Misrepresentation of my position in polio controversy (I)

Before I explain my position, I wish to state in unambiguous terms that, as a scientist saddled with the onerous task of training and research in drugs and drugs-related matters, I recognize the existence of polio epidemic and the mechanisms of administering appropriate vaccines to prevent its spread in Nigeria and the rest of the […]

Before I explain my position, I wish to state in unambiguous terms that, as a scientist saddled with the onerous task of training and research in drugs and drugs-related matters, I recognize the existence of polio epidemic and the mechanisms of administering appropriate vaccines to prevent its spread in Nigeria and the rest of the world, among other equally effective measures needed for the eradication of the virus causing paralytic poliomyelitis.  
Again, I did not decide to pry the polio case just for the fun of it – free, gratis and unsolicited – out of my own volition either because I want to obey my calling as academic researcher or just troubleshooting with malicious intent to stoke up the embers of the unfortunate climate of suspicion and mistrust generated by the polio vaccines in northern Nigeria. Of course, I am in the thick of it because the society in which I exist and earn my livelihood was directly affected.
However, my foray into the polio vaccination controversy is informed by nothing other than my qualification as a pharmaceutical scientist. Indeed it was the recognition of my competence which led to the solicitation of my expertise by Jama’atul Nasril Islam (JNI), an organization responsible for safeguarding the collective interests of Nigerian Muslims, to investigate the authenticity or otherwise of the fears expressed by the public over the administration of polio vaccines on children.
Consequently, a meeting of the Central Research and Planning Committee of the JNI on Sunday, 19th October, 2003 at Arewa House, Kaduna deliberated on the allegations that the Oral Polio Vaccines then in use in the country were tainted. I was then mandated to conduct a detailed and thorough scientific analysis on Oral Polio Vaccines (OPV) samples in the country with a view to verify the substance of the allegations.
Considering the public anxiety on the matter, the possible implications of whatever results the samples tested may reveal, the enormity of the task ahead and the moral burden of the huge responsibility placed on me as an expert in the area of drug analysis, I resolved to employ the best standard protocol by deciding to conduct various tests on samples of OPV in one of the most equipped laboratories in India. 
I did not travel to India with any preconceived notion of what the outcome of the test may be. As such I did not confine the analysis of the samples to the detection of the so called anti-fertility hormones generating so much hue and cry, but to all possible chemical contaminants in the samples. Therefore, I prudently employed Radio Immuno Assay (RIA), High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC), and Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) analytical techniques in analyzing the OPV samples.
I sought the assistance of experts in the laboratory to conduct the RIA on the samples and we jointly carried out HPTLC and GC-MS analyses. In the findings of the tests, the HPTLC did not reveal any contamination for all the OPV samples tested while the Radio Immuno Assay showed the presence of traces of Estradiol in the OPV samples and the GC-MS analysis revealed various levels of contaminants.
On my return to Nigeria, I presented the result to JNI, the organization that mandated me to conduct the tests on OPV samples. The report presented had indeed generated more heat due to the nature of my findings. Consequently, a situation arose in which other stakeholders, organizations, and institutions of state began to show interest in my position on the matter.
One of the most important bodies that extended an invitation to me to make presentation on POLIO IMMUNIZATION AND CHILD SURVIVAL was the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru.  The paper was prepared and presented on 11th March, 2004. During the presentation, top government functionaries, policy makers, officials from Federal Ministry of Health and UNICEF were all invited. In the light of the far-reaching recommendations I made based on my humble findings, the interactive session was very cordial and harmonious.
The next important invitation I received to discuss the Polio issue was from Bauchi State Government in 2008. In the State, I joined the team of experts and government officials to proffer advice on the problems encountered by the state government following the Polio controversy. The team also included Dr. Nasiru Sani Gwarzo of the Federal Ministry of Health. Afterwards, I received more invitations from non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations and religious groups, like the Pro-Life unit of the Catholic Media Centre Kaduna, to highlight my findings and suggest solution to the climate of suspicion surrounding the administration of Polio vaccine. This has been the situation until recently when the state and its agents sought to connect the killings of 9 health workers in Kano to my position on tests I conducted on behalf of JNI in 2004!!!
Initially, I did not intend to join issues with the systematic campaigns waged to discredit my reputation as a professor of pharmaceutical chemistry until the alarming dimension the Polio saga assumed, with security agents unleashing threats to my wellbeing as a law abiding citizen of Nigeria. The storm started gathering with the barrage of media assault on those alleged to be opposed to the administration of OPV in Nigeria.
Of the battery of media comments and editorials, four articles and reports over the pages of Nigerian newspapers have curiously attracted my attention. On Tuesday, February 19, 2013, Daily Trust in its back page column published an article titled ‘Martyrs of Vaccination: Kano 9 died long before’ in which one Aliyu Bala Aliyu made a number of baseless insinuations such as “The twelve women who were killed in Kano on that black Friday died a long time before now. They had long been killed by the high dose of socio-cultural and religious conspiracy theorists”. But Aliyu had conveniently ignored the context of those senseless killings in Kano and other flashpoints in northern Nigeria where people were indiscriminately killed for no obvious reasons. In his subsequent tirades in the same article he went ahead to classify me as one of those who are “at the forefront of the anti-polio vaccine group from the academia”, whatever that means. 
On the basis of his pigeonholing me as anti-polio vaccine crusader, Aliyu screened my OPV sample tests and findings against, in his words, “another test conducted at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital by consultant physician, Abdulmumini Rafindadi and experts recruited by the Supreme Council for Shari’a in Nigeria (SCSN)” and found out their samples “free of any anti-fertility agents”.
To be continued.