Re: US links issuance of $33 mn aid with Dr Shakil Afridi’s release
Partially Shakeel Afridi is responsible for this, I am reproducing an article more than an year old. We discussed this right after the raid. Having said that there are other myths attached with polio vaccines like impotency etc.
Ali Hayat: Aid Worker as Spy: The Cost of a Fake Vaccination Campaign
Sadly, none of our politicians made any reference to the consequences and implications of recruiting aid workers as intelligence operatives. At the time of his recruitment by the CIA, Dr. Afridi was administering a polio vaccination effort in Khyber Agency, which isaccording to UNICEF, the worst hit area in Pakistan. Out of 23 polio cases reported in Pakistan this year, nine were detected in Khyber Agency. Vaccination experts working in Pakistan, including westerners, have acknowledged the demonstrable harm resulting from the CIA scheme last year.
The fallout from this has taken place at a number of levels. Firstly, the general population in Pakistan, especially in the more conservative and backward areas, including many of the conflict-afflicted areas has refused vaccinations for their children. At the general population level, the news of an aid professional working as a foreign intelligence operative and in some ways contributing to lethal targeting, stokes all too genuine fears, made even more real by the ongoing drone campaign.