Pakistan FM: Fake Vaccination Program to Blame for Polio Outbreak
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has issued a statement today angrily lashing the World Health Organization (WHO) for pushing travel restrictions against their country over a polio outbreak, noting a phony vaccination program the UN organization was involved in was the source of the outbreak.
“A fake campaign of vaccination was conducted in Pakistan in which the UN agencies were also used. I am referring to the Dr. Shakeel Afridi case,” noted the spokeswoman, adding “this further reinforced the negative perception about the agenda behind the polio eradication campaign.”
Dr. Afridi operated a phony vaccination program in early 2011 on behalf of the CIA, and with tacit support from the WHO. Instead of vaccinating children against polio, they were collecting the DNA of children to look for relatives of terrorists. The program led to the death of Osama bin Laden.
The cost was enormous, however, as the revelation of the program forced aid agencies whose names were falsely tied to the fiasco to withdraw from the country, and had many fearing that polio vaccination programs after Afridi’s arrest were also suspect.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry says the WHO’s obsession with “single vaccination” programs that only ensure Pakistani children get the polio vaccination, while ignoring many others that are just as important, has also fueled conspiracy theories about why only the one vaccination is being pushed, and militant attacks on vaccination workers has added to that speculation.