$50 Million to Eradicate Polio
Success has many parents, but having moved a private members’ motion in parliament a few months ago asking for CHOGM to focus on polio, I’m chuffed to see the PM today announcing $50 million to eradicate the disease in the four countries where it remains endemic: Afghanistan, Nigeria, India and Pakistan.
Getting rid of the final few cases will take ingenuity. In a speech earlier this year, I quoted former Economist journalist Robert Guest, writing in 2004:
‘Somalia has no government, unless you count a “transitional” one that controls a few streets in the capital, Mogadishu, and a short stretch of coastline. The rest of the country is divided into warring fiefdoms. Warlords extract protection money from anyone who has money to extract. Clans, sub-clans, and sub-sub-clans pursue bloody vendettas against each other, often fighting over grudges that pre-date the colonial period. Few children learn to read, but practically all self-respecting young men carry submachine-guns.
‘I was at one of the country’s countless road blocks, on a sandy road outside Baidoa, a southern town of shell-blasted stone walls and sandy streets. The local warlord’s men were waving their Kalishnikovs at approaching trucks, forcing them to stop. Many of the trucks carried passengers perched atop the cargoes of logs or oil drums. The men with guns then ordered all the children under five to dismount and herded them into the shade of a nearby tree. There, they handed them over to strangers with clipboards, who squeezed open their mouths and fed each one a single drop of polio vaccine.’
Robert Guest is describing vaccination work carried out by the World Health Organisation, which decided that working with local warlords to distribute polio vaccine was the lesser of two evils.
Dear Andrew,
Vaccination at gunpoint. Australia is backing a violent push to vaccinate the children of Afghanistan, Nigeria, India and Pakistan. This is a dangerous step. The World Health Organisation does not have to force people to come and get food drops. If polio vaccination works and is safe, there will be no need for force. Somalis will travel miles to save their children from the ravages of polio. But, if some children are paralysed by the vaccine, and vaccinated children still get the disease, the only way will be to use force. The use of compulsion or force is a sign that something is wrong. It is NOT a sign that Afghans or Indians are selfish, anti-the-good-of-the-community. Bill Gates and the Australian Government appear to be on the wrong side of history.
Where is Australia’s $50 million going? Not to needy people. The cost-benefit analysis is damning:
Cost: The Australian Immunisation Handbook provides the following information: Lifetime paralysis from the vaccine, vaccine reactions especially in undernourished children, there will be some deaths; the cost of continued exposure to unhygienic living conditions, when the money could have been spent on clean water supplies, not expensive vaccines.
Benefit of vaccines is not proved. The vaccines have never been shown in official ABS figures to reduce the disease. In fact, the opposite. The falls in disease occurred well before the vaccines were introduced, smallpox and polio included. Your staff will be able to verify this.
This project goes against all the principles of humane behavior. I find no evidence that the polio vaccine will prevent the disease. If I am to consider voting for you again, I will need real evidence that this vaccine is safe and that it will stop a child from getting polio. You may not be aware of the numbers of Australians who have serious concerns about the safety of vaccination, not because of scare-mongering but because they have seen the effects with their own eyes. Safety is being promised without any evidence. Effectiveness is assumed, again without any evidence. This is the opposite of evidence-based medicine. The evidence is being trivialized or ignored by science power-brokers.
To convince me, you will need to prove that your information comes from sources free of conflicts of interest, that have not been contaminated by pharmaceutical funding. This excludes NCIRS, NHMRC, many prominent experts, much medical publishing. There is a clear divide in medical science between those who support drugs without question and those who examine findings analytically. Our medical profession calls out constantly for more transparency in dealings between doctors and the pharmaceutical industry. There is a reason for this. It is apparent at conferences. Medicines are not all safe. Vaccines in particular represent a balancing act between too much toxicity and not enough stimulation. Proving safety should be a priority but instead we find side effects are hidden from view, and safety is often assumed. Assumed!
I hope you will reconsider your support for the polio eradication project. I can be contacted at this email address if you wish further information, or have any questions.
Regards
Jenny Heywood