Evidence-based science

Yes, I have been cogitating on the difficulty of sustaining evidence-based scientific beliefs in human society.  Why do you ask?
There is very interesting news out of Pakistan today that the father of a child who has developed polio has been arrested because he refused to allow his son to be vaccinated:
After a polio case was detected here on Thur­sday, the Kohat administration arrested the father of the affected child because he had refused to get his child vaccinated against polio when vaccinators visited his home. Two health supervisors and a patwari have also been taken into custody for showing negligence in performing their duty. Three-year-old Moham­mad is the second victim of polio in Dhodha area of Kohat district this year. Deputy Commissioner of Kohat Riaz Khan Mehsud told Dawn on telephone that he issued orders for arrest after an inquiry revealed that the father of the affected child, Mullah Mohammad Yousuf, had not allowed vaccinators to give polio drops to his son.
This report probably isn't fair to the Pakistanis.  There's good reason to think that they're not so much motivated by spurious reports linking vaccines to autism as they are to fairly well-grounded suspicion of the people who show up at their doors offering public health interventions.  They may or may not be mistaken about that concern, but it's not really a question of scientific integrity.

3 comments:

Gringo said...

IIRC, Mullahs have been at the forefront of anti-vaccination campaigns.
Re not trusting the Pakistan government- a valid point. I for one don't trust it.

james said...

Some of the arrogant noises I've heard people make in this country don't help one little bit. When some loon over here says that we need to arrange for birth control meds to go into the vaccinations or even the water supply in the 3rd world, you can bet the news spreads.

Texan99 said...

Agreed. Once you admit you're prepared to pull off a fraud, no one ever believes you again. It's not just schemes to slip birth control into the water, it's also cleverly using medical personnel to carry out schemes that are important to the CIA--it's a good way to get medical personnel killed in the future, even if they're not the ones working for the CIA. Islamists do the same thing when they use ambulances for bomb squads.