CIA

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February 11, 2013 | 12:54 PM | By  | 

Skepticism of vaccine programs overseas made worse by Zero Dark Thirty film | 

Is it foreign aid or covert aid?
Is it foreign aid or covert aid?
Flickr, johanoomen

Journalist Rob Crilly rightfully criticizes the film Zero Dark Thirty for getting its facts wrong about the CIA vaccination campaign that sought to confirm the DNA of bin Laden’s children.

The truth is dangerous enough. But Zero Dark Thirty risks making a difficult situation worse with a clumsy mistake. The real-life Dr Afridi used the cover of a hepatitis vaccination programme, but in the movie his team wear jackets suggesting they are providing polio drops.

For a movie that has claimed to be as factually accurate as possible in the face of criticisms, this is an error that should not have been made. However, Crilly’s larger point is to say that the film gives further ammo to polio vaccine conspiracy theorists. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, CIA, polio, vaccines
January 9, 2013 | 2:25 PM | By  | 

A renewed push to ban spies from overeas health and aid work | 

Is it foreign aid or covert aid?
Is it foreign aid or covert aid?
Flickr, johanoomen

Co-authored by Tom Murphy

The latest assassination of health workers vaccinating kids against polio in Pakistan may be the tipping point.

Or not.

It remains to be seen if a new surge of efforts — a letter of protest from leading public health experts, a petition — asking the Obama Administration to prohibit spies from pretending to be overseas aid and health workers will force a change in policy.

Such protests didn’t even garner an official response the last time.

When it was learned in mid-2011 that the CIA had conducted a fake vaccination scheme in Pakistan aimed at gathering evidence to locate the then still-alive-and-in-hiding Osama Bin Laden, many in the global health and humanitarian community (including Humanosphere) cried foul and predicted a lot of collateral damage.

The problem, said 200-plus aid groups in a letter of protest sent by Interaction, was not just that this would undermine international vaccination projects in Pakistan, which it arguably did in this nation with one of the world’s highest rates of polio and other infectious diseases.

Many experts said it would more broadly undermine trust and credibility for all humanitarian work – and likely endanger aid workers. Many of these tragic predictions have since come true, prompting many in the global health, aid and development community to push again for policy prohibitions against such schemes.

Frumkin“Public health programs overseas offer a very special opportunity … as a bridge to creating peace and mutual understanding,” said Howard Frumkin, dean of the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and a signatory to the letter of protest sent by leading health academics to President Obama. Unlike many other kinds of aid and assistance programs with inherent political or economic complications, Frumkin said, health initiatives done correctly overseas can forge intimate bonds of trust and respect for life that transcend politics.

“This is why it’s so important not to subvert the credibility and integrity of these kind of health programs,” he said. “The recent killings in Pakistan only underline the importance of keeping our intelligence activities separate from our health aid and assistance work.”

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Brett Keller, Charles Kenny, CIA, foreign aid, Howard Frumkin, humanitarian, Obama Administration, Pakistan, public health, vaccination
July 14, 2011 | 1:22 PM | By  | 

Three reasons why CIA faked vaccines may cause contagion of damage | 

Flickr, johanoomen

New Action Thriller: From UNICEF with Love?

Now that the CIA has acknowledged running a deceptive, if not totally fake, vaccination program in Pakistan as part of the effort months ago to hunt down Osama bin Laden, here are three reasons why this episode is prompting an angry response by those who work against global poverty and disease:

  1. This isn’t just about vaccines — about fighting terrorism vs fighting polio.
  2. Health workers and aid workers overseas have to be seen as neutral and independent if they are to operate effectively and safely.
  3. National security isn’t achieved just by hunting and killing bad guys. It’s also achieved through humanitarian efforts, aid efforts and other forms of international collaboration based on mutual trust.

So let’s review where we are so far with the strange case of “The Immunizer of Abbottabad.”

After The Guardian on Monday first revealed this bizarre scheme aimed at collecting DNA from bin Laden family members, the CIA apparently has confirmed to the Washington Post that it did set up the vaccination program in northern Pakistan. Here’s what some anonymous official reportedly told the newspaper:

A senior U.S. official said the vaccine campaign was conducted by medical professionals and should not be construed as a “fake public health effort.”

“People need to put this into some perspective,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “The vaccination campaign was part of the hunt for the world’s top terrorist, and nothing else.”

“If the United States hadn’t shown this kind of creativity, people would be scratching their heads asking why it hadn’t used all tools at its disposal to find bin Laden.”

Actually, many seem to be scratching their heads asking how the Central Intelligence Agency (given its middle name) came up with such a far-fetched scheme — it doesn’t appear to have worked — and how it can argue with a straight face that this was, in addition to a covert op, a legitimate vaccination program.

To begin with, just giving kids a real Hepatitis B vaccine doesn’t mean it’s not fake public health. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Politics, Alanna Shaikh, CIA, James Fallows, national security, Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, Sarah Boseley, The Guardian, vaccines
July 12, 2011 | 11:03 AM | By  | 

Did CIA undermine global health by faking vaccines in hunt for Bin Laden? | 

by hitthatswitch, Flickr

One of the chronic problems the international community has with almost every disease-fighting campaign has been the need to overcome mistrust — mistrust of government, of foreign health workers or outsider do-gooders in general.

This is, for a variety of reasons, especially true of vaccines.

So many worry that such global health efforts will suffer from the revelation, reported first in The Guardian and later by the New York Times and others, that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) set up a fake vaccination program in Pakistan in order to collect DNA samples. Says The Guardian:

The CIA organised a fake vaccination program in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader’s family, a Guardian investigation has found.

The CIA has refused to confirm or deny these reports.

Most of the media reports tend to focus on issues of terrorism, foreign policy and the increasingly strained relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. There was little attention, initially anyway, given to the possibility that this CIA ruse could also seriously undermine a key tool in the worldwide battle against disease. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Politics, Brett Keller, Chris Albon, CIA, Pakistan, polio, vaccination