The White House has said that the CIA would no longer use a vaccination campaign in its spy operations.
Three years after the Central Intelligence Agency used an immunisation survey as a cover in its hunt for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the new US position has come in response to concern expressed by health institutions.
In response to a letter by deans of 12 US public health schools, Lisa Monaco, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, informed them last week that the CIA will no longer conduct such campaigns.
The deans wrote to President Obama in January 2013 to protest the precedent set when the CIA used Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani surgeon, to seek information about bin Laden under the guise of conducting a hepatitis immunisation survey in the northwest city where the al-Qaeda leader was later killed in a raid.
According to reports, the goal of the immunisation survey was to obtain fluid containing DNA from relatives living near the bin Laden residence. The effort failed, and Afridi was convicted of treason in Pakistan. He has been sentenced to 23 years in prison.
“This disguising of an intelligence-gathering effort as a humanitarian public health service has resulted in serious collateral consequences that affect the public health community,” the deans wrote.
The Obama administration’s response said that under CIA policy, established by CIA Director John Brennan in August 2013, “the Agency will make no operational use of vaccination programs, which includes vaccination workers.” The letter also said the agency “will not seek to obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programs.”
International aid organisations were forced to move some of their staff members out of Pakistan, and some health workers were killed in a backlash against a polio vaccination effort. Attacks have continued sporadically. Last year, 83 new polio cases were reported in Pakistan, more than in Afghanistan or Nigeria, the other countries where it is endemic.
Referring to the CIA pledge, a public health school dean said: “I think this is a very important commitment. All we can do is hope they will honour that commitment.”