Earlier today I read a post by @trumpman spotlighting a recent outbreak of the feared polio virus in Venezuela. I made a comment that polio hadn't really disappeared but had simply been renamed and @trumpman called for sources, sending me on a walk through my past reading to find and clarify my off-handed reference.
Like the moon landing and the discovery that Earth is a globe, the conquering of polio in the United States is held up as one of the great scientific advancements of the modern age. It was feared, it was deadly, we invented a way to stop it, we were overwhelmingly successful, triumphant end of story.
I was pretty sad to find out the story isn't quite true.
It'd be nice to think my children are in no danger from this legendary virus.
But as with many things, the simple explanation that the Polio vaccine conquered the disease leaves out a few crucial details.
The Nitty-Gritty
First of all, Paralytic Poliomyelitis is a complication of Poliovirus, one of a class of virus called "Enteroviruses". History of Polio
"Enteroviruses are a genus of positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses associated with several human and mammalian diseases. Enteroviruses are named by their transmission-route through the intestine (enteric meaning intestinal)."
"Enteroviruses affect millions of people worldwide each year and are often found in the respiratory secretions (e.g., saliva, sputum, or nasal mucus) and stool of an infected person. Historically, poliomyelitis was the most significant disease caused by an enterovirus, poliovirus. There are 64 non-polio enteroviruses that can cause disease in humans: 23 Coxsackie A viruses, 6 Coxsackie B viruses, 28 echoviruses, and 5 other enteroviruses.[2] Poliovirus, as well as coxsackie and echovirus, is spread through the fecal-oral route. Infection can result in a wide variety of symptoms ranging from mild respiratory illness (common cold), hand, foot and mouth disease, acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, aseptic meningitis, myocarditis, severe neonatal sepsis-like disease, and acute flaccid paralysis.[2]"
Wikipedia Definition of Enterovirus
There are so many different strains of this type of virus you've probably even had one before. You might've called it "a cold", "a stomach bug" or "24-hour flu".
So What Happened In The 50s?
The thing that happened in the 50s was a complication currently referred to as "Acute Flaccid Paralysis Syndrome". You can see it down at the end of the Wikipedia article describing enterovirus issues still present today.
AFPS is a symptom, not a disease. However, that particular symptom was the feared outcome of contracting Poliovirus (most people - 95% - just had a "24 hour bug" when they got polio). At the time, the complication was called "Poliomyelitis", "myelitis" referring to the spinal cord. That exact strain of Enterovirus had a habit of causing 1 - 5% of it's sufferers paralyzation by attacking the spinal cord.
Enter the Iron Lung, limbs that stop functioning, and the whole terrible range of effects etched in our memories from friends and family members still dealing with their childhood Polio bouts.
This onset of AFPS is still occurring in conjunction with Enteroviruses, most recently in 2014 when there was an outbreak of Enterovirus D68 which caused a number of children to suffer polio-like symptoms, including death. Story
Another name for this strain of Enterovirus with potential paralyzation is Novel Enterovirus C105.
A Rose By Any Other Name...
Here is a link to the CDC article about Novel Enterovirus C105, ince that's going to be the most skeptical to my point of view: Acute Flaccid Paralysis Associated with Novel Enterovirus
Quote from the CDC abstract:
"An outbreak of acute flaccid paralysis among children in the United States during summer 2014 was tentatively associated with enterovirus D68 infection. This syndrome in a child in fall 2014 was associated with enterovirus C105 infection. The presence of this virus strain in North America may pose a diagnostic challenge."
What this article is really saying - from what I can tell - is that the difference between this strain of Enterovirus and the one that terrified the Western world in the 50s is going to be a "diagnostic challenge".
To me, this is double speak. It's like saying the influenza we get today is not the same as the influenza which killed so many people in the early 1900s, so we've eradicated influenza and don't need to be worried about it anymore.
Technically, it's true: the Great Flu has mutated and isn't the same anymore. But we still have influenza and it's still nasty. It still kills.
Enteroviruses can still cause paralyzation by attacking the spinal cord. Therefore, Polio still exists and there is no vaccine for this strain. Not surprising, since gut viruses like enterovirus are notoriously prone to mutation and are very difficult to even try to vaccinate against.
"Polio was eradicated by 1979."
We cling to that belief. We highlight it as the first big vaccine success story, the reason so many of us parents are willing to go along with all the other vaccinations coming along since. It's the line you see over and over again when referring to this ugly little virus. But it's not true.
Pretending like it is just puts all of us at risk. We aren't experimenting with how to cure it. We aren't looking at little colds or stomach bugs like they could be potential killers. We aren't taking this things seriously because we don't know what it is.
Maybe it's time to reopen the closed Polio case files and get back to work.
I agree with you saying that we need to keep exploring and developing cures and vaccines, but please note that it's not false that we do have a (very effective) vaccine for poliovirus.
The fact that this virus belongs to a bigger family (with other viruses such as Coxsackie, echo, etc) doesn't mean that they're all as nasty as polio. Think of the smallpox and its vaccine: it was a different virus from the same family that allowed smallpox to be eradicated.
The fact that another virus such as the novel enterovirus can cause the same syndrome as polio doesn't mean that it's the same rose going by a different name; they are related, sure, belonging to the same family, but they are way, way more different than two different influenza strains (that are already so different that we need a new vaccine every year). They have very different infection rates and the percentage of afps complications is much lower.
Polio vaccine IS a story of success. This is a virus that can be eradicated, much like the smallpox, because it is not transmitted by other animals. If we keep vaccinations rates up, this disease could disappear everywhere.
I agree the rates of infection seem different, but a couple points to consider:
1.) Diagnosis today is different than the 40s and 50s. They tended to diagnose by symptoms and there is a thought that more than one issue may have been blanketed by the poliomyelitis diagnosis. This was not helped by government funds being made available for children crippled by a poliomyelitis diagnosis.
2.) There is serious evidence going back to the 50s that doctors recognized by 1954 that the polio epidemic may have been iatrogenic, caused by the widespread tonsillectomy rate. There was an over-90% tonsillectomy rate and those who had complications nearly always were missing their tonsils. It's been since learned that the tonsils produce a natural serum that guards against poliovirus infection. Just this realization alone would change the rate of infection for complicated enterovirus.
3.) Some of the original epidemic may also have been caused by people being sprayed down with DDT, which has similar effects on the nervous system as polio. This would significantly effect our polio data if not all polio was polio. Story
Hence why I'm not sure polio eradication is a vaccine success story.
This reply needs some untangling.
While it's true that tonsillectomy has been linked to "significant risk of respiratory paralysis due to bulbar polio", the link with DDT has previously been debunked. It was actually the other way around- areas with high incidence of polio where treated with DDT when, in the beginning, it was thought that the disease might be transmitted by mosquitoes.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61251-4/fulltext?code=lancet-site
https://www.google.nl/amp/s/vaxopedia.org/2017/10/19/is-there-a-ddt-polio-connection/amp/
DDT contribution: not truly debunked. Doctors at the time and since have pooh-poohed it as "denying germ theory", but it has since proven out that it was a reasonable question to ask and there is evidence that the DDT contributed to cases of paralyzation, if not cases of polio. In other words, there is no doubt that Poliovirus causes Poliomyelitis, but not all cases of paralyzation were necessarily caused by poliomyelitis. The data is incomplete, however, and I'd be willing to concede that it's hard to know what if any effect the DDT had on the situation.
However, I cannot link to the first source and considering the second has a high likelihood of outright dismissing evidence it doesn't like, this doesn't really break the DDT case.
The problem with discussions about polio is that it's usually assumed that if you try to see other causes besides just "the germ caused the disease", there is a correlating denial that the polio vaccine had an impact on halting the epidemic. Hence why the other factors are all erased from the explanation normally except that a germ caused the disease, the disease caused the paralyzation, the vaccine stopped the disease, end of story.
I forgot to say: to me it seems like another rose simply because I see serious potential for kids to be paralyzed very much as they were back in the 40s and 50s and I think holding out the hope that if we just get our kids vaccinated they'll be safe is very troublesome. I so want to be able to take comfort in that thought, but the more I learn the more I question that comfort and am seeking better ways to fight.
I wish I could upvote you for more on this comment.
There are too many ostriches. Don't want to know what is happening. Studies cost money. Health and education seem pretty low on the totem pole. We see that here all the time. Health is suffering. So is education. Here it is against the law to homeschool kids.
Sounds like whether it's against the law or not, kids can't safely get to the schools either...and who has time to prosecute for violations?!
That is how my son feels. He is homeschooling just as he was...
Can’t DE be used if you catch this virus? I’d rather do that than a vaccine.
That's a good question - I have no experience with DE, though I have some. Activated charcoal might help too, since it's a gut-entered virus. At this point, I'm more concerned with other enteroviruses that have no vaccine - even if you believe in vaccines, there isn't one for D68, for example.
just for clarification; what's DE?
Diatomaceous Earth. It's a very fine powdery sand made of silica and shell fragments that can be a natural filter like charcoal. In certain situations it is thought to be useful internally to help a body filter gut toxins or viruses. Up until recently it was mostly used externally in a variety of products as well as organic pesticides (it's good against soft-bodied creatures like slugs), but food grade DE has been used as a clarifier in wine and beer.
It wouldn't hurt to give it a try if you knew you had an enterovirus, but the thing about enteroviruses is that it's hard to know you have one and you'd have to know you had it to start treating it in the illness phase.
Hmmm... quite a heavy subject to write about. And very diplomatically and factually put so that you can't be accused of being for or against. But I'm curious, which are you? You may have read my posts about my autistic stepsons. Then you know where I stand
I haven't yet read about your autistic kiddos, but I can imagine where you would stand!
I began researching the question of what I personally thought of vaccines three years ago. My conclusion is that I am not allowed to have the information I really want: the true effectiveness versus risk of vaccination. Therefore I think it's safer to apply the knowledge of immune systems to helping to fight the actual diseases than to try a shortcut I'm not allowed to weigh properly.
One thing I'm growing more certain of: the essential mechanics of how the vaccines work has some dangerous unknowns. Because of the way bodies have to be "tricked" into responding to them, I'm more concerned about the adjuvants than anything else. I have immediate family members who have developed serious issues that are known to be the effects of certain vaccines and since I can't test my kids for the potential for genetic weakness, I see vaccines for my family as playing Russian roulette with three bullets in the gun while the diseases themselves have only one. Rock, meet hard place...
Very well put @lturner Did you know that you can do a vax detox? You'll have to find a reputable homeopath. It won't totally reverse but it does assist for long term damage. Sadly it's too late for our boys. The vaccines are far worse than they were when we were kids, or when our parents were. I argue with some believers who vaccinate that it is totally against Scripture. The base of many is the stem cells of aborted babies. It is indeed a wicked world we live in. Here's two of the posts.
https://steemit.com/7daypositivitychallenge/@buckaroo/gratitude-day-five-seeing-good-in-the-bad-and-the-ugly
https://steemit.com/health/@buckaroo/living-with-autism
I'm so sorry about the condition with the triplets. All three of them...these stories make me sick. So much heartache that could've been avoided if only there was truthfulness instead of assumption...
Yes, I have read about vax detox, though thankfully it's not a necessary thing to try in our home since it's not an issue for our kids and Ben and I were both vaccinated back when we only got a few.
I've had the same discussion with close family members. For me, the vaccine research began with the stem cells and branched out from there. I ended up knowing we couldn't do alternatives to some vaccines because there were none without the human diploid cells and that was an insurmountable moral objection to us. So then I was on a trail of learning more about vaccination and our choices regarding it and I've ended up going on a long research road since, mostly learning about the diseases themselves and the pros and cons of the different methods of dealing with them. Hence my research into polio, which was the vaccine I bumped into every time I suggested that maybe they aren't as effective as we were originally told. Even people I know who are iffy on vaccines were positive on polio, so I began reading what I could on polio and what it did and where it came from and why it's considered eradicated but the vaccine is still recommended.
I've also learned a lot about tetanus, which was one of my big caveats - "If we get a deep cut/puncture, we really should get a tetanus shot." I've been surprised and relieved by my research because many of the things I assumed to be true about tetanus weren't and I now know what to do if we get a deep cut I'm concerned about.
Thank you for your beautiful and heartfelt response @lturner. Yes it is heartbreaking. It's interesting what motivated people down this path. I wish more would do their research before tragedy forces their eyes open.
I agree: if we could look these things up before bad things happen, it would help.
Tragedy did strike while I was beginning this: my cousin got an MMR booster for high school and immediately developed a known side effect to the vaccine - her body will no longer produce red blood cells without medical help. This happens more frequently in young children and often resolves itself, but after several years it's become apparent that her case is permanent. She'll be on medication for the rest of her life. That's what sent my aunt down this path much faster and stronger than I was going.
Any enterovirus that can cause the symptoms of polio, might as well be polio. @ironshield
at least you didn't go all 'anti-vax' on us.
that's a plus.
Want me to go there?
Oh wait. Nope. I bet you rather I didn't. :-D
Something to point out is a lot of this post is discussing enterovirus's, not the polio virus (a specific species of the genus Enterovirus, specifically its species is Enterovirus C). The eradication of polio is in reference to the eradication of E. Enterovirus C, not the eradication of all enteroviruses.
Edit**
Stating that just because they are similar that they are the same is like saying that chickens and turkeys are the same, and if a country were to eradicate all of the turkeys that they could still hunt wild trkey because chickens. Your example isn't quite as extreme because different enterovirus species are closer in relation than turkeys and chickens (as the relation between turkeys and chickens ends at their order) however the context is the same.
No, it's not quite the same. I'm actually questioning whether the polio virus has indeed been eradicated if we are seeing other enterovirus cause the same problems, i.e. paralyzation and death.
Again, there are different strains of flu virus. It is true that each one is distinct and not all will cause the Great Flu epidemic of the 1900s. But flu is still a big deal.
Considering that we have enterovirus still behaving like poliovirus and having the same complication of paralyzation, I don't think it's unreasonable to say we still have a form of the thing we feared running around loose.
I also forget to point out that CDC article I linked to discussing enterovirus with complication was an Enterovirus C strain - C105. So enterovirus C is not eradicated at all and is almost indistinguishable from the strain traditionally associated with poliomyelitis.
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