A Conspiracy that Kills

Dan Pipes has an excellent article up detailing the re-introduction of polio to many predominately Muslim countries. But the dread disease, which had been eradicated in these areas of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, hasn't made a comeback in spite of mass vaccinations. No, it has reappeared because superstitious people have believed a conspiracy that Americans are using the polio vaccine to infect the children to whom it is administered.

Read this account and remember to place it in the context of, first, all conspiracy theories, which necessarily defy reason, and then of the Muslim world in particular, where such theories are commonly used to scapegoat others for a people's shortcomings.