The Conspiracy to Sterilize Muslims

Hat tip to Dhimmi Watch

Polio raises its ugly head in Pakistan due to the rantings of a fanatic cleric.

Polio, once a word that struck fear into the hearts of American parents, is preventable by a simple, and cheap vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that invades the nervous system.

Up to 95% of persons infected with polio will have no symptoms. About four to eight percent of infected persons have minor symptoms such as fever, fatigue, nausea, headache, flu-like symptoms, stiffness in the neck and back, and pain in the limbs which often resolves completely. Fewer than one percent of polio cases result in permanent paralysis of the limbs (usually the legs). Of those paralyzed, 5-10% die when the paralysis strikes the respiratory muscles.

Paralysis that can lead to permanent disability and death.

It is transmitted by contact with an infected person.

A childhood disease that is fatal. Polio has been virtually eliminated in the Western world by a marvelous vaccine.

There are two types of vaccine that protect against polio: Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) and Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV). IPV, used in the U.S. since 2000, is given as an injection in the leg or arm, depending on age. Polio vaccine may be given at the same time as other vaccines. Most people should get polio vaccine when they are children. Children get 4 doses of IPV, at these ages: 2 months, 4 months, 6-18 months, and booster dose at 4-6 years. OPV has not been used in the United States since 2000 but is still used in many parts of the world.

It is estimated that the world could eradicate this disease in 10 years if a massive vaccination program was established.

But if clerics like Maulana Fazlullah have their way, the scourge of polio will once again darken our shores.

An eight-month-old Pakistani girl has tested positive for polio in an area where militants campaigned against vaccination, a World Health Organization official said Thursday.

The girl, identified only as Tanzila, comes from Ali Gram village in the Swat Valley where militants had "beaten up" anti-polio vaccination teams, said Dr Khalid Nawaz, a WHO official supervising local health authorities.

Nawaz said the last confirmed case of the disease in Swat had been in 2003. Tanzila is infected with type 1 polio, the most dangerous and contagious strain, he said.

Pakistan was one of the countries slated for a massive vaccination program against polio. It was poised to wipe out the disease, then the fanaticMaulana Fazlullah cried NO!

Threats to health workers and fighting between government security forces and militants have disrupted vaccinations in about half of the Swat Valley since September 2007, he said.

A Swat-based pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, had reportedly opposed polio vaccination, saying it was a Western conspiracy to render Muslims infertile.

Last year, armed Fazlullah supporters took control of most of the scenic valley in Pakistan's volatile northwest before the army moved in and forced them into the mountains.

So children will be crippled for life or die and the clerics will cry: "It's the will of Allah!" And we are suppose to be happy for them.

If you don't believe that this diseases bring fear to parents, ask your parents or better your grandparents what it was like to live in a time when the summer months were known as "Polio Season". A time when schools, camps, and playgrounds shut down. A time when parents kept their children indoors for fear that they will contract the disease. A time when parents felt their hearts rush into their throats when their child said: "Mommy, I don't feel so good." A time when the news carried stories of how many children were infected and how long the epidemic would last. It was a time of fear.

No disease is ever the will of G-d. Polio is a disease that should be wiped off the face of the Earth, regardless of what a fanatical cleric says or thinks. And the Pakistani government should be sending in troops to make certain that their children receive this life-saving vaccine, not allowing a madman to purposely destroy their lives.