Polio vaccine, a double-edged sword
Janus, the two headed god. Because of his ability to see both back and forward, he is associated with powers of prophecy. Can we, too, forsee the future by viewing the past?
Continuing on the topic of public health safety history [after last week’s ‘Arsenic Alert’] today we look into another of their widely touted so-called successes — polio vaccinations.
Admittedly, even though most folks just suffered flu-like symptoms, polio virus infection can cause terrible disease — paralysis and sometimes death. Rapid onset of asymmetric acute flaccid paralysis occurs in 0.1% to 2% of infections, and residual paralytic disease involving motor neurons (paralytic poliomyelitis) occurs in approximately 1 / 1,000 infections. Post WWII baby boomers were susceptible and there was an urgency to get a vaccine to the kids asap. However noble the intent, the initial vaccine launch effort was fraught with calamity.
Salk poliomyelitis vaccine trial (1952-1953) Despite widespread concern over testing the vaccine on live human subjects, the studies continued. In the early 1950s, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes) funded a study by Dr. Jonas Salk and his team of researchers. They planned to try three different strains of injectable, inactive-virus vaccines on humans.
Vaccination programs suspended (1955) When the U.S. Surgeon General questioned the safety of the trial vaccine, all polio vaccination programs were brought to a halt. An investigation revealed that it was responsible for 11 deaths, and hundreds of cases of paralysis. Apparently, some of the vaccines may not have been produced according to Salk’s methods and still contained active type 1 poliovirus.
Testing and licensing of Sabin polio vaccine (1959-1963) For four years, researcher Albert Sabin partnered with health officials from the Soviet Union to produce a more affordable alternative. More than 10 million children received his [live virus] oral polio vaccine (OPV) during this period.
Studies showed that Sabin’s version triggered a faster immune response and was easier to administer than Salk’s vaccine. Both Salk’s injectable vaccine and Sabin’s oral vaccine stopped the spread of all strains of the poliovirus through the bloodstream.
Ultimately, the U.S. Surgeon General recommended licensing of Sabin’s OPV, which combined vaccinations against all three types of polio in 1963.
https://flo.health/health-articles/diseases/infectious-diseases/polio-vaccine-history
The world health community went on to push for global total vaccination. But, in time, the virus evolved to escape back into a wild-type paralytic phenotype. Now we are faced with the existence of two types of vaccine-induced polio:
the spontaneous mutation known as Vaccine-Associated Paralytic Polio (VAPP) which is not an infectious form. It occurs 1/2.7 million doses of OPV.
For polio virus mutations occurring over 1+ year via transmission in a community, it can resemble the infectious wild-type, known as a circulating Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus (cVDPV). Since 2000, 24 cVDPV outbreaks have occurred, resulting in 760 serious clinical cases.
Africa outbreaks 2019-20: Sudan, Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, Congo, Central African Republic and Angola
Countries have reported cases of polio linked to the oral vaccine, as global health numbers show there are now more children being paralyzed by viruses originating in vaccines than in the wild. All the current vaccine-derived polio cases have been sparked by a Type 2 virus contained in the live virus oral vaccine. The Independent Monitoring Board, a group set up by WHO to assess polio eradication, warned … that vaccine-derived polio virus is “spreading uncontrolled in West Africa, bursting geographical boundaries and raising fundamental questions and challenges for the whole eradication process.”
Afghanistan and Pakistan are also struggling to contain outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio.
Use of the oral polio vaccine was discontinued in the UK in 2004 and the US in 2000, and the WHO advises that the use of the oral vaccine should be discontinued due the vaccine-derived outbreaks. Now, only the inactivated polio virus is dispensed, but it requires sterile needles, syringes and cold storage which greatly hampers distribution in poorly-resourced areas.
All of the international infectious disease and global health leadership/scholars know this grim history. Yet it did not stop them from recklessly promulgating misinformation about the *safety* of untested live vaccines (and yes, mRNA, is live because it is self-generating and sheds) for a nonserious typically seasonal coronavirus.
So why would you trust them now?
REFERENCES
https://www.learnreligions.com/janus-the-two-faced-god-2561967
https://flo.health/health-articles/diseases/infectious-diseases/polio-vaccine-history
https://ourworldindata.org/polio
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/vaccine-derived-poliovirus-faq.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/polio-cases-now-caused-vaccine-wild-virus-67287290
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/polio-outbreak-sudan-caused-oral-vaccine-72766683
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1104329
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