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Coronavirus vaccination rates around the world are low for myriad reasons: short supplies in developing countries, lack of trust in the governments handing out the jabs, and conspiracy theories about what’s in the vaccine and its side effects. But experts point to another possible factor which has gotten less attention: the CIA.
In its quest to find and kill Osama Bin Laden, spies at the CIA used a Hepatitis B vaccination program as cover in an attempt to collect DNA samples that could locate the 9/11 mastermind’s family in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The effort was a flop and landed a doctor hired by the CIA in a Pakistani prison. But a decade later, public health experts and researchers say the caper could have helped erode crucial trust in vaccination efforts now necessary to end the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan—and in some cases across the globe.