Immunizations as a Cover for Spying Operations

Immunizations as a Cover for Spying Operations14-15 Ethics Bowl Case 4

The Ruse: Dr. Shakil Afridi

• In the months leading up to the raid that killed bin Laden, the CIA enlisted the help of Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi.

• He gave hepatitis B vaccines in an attempt to obtain DNA samples from bin Laden’s children that could be compared with samples from his late sister to prove the family was living in the compound.

• Afridi was arrested by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency for working with American intelligence agents and remains in jail in Pakistan.

CIA Claims No More Vaccinations Programs Will Be Used As Spying

Cover Ups

What is polio?

• Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease. There is no cure, but there are safe and effective vaccines. Vaccination is the best way to stop the disease from spreading.

• Most often spreads through infected water

• Causes paralysis

“For every clinical case of polio, there are 200 subclinical ones that present themselves merely as a bad summer cold; but that’s 200

active carriers who can and do spread the wild virus. Even people who are infected with what will turn out to be a crippling strain of the

disease do not know they’re sick for a week or more, as the virus makes the long journey from the throat to the gut to the

bloodstream—multiplying explosively all the way—and finally to the anterior horns of the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata of the

brain, where it wipes out the cells that signal the muscles, paralyzing them forever. “

History of Polio

• In the late 1940s to the early 1950s, in the

United States alone, polio crippled around

35,000 people each year making it one of the

most feared diseases of the twentieth

century. By 1979 the country became polio

free.

• Endemic in: Afghanistan, Nigeria and

Pakistan

• Poliovirus has been reintroduced and

continues to spread in Syria, Cameroon and

the Horn of Africa after the spread of the

virus was previously stopped.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The Truth About Polio

Vaccinations• 2 types: inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) and

oral polio vaccine (OPV).

• Only IPV has been used in the United States since 2000; however OPV is still used throughout much of the world.

• Children should be vaccinated with 4 doses of polio vaccine at the following ages:– A dose at 2 months

– A dose at 4 months

– A dose at 6-18 months

– A booster dose at 4-6 years

Myths About Polio

Vaccinations• Western plot to sterilize girls

• unclean under Islamic law

• contains the AIDS virus

Why care about polio?

• As long as polio remains anywhere, it’s a threat everywhere. According to the World Health Organization, failure to eradicate polio could, within 10 years, result in as many as 200,000 new cases worldwide every year.

“The distrust sowed by the sham campaign in Pakistan could conceivably postpone polio eradiation for 20 years,

leading to 100,000 more cases that might otherwise not have occurred….’Forevermore, people would say this

disease, this crippled child, is because the U.S. was so crazy to get Osama bin Laden.”

–Leslie F. Roberts, Columbia University’s

Mailman School of Public Health

Why is the goal to eradicate the

disease?

• Why isn’t immunizing ourselves enough?

– Some people are allergic to the vaccine so they

aren’t protected

– There is a risk that eventually the disease will

mutate in such a way that the vaccine will no

longer provide protection.

A Look at How Polio is Crippling Pakistan

Questions to Consider

• Under what circumstances (if any) is the use of an ostensibly humanitarian program for ulterior purposes justified?

• Under what circumstances (if any) should governments provide aid to countries known to harbor terrorists?

How the CIA’s Fake Vaccination

Campaign Endangers Us All“The vaccination ruse also poses a moral problem. Physicians take a Hippocratic oath to do no harm. Humanitarian workers adhere to an international code of conduct that requires that their services be provided independently of national agendas, on the bases of need alone. The misguided vaccine program in Pakistan was started in a

poor neighborhood of Abbottabad, no doubt to give it an air of legitimacy. Yet after the first in a standard series of three hepatitis B shots was given, the effort was abandoned so that the team could move to bin Laden’s wealthier community. This lapse in protocol

proves that the best interests of the recipients were not the guiding principle of the effort. There must be a red line drawn between

humanitarian efforts and the machinations of warfare, no matter how unconventional. The costs to future humanitarian endeavors, global stability and U.S. national security of doing otherwise are too high—even when weighted against the liquidation of one of the U.S.’s most

fearsome enemies and even if no other option is available.” –Scientific American

Questions to Consider

• When is it justifiable for a professional (or profession) to neglect the ethical principles they previously agreed to abide by?