Independent tests on controversial polio vaccines used in Nigeria show they are safe, Nigeria's president said Wednesday in a bid to ease Muslim fears the vaccines are contaminated with HIV and other deadly diseases. President Olusegun Obasanjo told reporters Wednesday the test results "categorically attest to the safety of the oral polio vaccine and clears it of contamination by HIV, cancerous agents and anti-fertility agents." Obasjanjo said the tests, conducted in South Africa, India and Indonesia, were consistent with the results of similar tests carried out earlier in Nigeria.
| Mad mullahs aren't going to believe anything from India. |
Many Muslims in the north have boycotted polio immunization campaigns because radical Islamic leaders said they were tainted with cancer-causing agents, the virus that causes AIDS and sterilizing chemicals in an alleged U.S. plot to decimate Muslim populations. A number of states in the north suspended polio immunization after one them, Kano, said its shamans scientists found trace levels of estadiol - a form of the female hormone estrogen - in samples of the vaccines used in Nigeria. Obasanjo said the next polio immunization campaign, on May 23-26, would be conducted with "the highest commitment and dedication possible" to halt the spread of polio in Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the last reservoirs of the disease worldwide. Mohammed Maccido, a Muslim leader, appeared at the news conference alongside Obasanjo and said he accepted the report. "I hereby urge all our people to bring out all their children to be immunized," Maccido said.
A spokesman for Kano state rejected the results. "With due respect, I believe our shamans (scientists) know better and their findings have not been disputed so far," Kano state spokesman Sule Ya'u Sule said.
| "Look at all the Nobels our scientists have won!" |
World Health Organization officials stress that even if the hormones were present - which they said was highly improbable - the substances would be absolutely harmless at the almost undetectable levels alleged.
| "Except for a small problem in that a mullah's voice will change, and they'll start carrying purses. Otherwise it's fine." |
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