The US has been Polio Free Since 1979! Let’s talk about Polio

What is polio?

“Most people who get infected with poliovirus (about 72 out of 100) will not have any visible symptoms. About 1 out of 4 people with poliovirus infection will have flu-like symptoms that may include: sore throat, fever, tiredness, nausea, headache, stomach pain. These symptoms usually last 2 to 5 days, then go away on their own. A smaller proportion of people with poliovirus infection will develop other, more serious symptoms that affect the brain and spinal cord….Note that “poliomyelitis” (or “polio” for short) is defined as the paralytic disease. So only people with the paralytic infection are considered to have the disease. (cdc.gov/polio)

When is the vaccine recommended? 4 times for each child at: 2 mo, 4mo, 6-18mo, 4-6yrs.

How common is polio in the US? United States has been polio-free since 1979!!! “However, the virus has been brought into the country by travelers with polio. The last time this happened was in 1993.” (cdc.gov/polio). Well it mostly has been polio free. Of the 127 cases of paralytic poliomyelitis reported in the US between 1980 and 1994, six were imported cases (caused by wild polioviruses), two were “indeterminate” cases, and 119 were vaccine associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP) cases associated with the use of live, attenuated oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). (Poliovaccineinsert)

So the last US originated case was in 1979, (other than the vaccine causing it in the US.) That is over 40 years ago! At what point do you stop vaccinating for a disease that is WHO certified Polio free!

Let’s look into the history.

When was the first vaccine used? 1955 was the first time polio vaccine was used and what did it do? It spread polio! The Cutter incident happened in 1955 which, “Roughly 40,000 got “abortive” polio, with fever, sore throat, headache, vomiting and muscle pain. Fifty-one were paralyzed, and five died, Offit wrote in his 2005 book, “The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis.”” (Washingtonpost).

So then what happened after the cutter incident caused polio cases? “Leonard Scheele, MD, the U.S. Surgeon General, suspended the polio vaccination program in order to investigate the safety of all six manufacturers’ vaccine.” (Historyofvaccines). “The propaganda effort…to educate the American public about the necessity of getting vaccinated was an arduous process. It lasted 6 years in itself…To get millions of people actually vaccinated was quite an undertaking, that is one of the parts of this entire (polio) story that has been overlooked and hasn’t been told in it’s entirely.” (Historyofvaccines). So clearly it took many years till the vaccine was widely used/accepted, 6 years from 1955 would put us at 1961.

Things that were once classified as polio like aseptic meningitis and coxasackie virus infections were not called polio anymore after 1955. (currenthealth) Paralytic polio also was redefined in 1955 making it harder to diagnose and leading to a decline in cases of polio. Before 1955, anyone could make the diagnosis of polio with paralysis lasting for at least 24 hours. The new definition was changed to paralysis lasting for at least 60 days. Thus polio cases dropped significantly around that time. (weebly)

You can see from the chart below that before 1955 there were 273 cases of polio and 50 of aseptic meningitis. See how in 1961 there are fewer polio but more than triple cases of aseptic meningitis….

Here is another interesting theory. Anyone remember DDT that was sprayed to ward off mosquitos? “Dr. Biskind had the composure to argue what he thought was the most obvious explanation for the polio epidemic (my summary): Central nervous system diseases such as polio are actually the physiological and symptomatic manifestations of the ongoing government and industry sponsored inundation of the world’s populace with central nervous system poisons.” (harvoa.org).

This graph below I found very interesting too. Polio seems to correlate with DDT spraying. Remember correlation does not mean causation but it could be what caused some of the poliomyelitis.

In 1961 the OPV the oral polio vaccine was developed. Look again at this picture below. By 1961 Polio was already mostly eliminated from the US, yet vaccination still got credit for eliminating polio? The annual incidence of paralytic disease of 11.4 cases/100,000 population declined to 0.5 cases by the time oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) was introduced in 1961. (IPOLvaccineinsert).

Since 2000, only IPV is recommended to prevent polio in the United States. (chop.edu). Why is only the inactivated polio vaccine recommended in the US? “An all IPV schedule was adopted in 1999 to eliminate VAPP cases” (Vaccine associated paralytic poliomyelitis). (IPOLvaccineinsert). Do they still give the oral live polio virus in other countries even though it has been associated with paralytic poliomyelitis? Yes unfortunately and it can/does cause polio outbreaks.

A little more about the oral live polio vaccine that is used in other countries. “The fecal excretion of the vaccine viruses may persist for several weeks and may also be transmitted to the contacts of the vaccinees; contacts of vaccinees should therefore be warned about the need for strict personal hygiene.” (OPVvaccineinsert) So looks like polio can spread to others after you have been vaccinated with the oral polio. “Non-immune persons in close contact with a recently vaccinated subject may very rarely be at risk of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis.” (OPVvaccineinsert). So if you get vaccinated with the live polio beware of spreading it.

Couldn’t other thing like cleaner water, better living conditions and improved sanitation that eliminated other disease, also have helped to eliminate polio? If you want to learn more about this, I recommend the book, “Dissolving Illusions, Diseases, Vaccines and the Forgotten History” by Dr. Susana Humphris. It explains the history of diseases and has a lot of good information.

Let’s take a quick look at the insert.

“Although no causal relationship has been established, deaths have occurred in temporal association after vaccination of infants with IPV.” (IPOLvaccineinsert)

I went to VAERS to look up how many adverse reactions have been reported from the polio vaccines…. I found 59,909 adverse reactions from the polio vaccine since 1990.

What is in the our vaccines? Here is what is in the IPV

I hope this will help you make an informed decision.