Paranoid conspiracy theories kill!

/ viruses / lethal / idiocy /
Stupid conspiracy theories and/or religious superstitions are lethal, as the story of current attempts to eradicate polio shows:
"...Polio's [resurgence] started in the summer of 2003 in northern Nigeria. In the Kano state, politicians and clerics claimed that the polio vaccine was a 'Western' ploy, tainted with HIV or with hormones meant to render Muslim women infertile. The resulting resistance to the eradication program led to immunizations being suspended for 11 months. By the summer of 2004, outbreaks in Nigeria had spread to 10 surrounding nations that had been polio-free for years, leaving nearly 700 children paralyzed and reestablishing polio in four countries..."