A worldwide campaign begun in 1988 to eradicate the polio infection was on the verge of success when, early in 2003, a conspiracy theory took hold of the Muslim population in northern Nigeria. That conspiracy theory has single-handedly returned polio to epidemic proportions.

The theory's source seems to be a physician and the president of Nigeria's Supreme Council for Shari'a Law, Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, 68. Dr. Ahmed, an Islamist, accuses Americans of lacing the vaccine with an anti-fertility agent that sterilizes children (or, in an alternate theory, it infects them with AIDS) and considers them, according to John Murphy of the Baltimore Sun, "the worst criminals on Earth … Even Hitler was not as evil as that."

[snip]

The Baltimore Sun offers the example of a young Nigerian mother who rejected the polio vaccine for her child. The child contracted polio, and the mother was asked if she regretted her decision. Unhesitatingly, she replied, "No, I would do the same." Villagers saw the vaccination program as a threat and on occasion "chased, threatened and assaulted vaccinators. Frustrated, some vaccination teams dumped thousands of doses of the vaccine rather than face angry villagers."

Does anyone other than the WHO and the UN see a problem here? I mean, you and I had our vaccinations when we were little, and our children have had them, but the Holy Warriors who would very much like to see us and our children dead are leaving themselves open to this crippling and deadly disease. Oh well. Remind me to shed a tear sometime for them.

In other news, perhaps you would like to burn an American flag on Independence Day this year. Personally, I will be ripping individual pages from a Koran and wiping my ass with them before flushing them down the toilet. Now we know why corn on the cob is served for Fourth of July!