Where we have all but eliminated polio in the Americas, Europe and the western Pacific, there was a ten fold increase in new polio cases in India this year — the country that accounts for half of all new polio cases in the world.

Scientists are puzzled, since an active polio vaccination program exists in the country. Is the vaccine not getting to the children who are being crippled for life by this disease? Or are terrible sanitary conditions to blame? Doctors warn that other infections, such as diarrheal illnesses, can overtax the immune system to the point that the vaccine doesn't take effect.

But whatever the final answer, one thing is clear — the safety of the children is at stake, and fast action is needed to address all possible causes.

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers of West Bengal, committed to giving these youngsters every possible chance to survive, are assisting government health professional this week. They have made their center a distribution point for this government polio prevention program, and are rounding up children from the Kolkata slums, to make sure they get their vaccine.

As L. Ron Hubbard wrote in The Way to Happiness — a common-sense moral code that the West Bengal Volunteer Ministers distribute throughout the community — "Today's children will become tomorrow's civilization. Bringing a child into the world today is a little bit like dropping one into a tiger's cage. Children can't handle their environment and they have no real resources. They need love and help to make it."