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Promotion of iodised salt: Fata officials oppose hiring of clerics
[Dawn] Officials at the Fata Directorate of Health has opposed the hiring of the service of religious leaders for promotion of iodised salt in tribal area fearing certain complications, it is learnt.

"Keeping in view the Learned Elders of Islam's involvement to scale up awareness of anti-polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
vaccination, officials have opposed the idea to engage holy mans to promote iodised salt in four tribal agencies," an official told Dawn on Sunday.

The official said the idea under which Learned Elders of Islam would ask their followers in mosques in favour of using iodised salt was not workable and therefore, it was suggested to involve schoolteachers in the campaign.

He said the Unicef's plan to run campaign in Orakzai, Bajaur, Khyber and Mohmand agencies by recruiting prayers leaders and holy men was opposed in two meetings with the Fata Directorate of Health officials in view of the past experiences, especially those of anti-polio vaccination campaigns.

The official said an NGO was already running the said project in parts of Fata.

According to him, the argument for disapproval of the plan was failure of anti-polio campaigns.

"The role of Learned Elders of Islam in public awareness can not be denied but their involvement in every campaign entailed complications. The plan was opposed because it would be very difficult to bribe pay off pay to every mullah," he said.

Sources said assigning any role to holy mans in donor-sponsored health advocacy projects, including the one meant for promotion of use of iodine to contain goiter, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
and Fata had turned out to be a futile exercise and counterproductive.Background interviews with health department's officials and representatives of donor agencies showed that they were unanimous that employing religious leaders to advocate for oral polio vaccine coupled with haphazard mobilisation drive by the departments and NGOs had caused a setback instead of creating public awareness.
I'm 65 years old. I've been all over a good part of the world, to include some fairly primitive areas. I've never seen a case of goiter. And they're just now reluctantly accepting the introduction of iodized salt.
Posted by: Fred 2012-11-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=355918