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Polio
Vaccination and Population Control: Some Food for Thought By Dauda
Sulaiman Dauda, MD.
Introduction:
Since then a number of articles, interviews and opinion
pieces have appeared in various local papers as well as Internet
websites discussing the issue. The aetiology, epidemiology,
pathogenesis, clinical manifestation and prophylaxis of poliomyelitis,
as well as the risks this may entail have adequately been covered in
these efforts and require no repetition here.
The main thrust of this contribution, therefore, is to
attempt to shed more light on the concerns raised by the SCSN and others
before and after it based on established facts from the past and
present. Do the facts on the ground suffice for anyone to make
allegations of ulterior motives against the sponsors of an otherwise
commendable effort at eradicating a serious condition such as polio? Is
there a real cause for concern or is the SCSN only making a mountain out
of a molehill? I shall, in what follows, quote extensively from
various articles, opinion pieces, declassified U.S. government documents
and books. The reader is advised to note that all emphases, in italics,
are mine. Demographics and the Politics of Population Control: The wealth and development potential of any particular
country is defined in terms of its human as well as natural resources.
The relatively recent examples of Japan and the so-called “Asian tiger
economies” provide ample proof that as long as its human resources are
adequately harnessed, a country’s development need not be hampered by
scarcity or non-availability of natural assets. The realization of the importance of human resources
explains the proliferation, in the modern age, of all manner of
population groups, commissions, agencies and programmes aimed in some
countries at controlling population growth whilst in others the target
is promoting same. It is ironic that while the industrialized nations of
the West spend billions annually to bombard the nations of the “Third
World” with malthusian propaganda and sponsoring programmes aimed at
reducing their population, they are busy trying to maintain, if not
increase, population growth at home.
In 1922, Lothrop Stoddard, Harvard academic and a leading expert on
demographics in his day, authored “The Rising Tide of Color against
White World Supremacy”. In this book which has, alongside Adolf
Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, since become a major contender to the title
of the racial supremacists’ bible, Stoddard ventures that: “the
world-wide struggle between the primary races of mankind - the 'conflict
of color,' as it has been happily termed - bids fair to be the
fundamental problem of the twentieth century, and great communities
like the United States of America, the South African Confederation, and
Australasia regard the 'color question' as perhaps the gravest problem
of the future.” He exults over “the overwhelming preponderance of the white race
in the ordering of the world's affairs” at the turn of the century
adding that: “Judged by accepted canons of statecraft, the white man
towered the indisputable master of the planet. Forth from Europe's
teeming mother hive the imperious Sons of Japhet had swarmed for
centuries to plant their laws, their customs, and their battle-flags
at the uttermost ends of the earth. Two whole continents, North America
and Australia, had been made virtually as white in blood as the European
motherland; two other continents, South America and Africa, had been
extensively colonized by white stocks; while even huge Asia had seen
its empty northern march, Siberia, pre-empted for the white man's
abode.”
The book, however, was written in an attempt forewarn about the
foreboding loss of this supremacy enjoyed by his race. Thus, he ends by
exhorting that efforts have to be made to, at least maintain the status
quo of that age whereby: “of the 53,000,000 square miles which
(excluding the polar regions) constitute the land area of the globe,
only 6,000,000 square miles had non-white governments, and nearly
two-thirds of this relatively modest remainder was represented by China
and its dependencies.”
It is worth noting that Stoddard was, at the time of the book’s
publication, a sitting member of the Board of Directors of the American
Birth Control League (ABCL), the precursor to what is today the Planned
Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). Of the many population groups
having demographics in their sphere of interest in the United States
today, the Population Council, established over forty years ago by the
Rockefeller family, is one of the most respectable and influential. This
body is a recipient of annual grants in excess of 20 million dollars
from the United Nations, governments of the U.S. and eight other
developed countries, the World Bank, as well as numerous other private
foundations. The Council’s Centre for Policy Studies is headed by Paul
Demeny, an “expert on reproductive politics”. Modern day zeitgeist
of “political correctness” would clearly consider the characteristic
brusqueness of Stoddard’s day unacceptable. Therefore in one of his
reports titled ‘International Aspects of Population Policies’,
Demeny limits himself to the observation that "relative demographic
weights tend to translate into relative political and economic
power," to put forward the argument that "the present pattern
of demographic growth differentials in the world represents a serious
long-term problem from the point of view of the slower growing nations."
A perfunctory study of the “demographic growth differentials” he was
referring to shows that while the average fertility rate for most
African women, for example, is at least six children, the average
Western woman has fewer than two. If one considers that the average
number of children accruing to a family in Nigeria, Africa’s most
populous country, is seven compared to just 1.3 in Germany, the
demographic giant of Europe, then the “demographic dilemma” which
has been the focus of many projections,
speculations, and even so-called “threat papers” is brought
into its proper perspective. The fear is that the hegemony the West had
thus far been enjoying in exploiting the resources of the
“developing/Third World” would stop if the population balance is
allowed to shift according to current trends. Perhaps nowhere is this trepidation more succinctly stated than in the
March 1977 CIA report titled "Political Perspective on Key Global
Issues", declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act
request in January 1995. Herein it was stated that “world population
growth is likely to contribute, directly or indirectly, to domestic
upheavals and international conflicts that could adversely affect U.S.
interests. Population growth will also reinforce the politicization
of international economic relations and intensify the drive of
less-developed countries for a redistribution of wealth and of authority
in international affairs.” This “redistribution”, they would
obviously rather avoid.
The same concerns are expressed by Stephen D. Mumford, a retired military
officer turned researcher. In his ‘Population Growth Control: The Next
Move is America's’ (1977), Mumford opined that: “clearly, an
effort of unprecedented proportions is required to halt world
population growth. Without massive intervention the world's course over
the next 50 years is now clear. The stakes are high and so is the risk
of losing. Massive intervention is an absolute must -- our survival
is at stake.” In an interview he later granted to the BBC, he
admitted that George Bush (Snr.), who was head of the CIA when the book
was written, had told him that it accurately reflected his (Bush's) own
view, as well as the official position of the CIA.
Almost twenty years later, he is echoed by a former Deputy Director for
Intelligence at the CIA Ray S. Cline, who in his 1994 book about the
relationship between power and population, ‘The Power of nations in
the 1990s: A Strategic Assessment’, warned that: “the greatest
population growth -- indeed most of it -- will occur in the economically
undeveloped regions of the Southern Hemisphere in Asia, Africa, and
Latin America. The implications of these facts are clear enough ...” More recently, in an essay published in the December
1994 edition of ‘The Atlantic Monthly’
Matthew Connelly and Paul Kennedy of the Department of History at
Yale argued that "the key global problem" for the immediate
future is what they termed “unbalanced” demographic trends. They
decried the “demographic suicide” being committed by the nations of
Europe and North America, “which contained more than 22 percent of the
world's population in 1950, [and] will contain less than 20 percent by
2025". Coupled with high birth rates and potential economic
progress in "some of the poor regions of the globe" the
authors expressed apprehensions that this would set in motion a trend
which will result in "the economic and political balances of
power" moving away from today's allied powers. If
such revelations could be dismissed by some as mere academic
speculations or even hear-say, declassified U.S. government documents
can not. And the story they tell is no different. Measures to control
population growth in less-developed regions were suggested by Gen.
William Draper’s presidential panel as far back as in 1959. This panel
proposed that organised birth control activities should at once be made
part of U.S. intervention abroad. Then in 1974, President Richard Nixon,
acting on the advice of his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, directed
that a study be undertaken on the impact of world population growth on
U.S. security and overseas interests. The study, in which the Central
Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the State Department,
the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of
Agriculture contributed, was aimed to look forward at least up till the
year 2000. Accordingly, the infamous document titled ‘National
Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population
Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests’ was drafted and
submitted by December of the same year. Since it was declassified and
released in July1989, it has assumed its rightful place in the hall of
shame of U.S. foreign policy. The NSSM 200 study noted that the data on availability of vital natural
resources globally points to a trend of increasing dependence of all the
industrialized countries on imports from less developed countries, and
that while the "basic physical sufficiency'' presents no problem,
the major concern would be the "politico-economic issues of access,
terms for exploration and exploitation, and division of the benefits
among producers, consumers and host country governments.''
It continued that in cases where political instability and/or policies
unfavorable to the U.S. are allowed "concessions to foreign
companies are likely to be expropriated or subjected to arbitrary
intervention. Whether through government action, labor conflicts,
sabotage, or civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials
will be jeopardized. Although population pressure is obviously not
the only factor involved, these types of frustrations are much less
likely under conditions of slow or zero population growth.''
Considering that the U.S., like other developed countries “will require
large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from
less developed countries” the conclusion was reached that this
“gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political, economic, and
social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of
population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the
prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to
resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States.''
To this end, the 1974 memorandum targeted for massive population control
campaigns 13 "key countries'' - India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria,
Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey,
Ethiopia and Colombia - where they perceived a "special U.S.
political and strategic interest.” It would be erroneous, indeed naпve, to assume that these policies
have been shelved by subsequent administrations since the 1970s. In
fact, as a report made to the U.S. Army as recently as in the early 90s
cites the example of the apartheid regime of South Africa to demonstrate
the importance of population control. According to that report, it was
easy for the system to effectively control the black majority when the
ratio of blacks to whites was four-to one. As the black population grew
and that of whites dwindled, it became “considerably more costly and
more difficult to maintain the status quo” leading to an eventual
collapse of the apartheid establishment when blacks and “coloureds”
outnumbered whites nine-to-one. In full realisation that they would
inevitably eventually be forced from power, the white government was
forced to seek a compromise solution. Presently it may be noted that it
is this same fear of “population pressure” that is indubitably the
driving motif behind Israel’s attempts at mass annihilation of
Palestinians coupled with incentives for more Jewish immigration and
births.
This issue dominates on the agenda of Europe’s strategists as well.
The ‘European Economic Community Resolution (No.C127/78) on
Measures to Promote Population Growth’ passed by its parliament in
1984 admits the serious concerns of Europe’s leaders on “recent
statistics showing a rapid decline in the total fertility rates in the
EEC" and admonished that: "unless steps are taken to reverse
this trend, the population of the Europe of Ten will account for only
4.5 percent of the total world population by the year 2000 and only 2.3
percent by 2025, as opposed to 8.8 percent in 1950." This concern
was premised on the fact that: "Europe's standing and influence in
the world depend largely on the vitality of its population" and
that "population trends in Europe will have a decisive effect on
the development of Europe and will determine the significance of the
role which Europe will plan in the world in future decades."
The concern was further expressed by non other than
President Jacques Chirac of France that the technologically advanced
weaponry they had hitherto employed might will prove inadequate in
keeping the West’s economic and political stranglehold on the rest of
the world in place as long this demographic trend is allowed to
continue. He was quoted, in the aforementioned piece by Connelly and
Kennedy, to have remarked not long ago that: "When you compare
Europe with the other continents, it's terrifying. In demographic
terms, Europe is disappearing. Twenty or so years from now our countries
will be empty, and no matter what our technological power, we shall
be incapable of putting it to use."
Fortunately, a sober appreciation of the issues can
also be found on the other side of Stoddard’s “conflict of color”.
In the words of one Kishore Mahbubani of the Singaporean Foreign
Ministry, also quoted in the same article:
"Simple arithmetic demonstrates Western folly".
Criticizing what he termed the "siege mentality" of the
West, he adds that: "The West has 800 million people; the rest make
up almost 4.7 billion.... no Western society would accept a situation
where 15 percent of its population legislated for the remaining 85
percent." The truth, it is said, stings the ears. To white
supremacist “experts” like Stoddard, Demeny, Kennedy, Connelly,
Mumford, and Cline as well as their political brethren Nixon, Kissinger,
Bush, Chirac and their ilk, no other truth could sting harsher. Lessons from History: If anything, history has repeatedly shown the
governments of the United States and its European allies, as well as the
various corporate interests that help prop them, have no limit on how
low it can and will stoop in pursuit of what it conceives as policy
objectives. Perhaps the most poignant reminder of this in relatively
recent history is what has come to be known as the “Tuskegee
Experiments”. Starting in 1932 and spanning 40 (!) years more than 430
black men – mostly labourers and sharecroppers - who were clinically
diagnosed with syphilis were deceived by the U.S. Public Health Service
into believing they were receiving free medical care for their “bad
blood”. In reality, they were used as human guinea-pigs in what was
officially the ‘Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro
Male.’ The study closely monitored and evaluated the effects of the
ravaging disease - mental illness, paralysis, and subsequently death. To
make matters worse, this sadistic experiment continued long after it was
discovered in the early 1940s that penicillin could effectively treat
the disease. The end came only in July 1972 as it came to U.S-wide
national attention when it was made public through the media.
The U.S. government was subsequently forced to pay $10 million in
compensation to victims and their heirs, but never admitted to, or
apologized for any wrongdoing. Only in May 1997 did President Clinton
officially offer apologies to eight elderly black men who were the only
surviving victims. At the White House occasion attended by five of the
survivors, Clinton had described the actions of the U.S. government as
“shameful”. Unfortunately
such shameful acts are the rule rather than the exception – the 1935
“Pellagra Incident” which costs the lives of millions over two
decades courtesy of the same U.S. Public Health Service; the malaria
study of 1940 in Chicago during which 400 prisoners were intentionally
infected with malaria just so as to study the effects of some new
experimental drugs (which was incidentally cited by Nazi doctors later
on trial at Nuremberg to defend their own actions during the Holocaust);
the use of human subjects by the CIA in the late forties in its study on
the use of a mind-altering drug they had developed, named LSD, as a
potential weapon; the "ethnic weapons" program which according
to the journal ‘Military Review’ of
November 1970, are designed to selectively target and eliminate
specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences
and variations in DNA; the admission in 1987 by the American Department
of Defense that, despite a treaty banning research and development of
biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127
sites and universities across America…. one can go on and on ad
nauseam uncovering the dirt beneath the surface of history. On the surface things are not rosy either. In 1990 more
than 1500 six-month old Black and Hispanic babies in Los Angeles were
given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been
licensed for use in the United States. The Center for Disease Control
(CDC) was later forced to admit that parents were never informed that
the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental. Like the
Tuskegee incident, it might take another empathic president, or whomever
the unsavoury task falls to, another lifetime to offer apologies to
these victims. Just as that day is long off when we would hear the real
story behind the use and subsequent effects of biological agents and
depleted uranium in the United States’ contemporary military
campaigns. For today the U.S. government is in denial although as far
back as 1995 Dr. Garth Nicolson, Chief Scientific Officer and Research
Professor at the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach,
California had uncovered evidence that biological agents, which had been
manufactured in Houston, Texas and Boca Raton, Florida and tested on
prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections, were used during the
Gulf War. Senate
hearings on Health and Scientific Research as far back as 1977 confirmed
that just in the period between 1949 and 1969, a total of 239 populated
areas, including Washington, D.C., San Francisco, St. Louis,
Minneapolis, Panama City, and Key West had been deliberately
contaminated with biological agents. These are the actions of the U.S.
establishment with regards to a part of its population, purportedly
American citizens, which it considers expendable. Keeping in mind these historical facts, coupled with
the noted “concerns” of the Western experts and politicians on
“population pressure” and having appreciated the fact that policies
are indeed in place to counter them, with Nigeria identified by the NSSM
200 report as one of the 13 “key countries” intended for massive
depopulation, we shall now take a look at some of the measures that are
evidently aimed at such a target.
……../to
be continued
Sources:
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