CIA Masquerading as Medical Workers Hurts Vaccination Efforts
Now, every American nurse looks like a spy
If you've been following the controversy surrounding the Oscar-nominated movie Zero Dark Thirty, you know that it's been excoriated for various inaccuracies regarding the effort to catch Osama bin Laden. In particular, critics say the movie misleadingly suggests that the torture of al-Qaeda suspects produced the vital intelligence that led the U.S. to bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
That's not the only thing the filmmakers got wrong. The film also depicts a fake polio vaccination drive organized by the CIA in an effort to collect DNA from bin Laden's family. U.S. intelligence officials have admitted they set up a fake vaccination campaign—but for hepatitis B, not polio. As it turns out, the campaign didn't give any protection against the disease to young children in the town while it also failed to collect genetic material from the bin Laden family.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?