I have written here a number of times in the past (links below), about Muslims and Muslim clerics who refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated. The reasons that have been given have ranged from the ludicrous – that vaccines are a ‘Zionist and Western plot’ to sterilise Muslims, right through to the mistaken explanation that some vaccines contain minute quantities of pork gelatine and therefore are forbidden.
The Islamic campaign against vaccines has had a devastating effect on the lives of children and adults in areas that have been afflicted by Islam-based vaccine conspiracy theories and an over-strict interpretation of the dietary restrictions on pork products. Countries like Pakistan and the northern, mostly Islamic, areas of Nigeria are two of the biggest pools for many awful diseases. Childhood diseases, some that can have life threatening or life changing complications, that are being eliminated in the West, diseases such as Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Diptheria, are commonplace where vaccination does not occur. The Islamic hatred has even caused the deaths in Pakistan (no surprise there) of health workers engaged on anti-Polio vaccination programmes. The world is almost on the brink of eradicating Polio just as the scourge of Smallpox has been eradicated. It is in the Islamic world that, due to a hatred of the West and Islamic religious intransigence, that this horrible disease, which sometimes kills and often cripples, continues to exist.
There is enough evidence now available to be able to say honestly that, due to the hostility to vaccination on political grounds and hostility to vaccination on religious grounds, Islam could fairly be described as a disease vector. Horrible and deadly illnesses such as Polio fester and thrive in the lands of Islam and in communities controlled by Islam, in a similar way to how a mosquito acts as a vector for Malaria or how a rat hosts plague-carrying fleas.
An indication of the scale of this problem and the possible threat to worldwide public health of the lack of vaccinations in Islamic countries, can be gained from two articles that were cited by the Religion of Peace website. The first story is one from the UK’s Daily Telegraph and concerns problems with Islamic religious intransigence in Indonesia regarding the vaccine for Measles. Apparently there is a race against time going on in Indonesia, between the possibility of a major outbreak of Measles and the development of a Halal, pork-free vaccine.
The Telegraph said:
An Indonesian pharmaceuticals company has said it is racing to produce a “halal” form of the measles-rubella vaccine amid concerns that conservative Muslim parents might deny their children’s inoculation on the grounds that it contains traces of pork.
The state-owned Bio Farma confirmed its research after the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), considered to be the Southeast Asian nation’s most authoritative Muslim body, declared the vaccination to be ‘haram’, or religiously forbidden.
MUI quickly clarified that in light of the dangers posed by the diseases, Muslims should continue to use the vaccine until an alternative was found.
However, its initial declaration that the vaccine was ‘unclean’ has provoked fears that conservatives may still shun the injection for religious reasons.
Whilst I applaud the efforts being made by the pharmaceutical company to try to develop this vaccine and the Islamic clerics who are appealing for parents to temporarily accept the pork-containing vaccine, it’s possible that the more conservative position may hold sway. This could end up with major outbreaks of Measles and Rubella in one of the world’s more populous countries. With modern travel, this means that these diseases could be brought to countries like Britain, where vaccination of babies for these diseases doesn’t normally occur until the baby is one year old. This looks to me like an awfully large cohort of children who could be at risk of these diseases, if they are brought into the country from somewhere like Indonesia. Although at this stage it is a remote possibility, we could be in a situation where British babies die because of Islamic religious intransigence in a place on the other side of the world.
The second story of Islamic religious intransigence over vaccination comes from the Indian city of Ahmedabad where conspiracy theories about vaccines such as it causing sterility, have seen vaccination levels drop to 37% in Muslim dominated areas of the city. This compares very adversely to the (still appallingly low to my mind) vaccination rates of the Gujarat region as a whole, which is 64%. There is obviously less herd immunity to these diseases in Gurjarat when compared to Britain for example, where vaccination rates have not dipped below 80% (see pdf below) between the period 1994 – 2007. Although Britain’s rates are less than they should be to my mind (I don’t believe that they should drop below 90%), this drop seems to be more down to people listening to the medical charlatan Andrew Wakefield, rather than any religious objections from the majority of the population.
The report cited by ROP from the Indian Express said:
The low coverage of the Measles-Rubella vaccine in Ahmedabad city, which has reported the second lowest coverage in Gujarat at 37 per cent against the state average of 64 per cent, has been attributed to the low coverage in Muslim dominated areas of the city.
According to Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) figures, certain areas with high Muslim population reported as low as seven per cent vaccine coverage, since the drive began on July 16.
For the campaign, set to conclude by August end, out of a target population of 1.6 crore in the state, Ahmedabad has a target of 14.8 lakh. An estimated number of 2,414 schools have been identified for the vaccination drive.
Among the reasons cited for the low percentage, are the rumours about the side-effects of the vaccine, which the authorities tried to dispel to have the community accept the vaccine as safe, officials said. One such rumour was that the vaccine led to “impotency”.
AMC medical officer Dr Bhavin Solanki told The Indian Express, “This (low coverage among Muslims) is among one of the reasons for a low percentage of MR vaccination in the AMC area as there are cases where there is not an encouraging response in affluent areas either.”
According to the Indian Express this low rate of vaccinations in Muslim areas (which in itself is an improvement on the previously lowest ever level of vaccinations was also from a Muslim area of Gujerat) comes in spite of a major campaign by religious schools and more scientifically aware Islamic clerics. To cut a long story short, a lot of Muslims in the Gujarat region seem so religiously intransigent that they prefer to believe completely baseless conspiracy theories peddled by clerics more extreme than the mainstream, over the Islamic scholars of the area. This is dangerous. This may end up with Ahmedabad becoming a disease reservoir, that will affect not only the Muslims of that city, but also the wider population of India and maybe elsewhere.
For comparison, I looked into the attitudinal situation regarding pork gelatine in vaccines with the other world religion that forbids pork, which is Judaism. Now although no single Rabbi can claim to speak for all Jews, and debate about important matters is culturally accepted, it’s interesting to look at two judgements made by Rabbonim on the subject of pork products in medicines.
The first is from 2003 and is from Rabbi Abraham Adler, BPharm MRPharm and is being quoted by the Vaccine Information Service of the world famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States.
Rabbi Adler said:
To whom it may concern
Re: Porcine and other animal derived ingredients in non oral medication.
It should be noted that according to Jewish laws, there is no problems with porcine or other animal derived ingredients in non oral products. This includes vaccines, injections, suppositories, creams and ointments.
Rabbi Adler reiterated his views on whether or not vaccines containing pork gelatine were Kosher in 2013 when he said that a Flu vaccine was kosher even though it contains pork. This would tie in with my understanding of Jewish law in which almost any law of Judaism can be broken in order to save a life. Taken to its extremes, this prioritising of the concept of saving life as a primary commandment, could mean that a pregnant woman suffering from a particular medical condition that required medication containing pork would be given it, even on the most holy fast day of Yom Kippur and in any case, would not be allowed to fast and would be required to eat and drink in modest amounts.
Rabbi Adler’s view about vaccines was backed up by Rabbi Yehuda Brodie, of the Manchester Beth Din, who called the pork containing vaccines ‘perfectly acceptable’.
When my son had to have his Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccination, I knew from looking at the data on the vaccine that it contained pork gelatine but I had no thought of denying him this life preserving treatment because of that. I strongly suspect that G-d would punish me more for denying him treatment than bringing him into contact with pork through an intramuscular injection.
I must admit at this stage that all religious have their minority of nutcases who take things a little too far and there may well be a small number of Jews who refuse vaccination on the grounds that the vaccine contains pork. However, this is a tiny, tiny number of people that in the UK at least would have minimal effect on overall herd immunity to Measles, Mumps and Rubella.
The problem of extremely low vaccination rates in Gujarat is far far greater than a few people going off the rails religiously. A vaccination rate of 37% as is the case in Ahmedabad is a health disaster waiting to happen and it could, and I pray it does not, spread through Indian Muslim areas and even into the wider world. We owe it to our future generations to eradicate the diseases that have carried off so many people in the past and make polio, MMR and other similar infectious killers, things of the past.
This Islamic religious intransigence with regards to vaccines could become a problem for all of us. We could be looking, as a worst case scenario, at a situation where the diseases that have been allowed to fester in Islamic areas and countries become widespread again. I do not want to see the iron leg supports I saw as a child in London, reappear in my son’s lifetime.
Links
UK Vaccination rates
Other articles from Fahrenheit211 regarding problems with vaccination rates in the Islamic world
