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Serious question, I was reading a 2013 Senate report and saw the CIA admitted to running a fake vaccination program
I found it while looking up old public records for a paper, and it said they used a hepatitis B program in Pakistan to try and get DNA samples from Osama bin Laden's family. That's a real thing our government did, using doctors as cover. How is that not the exact kind of thing that makes people distrust everything now?
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michael_baker5mo ago
Totally agree, and it gets worse. I was reading about that a few years back and it just wrecked actual aid work (like, vaccination rates in those areas dropped hard because nobody trusted the doctors anymore). It's one of those things that feels so short-sighted, you know? They got their one sample but then burned every bit of trust for public health workers in the region. It's the perfect example of how a spy trick can ruin something good for regular people.
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alice_mitchell5mo ago
But is that drop in trust really from one program? Seems like there could be other local reasons for it. Hard to pin all of that on a single spy trick.
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jordanr894mo ago
Wow, @michael_baker totally nailed it. That one CIA op basically wrecked years of public health work in a single move. Ngl, it's wild how they didn't think through the fallout. Vaccination rates tanked like 20% in some areas after that news broke, and polio cases actually spiked again. Honestly, that's the textbook example of short term win, long term disaster.
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