August 20, 2005

MULTICULTURALISTS TAKE NOTE: ISLAM'S LATEST GIFT TO THE WORLD

The World Health Organization is moving to stem the global spread of the polio virus, which now affects mainly Muslim countries and regions. Polio was nearly eradicated from the world three years ago, but several Muslim-dominated states in northern Nigeria, which has one of the last endemic pockets of the disease, stopped all vaccinations from mid-2003 to mid-2004 because of swirling rumors that the vaccine was a Western plot to make Muslim girls sterile or that it contained the virus that causes AIDS. Since then, it has spread back to 16 other countries, and all the cases have been traced to Nigerian strains.

According to the NY Times (click HERE) the disease spreads “along the highways skirting the southern edge of the Sahara, and public health authorities believe that many pilgrims heading for Mecca carried the virus. There have been large outbreaks in ports on the Red Sea, which separates Africa from the Arabian peninsula….

“In May, the disease was found in Indonesia, the world's fourth-most-populous nation. There are now more than 200 cases of paralysis there, and health authorities are in a fierce fight to contain that epidemic, which is still spreading to new areas.
“Because many people in Indonesia travel back and forth to China, the Philippines and Malaysia, the risk of the disease spreading to those countries is very high….

Why this news is buried in the back of the Times while a story that tells the world the hot news that some patients may have to wait many hours in doctors’ waiting rooms is on the front page can only be explained by the Times’ need to protect the notion that all cultures are equal and that there is nothing intrinsically pathological about the Muslim culture.