No, this is not about
the allegations of dangers of vaccines.
This is about the dangers of being the vaccinator.
Most public health professionals have been subjected to harassment
as fervent supporters of protecting children and others from preventable
communicable diseases. It is inherent to
the job and employers would move to defend staff abused for supporting
immunization.
The disconcerting development is the targeted murder of eight
Pakistani community vaccinators employed in the final push for global polio
eradication. National
Post article. Potential retaliation
by radicals who believe that a false vaccinator was used to collect information
vital to the raid on Bin-Laden.
Ongoing discourse continues to be directed that other vaccinators
are acting as spies. Misinformation in
vaccine resistant areas has included accusations that vaccines are a ploy to
make children sterile. Heavy religious
overtones are inserted into the discourse by some community leaders. Opponents in
the terrorist war in Pakistan have used the polio eradication efforts as a
negotiating ploy to stop drone flights and attacks.
Both parties in this debate should carry the guilt of death
and disability from any future polio cases.
That a ruse of providing health care was used to collect military
information speaks to the inability of our systems to keep public good separate
from political (and religious) debate. That
innocent women, providing an invaluable global public health service, have been
murdered in a coordinated, directed attack for being public health workers is beyond
deplorable.
It should make the irrelevant musings of North American
anti-immunization groups merely an annoyance.
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