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Understanding Our Current Polio Threat
Vidcast: https://youtu.be/fIsKAx83LyU
Polio is one disease that was eradicated in the United States by an effective vaccination program that continues to this very day. Yet the poliovirus is back in the New York county of Rockland and is circulating in the water there as well as in population-dense New York City. Let’s look at how we eradicated polio, why this current threat occurred, and what you need to do to protect yourself from a devastating paralytic disease.
The poliovirus in New York’s water and by inference in the gastrointestinal tracts of thousands of New Yorkers is not the wild type that terrorized America up until the mid-20th century. It is not the wild type that each year paralyzed the extremities and often the respiratory muscles of more than 35,000 Americans and killed thousands, many of whom were children. It is not the wild type that put Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our 32nd president, in a wheelchair. And it is not the wild poliovirus that spurred University of Pittsburgh virologist Dr. Jonas Salk to develop the killed-virus vaccine that he and his medical colleagues across our country tested on some 650,000 children in 1954 and that was found to be 80 to 90% effective. Here is Dr. Salk vaccinating one of my classmates as he did for many of us who participated in the trials at Colfax School in Pittsburgh.
By the way, the Salk vaccine development and the clinical trials that proved it was safe and effective were both paid for by the people of the United States. They were paid for with 84 million dollars raised by the FDR-founded National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis better known as the March of Dimes and the Mothers’ March on Polio. The polio vaccine was an early example of successful crowd-sourcing. The American people of all ages gave what they could…dollar, dimes, and even pennies. When Salk refused to patent his vaccine, he added that it belonged to the people and was paid for by the people. How times have changed!
From this triumph of the 20th century, let’s return to the polio challenge of today. The virus that is now circulating is a vaccine-derived poliovirus or cVDPV for short. It arose when the inactivated virus used in the Sabin oral polio vaccine that succeeded the injectable Salk killed virus vaccine regained its toxicity in some persons and then spread. Because of this zombie virus phenomenon, the Sabin vaccine is no longer used in the US, and our children in this country are vaccinated with an inactivated poliovirus vaccine that is the descendant of the Salk Vaccine.
The Sabin vaccine continues to be used in other countries. The Sabin vaccine-derived poliovirus that popped up in New York is genetically similar to one found in Israel where the man infected with it likely picked it up. This same type of virus has also been detected in the UK. Poliovirus spreads like wildfire and, as a so-called enterovirus, lives in the gastrointestinal tracts of the infected. It stays there and can’t infect the nervous system of thos
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By Howard G. Smith MD, AM
Vidcast: https://youtu.be/fIsKAx83LyU
Polio is one disease that was eradicated in the United States by an effective vaccination program that continues to this very day. Yet the poliovirus is back in the New York county of Rockland and is circulating in the water there as well as in population-dense New York City. Let’s look at how we eradicated polio, why this current threat occurred, and what you need to do to protect yourself from a devastating paralytic disease.
The poliovirus in New York’s water and by inference in the gastrointestinal tracts of thousands of New Yorkers is not the wild type that terrorized America up until the mid-20th century. It is not the wild type that each year paralyzed the extremities and often the respiratory muscles of more than 35,000 Americans and killed thousands, many of whom were children. It is not the wild type that put Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our 32nd president, in a wheelchair. And it is not the wild poliovirus that spurred University of Pittsburgh virologist Dr. Jonas Salk to develop the killed-virus vaccine that he and his medical colleagues across our country tested on some 650,000 children in 1954 and that was found to be 80 to 90% effective. Here is Dr. Salk vaccinating one of my classmates as he did for many of us who participated in the trials at Colfax School in Pittsburgh.
By the way, the Salk vaccine development and the clinical trials that proved it was safe and effective were both paid for by the people of the United States. They were paid for with 84 million dollars raised by the FDR-founded National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis better known as the March of Dimes and the Mothers’ March on Polio. The polio vaccine was an early example of successful crowd-sourcing. The American people of all ages gave what they could…dollar, dimes, and even pennies. When Salk refused to patent his vaccine, he added that it belonged to the people and was paid for by the people. How times have changed!
From this triumph of the 20th century, let’s return to the polio challenge of today. The virus that is now circulating is a vaccine-derived poliovirus or cVDPV for short. It arose when the inactivated virus used in the Sabin oral polio vaccine that succeeded the injectable Salk killed virus vaccine regained its toxicity in some persons and then spread. Because of this zombie virus phenomenon, the Sabin vaccine is no longer used in the US, and our children in this country are vaccinated with an inactivated poliovirus vaccine that is the descendant of the Salk Vaccine.
The Sabin vaccine continues to be used in other countries. The Sabin vaccine-derived poliovirus that popped up in New York is genetically similar to one found in Israel where the man infected with it likely picked it up. This same type of virus has also been detected in the UK. Poliovirus spreads like wildfire and, as a so-called enterovirus, lives in the gastrointestinal tracts of the infected. It stays there and can’t infect the nervous system of thos