Muslims Urged to Shun Vaccines in UK

A leading Islamic doctor is urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps, and rubella because they contain substances making them unlawful for Muslims to take.

Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, says almost all vaccines contain un-Islamic "haram" derivatives of animal or human tissue, and that Muslim parents are better off letting childrens' immune systems develop on their own.

Dr Katme, an NHS psychiatrist, said: "If you breastfeed your child for two years - as the Koran says - and you eat Koranic food like olives and black seed, and you do ablution each time you pray, then you will have a strong defence system."

The Department of Health and the British Medical Association have criticised Dr Katme, saying his suggestions are likely to increase infection rates of children in Muslim communities. Other Muslim groups have also condemned the suggestion.

This comes on the heels of reports claiming that British Muslims aren't getting the kind of health care that other groups are getting in the UK. Funny, but if Muslim religious and medical leaders are telling their followers and patients to avoid care, what exactly does one expect to happen to the health of those patients? It's not going to improve or hold up to the standards of other communities where the population is routinely vaccinated and receives medical care.

We've seen similar efforts in places like Sudan, Nigeria and elsewhere in the Islamist world, where religious leaders convince their followers that vaccines to eliminate polio are nothing but Zionist plots or designed to reduce the fertility of Muslims.

For those who don't remember what polio is, it's a childhood illness that can result in death or permanent disability. Effective vaccines were created and have all but eliminated polio from the memories of those growing up in the late 20th Century. The World Health Organization has a worldwide effort to eliminate the disease, but has been thwarted from this goal precisely because of these lies and misconceptions about the polio vaccine. So, instead of wiping out this scourge, the perpetrators of the lies and myths condemn vulnerable populations to polio outbreaks that could be avoided with a simple vaccine.

What this does is simply extend and modernize the blood libels and hatred towards the West through a combination of ignorance, religious and "medical experts" purposefully misleading and lying to Muslims to perpetuate rumors and lies that only harm the people they claim to represent.

UPDATE:
Western Resistance notes that the countries where polio outbreaks are prevalent are those which are Muslim-majority populations - and a disease that should have been eradicated had those countries engaged in vaccination of their populations are instead seeing a resurgence of the disease and it is now spreading to countries where the disease had been eliminated (again, mostly Muslim nations).

UPDATE:
Others blogging: Instapundit and Jammie Wearing Fool.

UPDATE:
Dan Riehl notes that Glenn Greenwald takes exception to Instapundit's comments on the situation. I think Greenwald avoids the central point of the original story - that there are Muslim leaders who are telling their followers to not take vaccines that will improve the health and welfare of countless children, and those followers that would listen to these because they are in a position of power information that is specifically wrong and harmful.

This has absolutely nothing to do with whether you are for or against other vaccines and whether there is a justification to withhold giving a vaccine because there is little reason to believe that an infant or young child might be exposed to the disease being prevented (HPV or HepA for example) and that such vaccines could be administered on a different schedule than the one proffered by some health experts. This also has nothing to do with those who believe that some vaccinations might have something to do with autism, particularly those with thimerosol (a mercury preservative), though the science is mixed.

These Muslim leaders are not basing their opposition to vaccinations on science, but on claims that their religious beliefs will protect them from disease or that the vaccines are being used to keep down Muslim fertility or other such nonsense (as is oft repeated in places like Sudan, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Indonesia).

These so-called leaders are endangering the welfare of those who rely upon these leaders for their opinions and assessments. Calling these so-called leaders on the carpet to be held accountable for these statements is absolutely necessary to ensure that the children - those who are being affected by the decisions of their parents and Islamic leaders - are not injured because of narrow-mindedness, ignorance, and worse.

Others blogging: Blue Crab Boulevard and Secular Blasphemy.