reply to J Schamroth
Reader comment on item: A Conspiracy Theory Spreads Polio
in response to reader comment: So what? Let them get malaria!

Submitted by Mark (United Arab Emirates), Mar 12, 2006 at 04:04

I don't think it is as sufficient to say. They don't want the vaccine so let them go without. They won't affect us..

I disagree. I am not a scientist but in my limited understanding of that sphere leads me to believe that the viral agents are continually and rapidly mutating to adapt to assaults by various drugs and pressures put on them by their hosts.

The only way to protect the general population is to irradicate the viral agents and make it impossible for them to find hosts in which to mutate.

Some factions within Islam ( I accept that this is not necessarily a pan-Islamic phenomenon) are not alone in their irrational distrust of vaccines. This mistrust is also found among the good people of Australia where a large number of non-islamic parents have chosen not to have their children vacinnated according to the regular preschool schedule due to fear of side effects including permanent deafness and even death. Apparaently there has been some evidence of these side effects in a very small number of cases.

This has greatly concerned health and community officials in Australia where this has become such a problem that there are now demands that children who have not been vaccinated be denied access to public schools until their vaccinations are up to date. The parents resist and the controversy rages..

Personally I put this down to stupidity rather than religion, for the reason I mentioned above. Though some people might argue that they are one and the same.

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