In December(2012) 9 polio vaccination workers in Pakistan in were murdered. And just last week 7 men and women that were on their way home from work at a community health center in Pakistan were shot dead. Do you notice a trend?
Urban legends and conspiracy theories are what provoked people to think that these health workers need to be killed. Due to various reasons, discussed in this article, people have been lead to believe that there are malicious motives behind their medical acts and patients resist medical treatment in fear of being killed for their organs or being poisoned with a fake vaccine. The illegitimate distrust from the patients can originate because the doctor is foreign(usually Western) or a lot wealthier then the patients.
But there is some justifiable skepticism about these doctors. In an interview Dr. Jehuda Hiss, head of Israel’s main forensic institute, stated that in the 1990’s, body parts were taken from dead bodies(of Israelis, Palestinians, and others) without consent and were transplanted into Israeli soldiers. Although the Israeli military said they stopped the illegal taking of organs 10 years ago, people still believe that doctors will let their patients die rather then help them because their organs will be beneficial to them. People have been resistant to getting vaccines since the late 1700’s, after the creation of the smallpox vaccine.The fact that a vaccine injection actually puts bacteria or a virus into your body is scary and illegitimate to many. The article mentions a true incidence of doctor with ulterior motives. “A Pakistani doctor who was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency to give out a hepatitis B vaccine was actually trying to collect DNA samples from bin Laden’s suspected compound to verify his presence.”
Although there are rare cases of these myths holding truth, a doctors medical assistance will almost always be in the patients’ best interest and health. Do you think the government is keeping things from us and our actual doctors appointments are much more then just a check up?
Photographer: Army Medicin
Licensing: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
Main Article: http://www.livescience.com/26108-medical-urban-legends-kill.html
Secondary Articles: http://www.livescience.com/5955-body-part-theft-truth-myth.html and http://www.dovaccinescausethat.com/
Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/armymedicine/6382971901/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
thephilosopher
It’s incredibly unfortunate that people have conflated the morally suspect undertakings of government agencies with the efficacy of one of the most well-substantiated treatments in existence: vaccination. Unsurprisingly, the Pakistani Taliban is behind the wave of violence against aid and charity workers, a group so consumed with hatred that they will lash out against the few generous souls who are trying to help. And all the while, measles and mumps make their way back from the brink of eradication while the country bleeds.
explodingllama342
I’ve heard things similar to this, and I’ve also heard that signing off to be an organ donor when you die is a bad idea because then doctors won’t work as hard to save you. It’s why I refuse to sign off on being one.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/the-reluctant-organ-donor/
This article talks about that fear, although the person interviewed is the chairwoman of a organ donation group. Hmmm….
dwil
The medical world can be a very, very odd and horrible place sometimes. The legality of it all sometimes gets in the way of the true point of it all, helping patients. Laws and regulations combined with the need for a profit have made hospitals into crazy places in which the patient is sometimes left behind. I never get vaccinations but that is just my opinion and choice but I do think they can be beneficial and I do not think the government is involved in the corruption of our medicine or doctors. That part of the article I think is a little too extreme. Here is another crazy article on the subject.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9385674/Hospitals-letting-patients-die-to-save-money.html