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I have done some work with Kids Risk (quoted in the article) in the past, and it's been an interesting journey to watch Pakistan. The Osama bin Laden raid reall
by pclmulqdq 3y ago
I have done some work with Kids Risk (quoted in the article) in the past, and it's been an interesting journey to watch Pakistan. The Osama bin Laden raid really screwed the GPEI in 2010 and still has knock-on effects. Thankfully the Pakistani health ministry is finally getting serious about polio again, but it's tough to rebuild that level of trust. The Taliban in Afghanistan also used to be good at vaccination, but that also changed with bin Laden.
- nimish 3y agoYep. They are 100% correct that vaccine drives can be hijacked by geopolitical enemies. It is not an unreasonable fear.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoBefore 2010, they didn't used to get hijacked like that despite the risk. There was a bit of a gentleman's agreement about organizations like MSF, UNICEF, and the GPEI. These sorts of NGOs got a lot of access in many countries because they were "off-limits" for espionage. There's not a terrible chance (although I would give it less than a coin flip) that the CIA hasn't developed any assets in any of these medical NGOs since then, but the illusion has been shattered with the one incident.