The pale journalism of Pakistan becomes evident when it comes to billion-dollars-worth international vaccination projects, particularly polio vaccine. Express Tribune is one such paper that has religiously promoted the polio vaccine over the past few years.
The paper’s latest story How safe is oral polio vaccine? presents a case of sloppy journalism and biased, openly misleading reporting that ignores all science and facts and literally becomes the mouthpiece of the vaccine industry. The paper writes that it spoke to “officials and experts” about the health risk of oral polio vaccine (OPV) and then quotes only a single source – a doctor who himself woks in the polio vaccination field, in other words, a non-biased person.
The doctor says OPV is safe and can’t cause harm “at any level” when all researchers know that it’s a lie. The fact is that OPV virus can harm and actually has caused outbreaks of polio called vaccine associated paralytic polio (VAPP). Such paralysis cases have been reported from nearly everywhere the vaccine was used, notably from Nigeria and India.
Express Tribune is by the way the same paper that published my interview with a seasoned doctor in December 2014 and then deleted it in less than 24 hours of publishing. The doctor, Vernon Coleman, highlighted the risks of vaccination including polio vaccine in the interview that was then published by The SOP.
So what happened to the statements of other “experts” the paper claims it interviewed? Did the paper do any fact-checking? Obviously not. And if they did, they chose not to include it. The reason for such reporting is not a secret anymore. We know!
