually fighting against this rumor...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061112/ap_on_he_me/india_fighting_polio
LUCKNOW, India - Farzaan Siddaqui beat up the last health workers who visited his home to vaccinate his children for polio. Like many Muslims in India, he thought the program was an infidel plot to make his community infertile.:rolleyes:

Local health workers tried again Sunday, this time led through Siddaqui's Muslim neighborhood by a local cleric, one of scores of community leaders volunteering for an anti-polio campaign in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh.

The campaign aims to vaccinate some 50 million children across the impoverished state, which has seen 438 polio cases this year, 25 of them over the past week. A smaller number of cases have also emerged in some other states, raising fears of a widespread resurgence of a disease once nearly wiped out in the country.

Sunday's campaign focused on Uttar Pradesh's Muslim neighborhoods, where many residents have routinely stayed away from polio immunization programs.

As the health care workers approached Siddaqui's house in Lucknow, one of them whispered, "This is a negative locality for us.
Polio vaccine is a big no for them."

Siddaqui assaulted health workers in August as they tried to persuade him to immunize his 3-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter.

But this time, Wajhat Valdi — a cleric who would normally spend the day preaching at a local mosque — walked in while the health workers stayed outdoors.

It did not take him long to win over Siddaqui, who came out smiling some 15 minutes later. A vial of polio vaccine was handed to Valdi for Siddaqui's children.

Within moments, others in the neighborhood joined in.

"I am so happy that they have listened to me," Valdi said. "It was the will of Allah that I should come here."

Polio infects children younger than 5, spreading through contaminated water and attacking the nervous system. The disease can cause paralysis and deformation or be fatal.

Three years ago, India almost wiped out the disease after an intense nationwide vaccination campaign, but a combination of factors — including illiteracy and superstitious beliefs — kept many children from receiving immunizations.

Nearly three-quarters of new polio cases in Uttar Pradesh were in Muslim families, said A. K. Mishra, the top bureaucrat in the state's health department. Most Muslims in the state are poor and illiterate.

In the past, banners and posters were put up in villages warning Muslims against allowing health workers into their homes. Propaganda spread that polio vaccines were a form of sterilization and a Western ploy to reduce the Muslim birth rate.

On Sunday, clerics and community leaders appeared on local television channels, urging Muslim families to vaccinate their children.

"Polio drops are safe and do not affect the health of your children," said Khalid Rashid, also a cleric, in a television appeal made in Urdu.:cool:

Now? Sure. Go back a few years and that was a serious issue.

Never saw the final judgement but at one time they were injecting mecury to the vaccines to increase shelf life.

That practice has been eliminated.

We had a woman in the baby class who announced that she wasn't doing shots and one of our cousins is the same. But she is a grenola eater to the core.

Well, if she doesn't give her kids shots, they won't be able to attend public(and likely most private) schools. So, the kid is screwed. Really, though, what is wrong with vaccinations? It's basically severely weakened viruses, injected into you, to stimulate your immune system against said virus. I can't help but wonder why somebody would NOT get some vaccines.

See. These people themselves want to resist. Anything the West has to offer them is poison. They could even call it jihad, and convince themselves of a prosperous afterlife for dieing in resistance to the dhimi.

If we were prudent, we would let nature take a course against them. We invented the vaccine, so all we need is to stock up on it, and eliminate immigration from third-world parasites into our societies. We can ship them some, and even enough to do the job. What they do with it is their own business.

We have bed-bugs again here in the States because of importing third world gypsies and mooslims and various other detritus all in the name of Enriching Diversity!!! which obviously makes everything better in so many ways!!

Just wait till we get the new strains of TB and some Polio and maybe increased AIDS population, ALL THE BETTER!

HEIL DIVERSITY!!

Just a question. Can't we deem this refusal to recieve vaccinations as a part of Natural Selection?



Ahhh, so you can see true, as long as the seeing is against your enemies and fellow semites?

I personally think it has nothing to do with the fact that they think its a conspiracy, its just some fundies trying to be awkward. they probably hope that the polio will end up getting to America and possibly Europe. Or am i just being paranoid :p

Ahhh, so you can see true, as long as the seeing is against your enemies and fellow semites?

Indians/Pakistanis are semites?:rolleyes:

Indians/Pakistanis are semites?:rolleyes:

I did'nt know I was Ay-rab.....:p :D

allalalalalallallalalalalalal...... ;)

See. These people themselves want to resist. Anything the West has to offer them is poison. They could even call it jihad, and convince themselves of a prosperous afterlife for dieing in resistance to the dhimi.

If we were prudent, we would let nature take a course against them. We invented the vaccine, so all we need is to stock up on it, and eliminate immigration from third-world parasites into our societies. We can ship them some, and even enough to do the job. What they do with it is their own business.

We have bed-bugs again here in the States because of importing third world gypsies and mooslims and various other detritus all in the name of Enriching Diversity!!! which obviously makes everything better in so many ways!!

Just wait till we get the new strains of TB and some Polio and maybe increased AIDS population, ALL THE BETTER!

HEIL DIVERSITY!!

And everyone knows that the world is becoming more and more Muslim by the second! Before you know it our women will be wearing burkas, our men will stop shaving their beards, and we will all be ululating at everything that pisses us off! :eek:


:p

Geez, this is stupid. It's like the Americans who refuse vaccinations because they think they cause autism, only with more severe consequences.

The difference of course being that themerosal in those vacines actually does contribute to autism. There's a reason that a problem that used to afflict one in 10,000 children now afflicts about one in 250 (estimates I've seen range from 163-275). Of course, they know this and now produce vacines with no themerosal.

And everyone knows that the world is becoming more and more Muslim by the second! Before you know it our women will be wearing burkas, our men will stop shaving their beards, and we will all be ululating at everything that pisses us off! :eek:


:p

Ah, but that's the genius of the athiest agenda. Once Islam becomes the dominant religion in the modern world, people will stop believing in it. We'll be ululating at everything, and when you ululate at everything, you ululate at nothing. :D

[QUOTE]Indians/Pakistanis are semites?[QUOTE]
yes, most arabs are considered semitic peoples.

yes, most arabs are considered semitic peoples.

Unfortunately neither Indians nor Pakastanis are Arab.

they're Indo-Aryans.

[QUOTE]Indians/Pakistanis are semites?[QUOTE]
yes, most arabs are considered semitic peoples.

YOu're just an idiot so please leave.

Now I don't personally buy into the whole autism thing, but my uncle who is an MD with a degree from Stanford does buy it.


...Yet another reason that MDs need more courses in reasearch methods and statistics as well as better psych rotations.

As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been a single study that successfully linked autism and exposure to mercury. The closest I have seen is a study which indicates that children with autism have, on average, lower levels of a metabolic chemical which helps remove toxins from the body.

The theory that vaccines and autism are related has some serious holes. First there is the assumption that autism is a monolitic illness, that it is a specific and concrete state. Autism is not like cancer or polio, where you either have it or you do not. Like most mental illnesses a diagnosis of autism is not a binary but rather a specturm. Autism is an illness which exists in many different forms with a great range of severity. The theory then assumes a bio-medical model of psychopathology(meaning that illness is caused by physical abnormality or contamination). The problem with this assumption is that the vast majority of mental illnesses identified in the DSM are not illnesses in the way a doctor would consider them, but rather just a set of symptoms that tend to be present in the same individual which are likely to have the same cause. From these assumptions a third related assumption is made by the theory: autism has an organic cause(introduce toxin A into the subject and it is likely that illness B will result). This is a dangerous assumption to make in the absence of data. The fact is that we do not know what causes autism.

Even ignoring the assumptions, there are data problems with the theory that autism and mercury exposure are related. There is not currently a conscensus within the scientific community regarding the seeming spike in autism rates. Quite a few psychologists seem to believe that autism is not increasing so much as being identified more often. A child who 20 years ago would have just been written off as profoundly retarded might today receive a diagnosis of autistic because of better differential diagnosis and increased awareness of the disease. An individual who might have been diagnosed as having Obsessive Compulsive or Schizoid personality disorder might now get a diagnosis of Aspbergers.

More importantly there has not been extensive study of the general population. We do not know how many people are exposed to mercury, how many infants are born with mercury in their systems, or even how vaccinations containing mercury products compare to general background exposure.

Finally, one must consider the parents who first put forth this theory. The parents first began to raise alarms because they noticed autistic symptoms beginning around the times when their children were vaccinated. The assumption they made was that the two events must be related because they occurred at similar times and one seemed to precede the other. Unfortunately, in the absence or research it is impossible to determine a link. It is entirely possible that autistic symptoms become apparent at the same time developmentally as when most children are vaccinated. Correlation does not necessarily equal cause.

Disclaimer - this is not "yet another Islam bashing thread". This is a mullah bashing thread.

This is sad. Fucking sad. To think that we are in 21st century. SIGH.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1540477-2,00.html

The vaccine obviously does not do what these mullahs say; but maybe we should invent one that does have that effect.. ;)

The vaccine obviously does not do what these mullahs say; but maybe we should invent one that does have that effect.. ;)

And that vaccine should be JUST for the mullahs.