CIA's fake vaccination program to get Bin Laden
Reports say the CIA ran a fake vaccine program in Abbottabad to get a DNA sample from the family of Osama Bin Laden.
Story from PRI's The World. Use audio player above to listen to full report.
The CIA ran a fake vaccine program in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad to try to get a DNA sample from the family of Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, media reports say. The Guardian newspaper says CIA agents recruited a Pakistani doctor there to organize the vaccination drive. The paper says he has since been arrested.
The CIA has refused to comment on the report, which comes as tensions run high between Islamabad and Washington.
Bin Laden was killed in a US commando raid on his compound in May.
The World's Marco Werman talked with Heidi Larson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine about the impact of the CIA's tactics on public confidence in immunization programs.
"If indeed a public health program was faked, and something so essential that saves lives like vaccines was used as an entry point for this effort, as important as it was, it really was not an appropriate way," Larson told Werman. "It has huge ethical implications, it has huge public trust implications."
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