A UNICEF campaign to vaccinate Nigeria's youth against polio may have been a front for sterilizing the nation. Dr. Haruna Kaita, a pharmaceutical scientist and Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, took samples of the vaccine to labs in India for analysis.

Using WHO-recommended technologies like Gas Chromatography (GC) and Radio-Immuno assay, Dr. Kaita, upon analysis, found evidence of serious contamination. "Some of the things we discovered in the vaccines are harmful, toxic; some have direct effects on the human reproductive system," he said in an interview with Kaduna's Weekly Trust. "I and some other professional colleagues who are Indians who were in the Lab could not believe the discovery," he said.

A Nigerian government doctor tried to persuade Dr. Kaita that the contaminants would have no bearing on human reproduction. "...I was surprised when one of the federal government doctors was telling me something contrary to what I have learned, studied, taught and is the common knowledge of all pharmaceutical scientists -- that estrogen cannot induce an anti-fertility response in humans," he said. "I found that argument very disturbing and ridiculous."

When asked by the Trust why Dr. Kaita felt the drug manufacturers would have contaminated the Oral Polio Vaccine, he gave three reasons: "These manufacturers or promoters of these harmful things have a secret agenda which only further research can reveal. Secondly they have always taken us in the third world for granted, thinking we don't have the capacity, knowledge and equipment to conduct tests that would reveal such contaminants. And very unfortunately they also have people to defend their atrocities within our midst, and worst still some of these are supposed to be our own professionals who we rely on to protect our interests."

Dr. Kaita is demanding that "those who imported this fake drug in the name of Polio Vaccines...be prosecuted like any other criminal."

The campaign to rid Nigeria of polio is in its fourth year. Officials there claim that all contaminated vaccines have been exhausted and replaced by uncontaminated batches.

In a rhetorical conclusion to the interview, Dr. Kaita asked "What plans has the government put in place to help children who have been given these toxic and contaminated vaccines in case they start reacting to them?"

This is not the first time UNICEF has been embroiled in a controversy over sterilizing agents in vaccines. LifeSiteNews.com reported that in 1995, the Catholic Women's League of the Philippines won a court order halting a UNICEF anti-tetanus program because the vaccine had been laced with B-hCG, which when given in a vaccine permanently causes women to be unable to sustain a pregnancy. The Supreme Court of the Philippines found the surreptitious sterilization program had already vaccinated three million women, aged 12 to 45. B-hCG-laced vaccine was also found in at least four other developing countries.