The deans of the nation’s top public health schools sent a letter toPresident Obama on Monday condemning the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of a vaccination campaign ruse in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The letter was signed by deans at Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and nine other universities. The C.I.A. has admitted hiring a Pakistani doctor to give out hepatitis B vaccine, apparently in an effort to get DNA samples from the compound that it suspected was Bin Laden’s hide-out. That has caused a severe backlash against vaccination in Pakistan. Nine polio vaccinators have been shot dead, and the effort to fight polio there was halted for weeks. Deaths from measles also soared in 2012, to 306 from 64 the year before. Resistance to measles vaccine in the populous Sindh province was blamed.
The deans of the nation’s top public health schools sent a letter toPresident Obama on Monday condemning the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of a vaccination campaign ruse in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The letter was signed by deans at Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and nine other universities. The C.I.A. has admitted hiring a Pakistani doctor to give out hepatitis B vaccine, apparently in an effort to get DNA samples from the compound that it suspected was Bin Laden’s hide-out. That has caused a severe backlash against vaccination in Pakistan. Nine polio vaccinators have been shot dead, and the effort to fight polio there was halted for weeks. Deaths from measles also soared in 2012, to 306 from 64 the year before. Resistance to measles vaccine in the populous Sindh province was blamed.
