New York Times examines how CIA's decision to use vaccination team affecting polio eradication efforts

The New York Times examines how the CIA's 2011 decision to use a vaccination team to collect DNA samples and information from residents of Osama bin Laden's compound damaged efforts to vaccinate children for polio in Pakistan. The effects of the campaign, which has prompted local leaders to ban polio vaccination teams, will not be fully known "until the summer spike of polio cases tapers off in the fall," the newspaper writes and reviews the history of the case as well as polio in the region. Elias Durry, the WHO's polio coordinator for Pakistan, "and other leaders of the global war on polio say they have recovered from worse setbacks," and many experts are confident that Pakistan eventually will eliminate polio, according to the New York Times (McNeil, 7/9).