News.Scotsman.com, By MARGARET NEIGHBOUR, 26 March 2009
INDONESIA'S health minister wants to end vaccinating children against meningitis, mumps and other diseases, because she fears foreign drug companies are using the country as a testing ground.
The controversial minister, Siti Fadillah Supari – who first drew widespread attention by boycotting the World Health Organisation's 50-year-old virus sharing system in 2007 – said she wanted scientific proof that injections against illnesses such as pneumonia, chicken pox, flu, rubella and typho.
"If not, they have to be stopped," she said, declining to say exactly what that would mean. "We don't want our country to be a testing place for drugs, as has been the case in Africa."
Ms Supari said she still would advocate immunisations against measles, polio, tetanus, hepatitis B and tuberculosis.
Her statement comes as Indonesia struggles to contain outbreaks of preventable childhood illnesses.
Cases of measles, tuberculosis and other diseases have skyrocketed.
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