A Reuters piece on vaccination programs quotes Senior Fellow Charles Kenny.
Vaccination isn’t perfect — as we’re discovering right now. Especially with respect to influenza, which comes in a dizzying variety of flavors, a vaccine can’t prevent an outbreak every year. But vaccination has proved itself time and time again as being the most ambitious and effective solution to public-health problems that the world has ever seen. Vaccinate enough people, especially children, and you can eradicate entirely some of the world’s most lethal and devastating diseases.
Pakistani preachers have been saying that vaccination campaigns are a western attempt to sterilize Muslims; that’s ridiculous, of course, but the fact that the CIA has indeed used vaccination campaigns in the past, as a way to prosecute its own counter-terrorism campaigns, hardly makes it any easier for organizations like the World Health Organization and Unicef to counter the rumors.
What can the US government do about this? Not a lot, sadly. But there is one small thing, which is quite easy, and could conceivably make a real difference at the margin. Here’s Charles Kenny:
A declaration by the US that public health interventions will not be used to gather intelligence could play a vital role in tipping the balance towards successful polio eradication – and enhance US national security. Such a declaration has beenproposed in a letter sent to President Obama this Monday signed by the deans of America’s top public health schools. I suggest this could be modeled on – and inserted into – Executive Order 12333 which mandates that “No element of the Intelligence Community shall sponsor, contract for, or conduct research on human subjects except in accordance with guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Human Services,” and bans engagement in or conspiracy towards assassination and actions intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies, or media.
Kenny would like one extra line added to EO12333:
No person acting on behalf of elements of the Intelligence Community may join or otherwise participate in any activity directly related to the provision of child public health services on behalf of any element of the Intelligence Community.
Adding that line could do no harm, and might, conceivably, do quite a lot of good — saving the lives of children and health workers alike. Given the millions of parents who decide whether or not to vaccinate their children every year, even small things can have large potential knock-on effects. Here’s hoping the White House is listening.