Polio: Never Take Viruses for Granted

Vaccine: never take war or politics or religion for granted. Not that all of the problems in polio eradication would have gone away absent war, and specifically the war on terror (tm) -But a lot of this has been fuelled by people's suspicion of the US intent behind vaccination.

I hate conspiracy theory. But the role of the C.I.A. in politicising vaccination programmes in the hunt for Bin Laden cannot be discounted. It led to court action in Pakistan, the foundational qualities of what the C.I.A. does in public health isn't the point here (you actually want an external strategic intelligence body looking at the problem. it affects the USA) -the point is, it was "weaponised" in marginalised people's minds as a reason to reject vaccination.