Blogs examine root causes, implications of myths about polio vaccination

Citing a review by Telegraph correspondent Rob Crilly criticizing the film Zero Dark Thirty "for getting its facts wrong about the CIA vaccination campaign that sought to confirm the DNA of [Osama] bin Laden's children," development blogger Tom Murphy writes in the Humanosphere blog, "Crilly's larger point is to say that the film gives further ammo to polio vaccine conspiracy theorists." Murphy adds, "The question that lingers is whether the mistake in the movie has any real impact" (2/11). In a similar post in the AlertNet News Blog, journalist Emma Batha notes, "The sterilization myth is a common one which has jeopardized vaccination programs in both Nigeria and Pakistan, where at least 16 polio workers -- some of them teenage girls -- have been killed in a string of recent attacks," and examines why such myths persist (2/11). Writing about the recent murders of health care workers in Kano, Nigeria, John Campbell, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, states in the Council's "Africa In Transition" blog, "Commentators, including Senator Bukola Saraki, a former governor of Kwara state and former chairman of the Governors Forum, and the national chairman of Journalists Against Polio, see the murders as inevitably setting back the polio immunization campaign" (2/12).