Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

[Giuseppe]

Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack?

Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari on Friday called the country?s medical institutions to carry out their own virus and DNA research free of foreign funding so as to avoid exploitation from developed countries and the possibility of a future biological attack against the nation.


?I?m truly afraid the world will use our viruses or DNAs to create a mass biological weapon that may be used to attack us,? she said.

Supari surprised the world when she abruptly stopped sending bird flu virus samples to the World Health Organization in 2007. Supari said the WHO wanted the virus to create an effective bird flu vaccine using the Indonesian strain but offered nothing in return.

She said Indonesia was perceived by many countries as both a potential object of exploitation and a promising market for new vaccines. The minister said that the virus samples were given for free but Indonesia had to later purchase the vaccine ? developed using those samples ? at high prices.

?They wanted me to send the virus because the Indonesian strain of the H5N1 is the strongest and they might produce a better bird flu vaccine by researching it,? she said. H5N1 is the virus strain that causes bird flu.

Supari said that all research conducted in Indonesia should abide by a decree she issued in 2008 governing the use of biological substances, including viruses or DNA samples.

She said the decree was issued to reduce Indonesia?s dependency on foreign funding especially for research of potentially pandemic diseases such as bird flu.

?Trust me on this one, there is no such thing as free help. When people offer big money to help you, they undoubtedly expect to benefit from it,? Supari said.

Supari said Indonesia should ideally be able to research its own viruses and produce its derivative products without having to depend on foreign intervention. She said that by being independent and mastering Indonesia?s own strain of viruses, the country would have stronger bargaining power in the world.

The minister said that she did not want a repeat of the small pox ?incident?.?WHO in 1985,? she said, ?ordered all countries to close down research unit and laboratories of smallpox vaccines including in Indonesia, but in 2005 suddenly WHO ordered every country to purchase WHO-approved small pox vaccines that cost Indonesia Rp 600 billion [Rp 51 million].?

Supari urged Indonesian scientists and researchers to conduct their research independently and pledged that the Ministry of Health would try its best to help fund their projects.

?I will provide the funding but please play by the rules that all research must be conducted through the ministry,? she said.

Ratna Sitompul, dean of medical faculty of state University of Indonesia, said she had ?no problems working without foreign funding, as long as the ministry agrees to provide financial assistance.?

The production of bird flu vaccines has had its controversies. In 2005, it was alleged that four companies responsible for the production of the vaccine had produced inferior quality vaccines in order to inflate profits.Indonesia, which has stopped announcing bird flu deaths as they occur, has the world?s highest death rate from the disease at 119.

The smallpox virus was declared eradicated in 1980 and WHO called on all nations to destroy their virus stocks. However, due to post-9/11 fears of biological terrorism, it was decided to make the vaccine available to vulnerable countries.

Agus Purwadianto, head of the health ministry?s research and development agency said that researchers or institutions refusing to abide by the decree would have to face the consequences.

?We may revoke a researcher?s or institution?s license if they insist on conducting research that may harm the country?s sovereignty and we won?t recognize findings from the research,? he said. and the equipment we need
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<cite cite="http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/article/13817.html">Jakarta Globe</cite>

 

[Commonground]

Re: Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

Supari has been expressing these views for quite some time. Nothing new.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

Supari has been expressing these views for quite some time. Nothing new.

Thanks Ironorehopper for posting.

Right Commonground........yadda, yadda.......

 

[SophiaZoe]

Re: Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

Y'all have no idea how hard I have tried to find this article (and the study referenced) since I lost track of it due to a wiped hard drive at the end of 2007, but it is, IMO, an extremely important "data-point", and also the reason that while Supari may be either a bit on the unstable side or a political genious, her statements *matter*.

A happy day today! I finally hit upon the search criteria that unearthed it.

Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach

[SIZE=-1]By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 4, 2007; A03[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]

[/SIZE]
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either "true" or "false." Among those identified as false were statements such as "The side effects are worse than the flu" and "Only older people need flu vaccine."

When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.
Younger people did better at first, but three days later they made as many errors as older people did after 30 minutes. Most troubling was that people of all ages now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the respected CDC.

The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.

This phenomenon may help explain why large numbers of Americans incorrectly think that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in planning the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi. While these beliefs likely arose because Bush administration officials have repeatedly tried to connect Iraq with Sept. 11, the experiments suggest that intelligence reports and other efforts to debunk this account may in fact help keep it alive.

Similarly, many in the Arab world are convinced that the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was not the work of Arab terrorists but was a controlled demolition; that 4,000 Jews working there had been warned to stay home that day; and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile rather than a plane.

Those notions remain widespread even though the federal government now runs Web sites in seven languages to challenge them. Karen Hughes, who runs the Bush administration's campaign to win hearts and minds in the fight against terrorism, recently painted a glowing report of the "digital outreach" teams working to counter misinformation and myths by challenging those ideas on Arabic blogs.

A report last year by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, however, found that the number of Muslims worldwide who do not believe that Arabs carried out the Sept. 11 attacks is soaring -- to 59 percent of Turks and Egyptians, 65 percent of Indonesians, 53 percent of Jordanians, 41 percent of Pakistanis and even 56 percent of British Muslims.

Research on the difficulty of debunking myths has not been specifically tested on beliefs about Sept. 11 conspiracies or the Iraq war. But because the experiments illuminate basic properties of the human mind, psychologists such as Schwarz say the same phenomenon is probably implicated in the spread and persistence of a variety of political and social myths.

The research does not absolve those who are responsible for promoting myths in the first place. What the psychological studies highlight, however, is the potential paradox in trying to fight bad information with good information.

Schwarz's study was published this year in the journal Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, but the roots of the research go back decades. As early as 1945, psychologists Floyd Allport and Milton Lepkin found that the more often people heard false wartime rumors, the more likely they were to believe them.

The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious "rules of thumb" that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.

The experiments also highlight the difference between asking people whether they still believe a falsehood immediately after giving them the correct information, and asking them a few days later. Long-term memories matter most in public health campaigns or political ones, and they are the most susceptible to the bias of thinking that well-recalled false information is true.

The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind's bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.
The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people's minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.

Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain's subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.

Many easily remembered things, in fact, such as one's birthday or a pet's name, are indeed true. But someone trying to manipulate public opinion can take advantage of this aspect of brain functioning. In politics and elsewhere, this means that whoever makes the first assertion about something has a large advantage over everyone who denies it later.

Furthermore, a new experiment by Kimberlee Weaver at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and others shows that hearing the same thing over and over again from one source can have the same effect as hearing that thing from many different people -- the brain gets tricked into thinking it has heard a piece of information from multiple, independent sources, even when it has not. Weaver's study was published this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The experiments by Weaver, Schwarz and others illustrate another basic property of the mind -- it is not good at remembering when and where a person first learned something. People are not good at keeping track of which information came from credible sources and which came from less trustworthy ones, or even remembering that some information came from the same untrustworthy source over and over again. Even if a person recognizes which sources are credible and which are not, repeated assertions and denials can have the effect of making the information more accessible in memory and thereby making it feel true, said Schwarz.
Experiments by Ruth Mayo, a cognitive social psychologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, also found that for a substantial chunk of people, the "negation tag" of a denial falls off with time. Mayo's findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2004.

"If someone says, 'I did not harass her,' I associate the idea of harassment with this person," said Mayo, explaining why people who are accused of something but are later proved innocent find their reputations remain tarnished. "Even if he is innocent, this is what is activated when I hear this person's name again.

"If you think 9/11 and Iraq, this is your association, this is what comes in your mind," she added. "Even if you say it is not true, you will eventually have this connection with Saddam Hussein and 9/11."

Mayo found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth. Rather than say, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently did during a marathon congressional debate, that "Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States; Osama bin Laden did," Mayo said it would be better to say something like, "Osama bin Laden was the only person responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks" -- and not mention Hussein at all.

The psychologist acknowledged that such a statement might not be entirely accurate -- issuing a denial or keeping silent are sometimes the only real options.

So is silence the best way to deal with myths? Unfortunately, the answer to that question also seems to be no.

Another recent study found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true, said Peter Kim, an organizational psychologist at the University of Southern California. He published his study in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Myth-busters, in other words, have the odds against them.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

Thanks SZ, great article.

Supari talks about `weapons of mass destruction`, mmmmm.. sounds familiar.

With the elections in Indonesia coming closer, we could hear more about this.

 

[Vibrant62]

Re: Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

The other possibility is that if Indonesia becomes the source of a pandemic virus, by taking this stance the west can be 'blamed' for its existence.

For an average Indonesian who is unlikely to ever leave their country or know any better, they may beleive that the West was unaffected, suitably vaccinated and medicated.

Letting such ridiculous statements lie unaswered could be dangerous in the longer term.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

Unfortunately these statements are widely disseminated and lessen the credibility of the health minister.

This is a time when Indonesia could lead the world in pandemic awareness, education, and innovation.

I hope they choose to do this.


:yinyang:

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Indonesia. Minister Wary of Foreign ?Attack? - Jakarta Globe

Source: http://www.futuregov.net/articles/2009/mar/24/indonesia-wary-foreign-attack/

Healthcare
Indonesia's Health Minister rejects foreign funding

By Alice Kok | 24 March 2009

Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari has called on the country?s medical institutions to carry out their own virus and DNA research free of foreign funding - to avoid ?exploitation? from developed countries and the possibility of a future biological attack against the world?s largest Muslim nation.

?I?m truly afraid the world will use our viruses or DNAs to create a mass biological weapon that may be used to attack us,? she said.

Supari surprised the world when she abruptly stopped sending bird flu virus samples to the World Health Organisation in 2007. She reasoned that the WHO wanted the virus to create an effective bird flu vaccine using the Indonesian strain but offered nothing in return.

?Indonesia is perceived by many countries as both a potential object of exploitation and a promising market for new vaccines.? The minister said that the virus samples were given for free but Indonesia had to later purchase the vaccine ? developed using those samples ? at a high price.

Supari said that all research conducted in Indonesia should abide by a decree she issued in 2008 governing the use of biological substances, including viruses or DNA samples. She said the decree was issued to reduce Indonesia?s dependency on foreign funding especially for research of potentially pandemic diseases such as bird flu.

Supari said Indonesia should ideally be able to research its own viruses and produce its derivative products without having to depend on foreign intervention. She said that by being independent and mastering Indonesia?s own strain of viruses, the country would have stronger bargaining power in the world.

?Trust me on this one, there is no such thing as free help. When people offer big money to help you, they undoubtedly expect to benefit from it,? Supari said.

Her mistrust of WHO stems from the small pox ?incident? back in 1985. ?WHO ordered all countries to close down research unit and laboratories of smallpox vaccines, but in 2005 suddenly ordered every country to purchase WHO-approved small pox vaccines that cost US$51 million.?

Supari urged Indonesian scientists and researchers to conduct their research independently and pledged that the Ministry of Health would try its best to help fund their projects.

Agus Purwadianto, Head of the Health Ministry?s Research and Development Agency said that researchers or institutions refusing to abide by the decree would have to face the consequences.

?We may revoke a researcher?s or institution?s license if they insist on conducting research that may harm the country?s sovereignty and we won?t recognise findings from the research,? he said.