Syria and Polio

There's been a reported outbreak of Polio in Syria leading to a vaccination campaign in the
midst of the civil war - the following link was posted by VINE (Vaccination Information Network) and came across my Facebook feed (my commentary is below, with link following) -

The link also contains a verbal blog/radio show to which this writer did not listen.

The article suffers from a terrible lack of focus as it starts out making the allegation that 10K
children have died in Pakistan as a result of AFP (Acute Flaccid Paralysis, aka: Polio) after
vaccination there due to the use of an untested vaccine distributed by GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations) who also partner with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Her article states that polio has not been seen in Syria for two decades and it is speculated
that it was brought in by rebels from Pakistan. The last half of article starts abruptly, discussing
the politics of the Syrian civil war, but does a terrible job of linking it to the cases of polio and
what they are doing about it (other than vaccinating kids with the same vaccine - oral polio
vaccine that is alleged to have caused 10K deaths in Pakistan)? She provided no references
in the article.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/publicadvocate/2013/11/25/10000-children-dead-from-vaccine-journalist-susanne-posel



A quick google search turned up this from Time magazine:
http://world.time.com/2013/11/13/pakistani-polio-hits-syria-proving-no-country-is-safe-until-all-are/
The title said the polio was from Pakistan, but the body of the article has this:

Genetic sequencing of the virus that spread through Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria, threatening tens of thousands of unvaccinated children, indicates that this particular strain is closely related to samples discovered in the sewage systems of Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Israel and the West Bank late last year.

Read more: Pakistan Infects Syria With Polio, Says the WHO | TIME.com http://world.time.com/2013/11/13/pakistani-polio-hits-syria-proving-no-country-is-safe-until-all-are/#ixzz2liARAvem 

It does not say that this is the strain found in Pakistan, though it could well be.

Wanting to learn more of her allegation that 10K children have died in Pakistan this writer
googled: "polio 10,000 children died from vaccine pakistan"
#6 from the top was this link:
http://www.vacfacts.info/failure-of-the-continued-polio-vaccine-campaign.html
(#2 was the link briefly discussed above)

The vacfacts link has a lot to be explored and quotes the Susanne Posel article as well.
There are many YouTube vids and links to other articles, and this is clearly a vaccine
skeptical site.

As this poster googled to get more information there was this report:

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/23/us-pakistan-kidnapping-teachers-idUSBRE9AM02M20131123

But considering the allegations of damage being done by the vaccine, it is not so
surprising that militants were taking these measures - all the while trying to use it
to maximize their own military objectives ... rather efficient of them, actually - quite
canny (though this blogger certainly doesn't condone this sort of thing!)


As usual, the truth has many facets ...