It Could Be Worse

At least American anti-vaccine fanatics haven't started shooting nurses. From the Guardian:

At least nine women who were vaccinating children against polio have been shot dead in northern Nigeria by gunmen suspected of belonging to a radical Islamist sect.

The killings drew comparisons with a series of incidents in Pakistan last December where five female polio vaccinators were gunned down, apparently by Islamist militants. It also signalled a fresh wave of hostility towards immunisation drives in Nigeria, where some clerics have claimed the vaccines are part of a western plot to sterilise young girls and eliminate the Muslim population.

What I said that what we should be worried about is politicized conspiracy theories, this is the kind of thing I had in mind. Once a belief like this become widespread, what can anybody do about it?