Or perhaps a better title would be “Religion Kills Again!”

And as so often happens, it seems to be the very young who are most at risk….

Measles Kills Children Of Anti-Vaccination Sect (Jane Fields/The Scotsman; Dec 22)

Children are dying of measles in a remote part of eastern Zimbabwe, where a religious sect insists on using only holy water to treat the contagious disease.

Thirty people, many children, have already died, according to reports. Parents are locking sick children in huts or whisking them into the hills to avoid detection by health officials working in the Nzvimbe area, 70km from the border city of Mutare.

The families are members of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church. The church’s leaders do not allow vaccination or allow followers to seek medical treatment.

Officials fear the death toll from measles in Nzvimbe could be much higher because the Vapostori – as they’re known locally – are “fast-tracking” burials, according to one report. Many are dying at home.

Announcing the outbreak, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said at the weekend at least 340 cases of measles had already been recorded in several districts.

“We are frustrated as this is mainly because of people who have denied their children vaccination,” WHO head in Zimbabwe Custodia Mandlhate said.

Village chief Chokore Matide says he’s sent out a “squad” to try to locate at least ten critically ill members of the sect who’ve disappeared. The “squad” has already wrested nine children from their families, and got them treated. One is only a year old….

Think this sad story is the result of some unique manifestation of religious delusion that could only emerge in some faraway place like Zimbabwe? The entries I posted on June 27, 2008; Aug 28, 2008; Sept 28, 2008; and Jan 14, 2009 clearly prove otherwise.

To learn still more about the ways religious beliefs can kill, see Religion & Health (31).