Question:
> The responses from the vaccine-supporters, while passionate, simply do > not answer this question in the kind of scientifically valid way that I > would like to have it answered. Which leads me to believe that they > truly do not know the answer, all they have to go on is anecdotes. Mr. > Phillips may well be on to something real. > Here’s what I would have expected from the critics of Mr. Phillips at > the very least: > 1. An estimate of what the incidence of polio would be today were it not > for the vaccine, extrapolating from the downward trend. > 2. An estimate of what proportion of pre-vaccine paralysis cases > classified as polio were "real" polio
Let me get this straight, you want Mr. Phillips’ critics to come up with extrapolations and estimates of what MIGHT have happened had we not had the vaccine? You want them to GUESS which cases of paralysis were misdiagnosed as polio, but were really something else? If those are what you consider "scientifically valid" answers, then I hope you can be on my thesis committee. I’ll get my Ph.D. a helluva lot earlier than it looks like I’m going to. If you are looking for facts, I would suggest reading any recent introductory textbook on cellular and molecular immunology. A lot of people have worked very hard for a very long time in this field. All of that work outlines the principles upon which the immune system is based. Those principles suggest that vaccination is an effective way of inducing immunological memory against a pathogen that is generally much safer than actually getting infected with the pathogen. Jeff Jackson
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> If this is the quality of the information supplied by Mr. Phillips’ > organization, one would be well-advised to avoid it. > — > – Rich Young > (E-mail will be posted publicly as I see fit. You have been warned.)
Young: You are still around rubber stamping every commercial ploy that keeps people in the dark about health and health matters. People like you are worse than a disease. Learn and then you will know the truth. This news group is ladened with vermin waiting to prey on the innocent with lies. One saving fact is your stupidity is humorous and that is a saving grace. Henry Kelcinski
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>Much applause to Mr. Young for taking the time to examine in detail >the information posted. >I thank you for taking the extra time and making a complex subject >understandable to most anyone.
Actually, I found Young’s post quite an unsatisfactory rebuttal. See my eariler comments on this thread. >But it also makes me wonder about so much of the information one >finds on the net. Are people accepting it, or are they waiting until >they see a good critical examination from the other side?
I used to believe the vaccine propaganda 100% until I read the kind of critical examination provided by Mr. Phillips. I read Mr. Phillips’s argument that the elimination of polio may well have been due to its dying a natural death, augmented by a redefinition of the disease. I found it to be a quite strong argument, as long as the statistics he cited were valid. I didn’t check them. I was curious what the "other side" would say. Would it turn out that Phillips had gotten his facts wrong? So I read Rich Young’s rebuttal. To be honest, I found really missed the point. It relied on sarcasm, bullying, and asserting-the-conclusion, and throwing around a lot of smoke, instead of calmly citing evidence to the contrary. Again, see my comments. I still haven’t made up my mind on the question of whether the polio vaccine contributed significantly, or at all, to the decline of the disease. The responses from the vaccine-supporters, while passionate, simply do not answer this question in the kind of scientifically valid way that I would like to have it answered. Which leads me to believe that they truly do not know the answer, all they have to go on is anecdotes. Mr. Phillips may well be on to something real. Here’s what I would have expected from the critics of Mr. Phillips at the very least: 1. An estimate of what the incidence of polio would be today were it not for the vaccine, extrapolating from the downward trend. 2. An estimate of what proportion of pre-vaccine paralysis cases classified as polio were "real" polio It would be interesting to discuss the basis for such estimates. I believe one should constantly be re-evaluating one’s conclusions and making explicit one’s assumptions. This is not "dangerous". Quite the contrary. Only in this way will science progress. Mr. Phillips has demonstrated his ability to reason critically along these lines. I wonder if the people on the "other side" can do the same, without resorting to guilt-by-association and other invalid rhetorical techniques. –Alex
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Reasearcher said: >: ..the incidence of polio *increased substantially* after introduction of >: mass immunization programs–by 50% in 1957-58 and by 80% 1958-59
Young said: > Where? Nationwide, or in some local area?
Consider, please, that many vaccinations were done with a weakened form of the live virus. When using this technique it sometimes happens that the "weakened" virus is stronger than anticipated and instead of vaccinating can *cause* the disease. In the early days of using the live-virus vaccine, when the technique was new, this did occur and could account for some localized outbreaks. There are (fortunately) rare instances of this happening today. I personally know of a young man (about 25 now) who caught polio from his vaccination. If you want to eliminate this risk use the killed-virus vaccination. End of *that* particular problem. Reasearcher said: >: –and that statistics had been manipulated to give the opposite >: impression, as follows:
I thought that was the whole point of statistics – to manipulate data. Researcher said: >: 1. Vaccination began in 1955, yet a 61% decrease in 1954 was credited to >: the Salk vaccine- when it was not even yet available in the state! *[in >: fact, polio had been in a steady decline for a few years prior to the >: vaccine; England saw an 82% decline from its 1950 peak prior to the >: vaccine programs in 1956]
Young said: > Polio epidemics were cyclic. A decline over a few years means > absolutely nothing. The sharp decline in polio incidence in the > decades following vaccine introduction, however, are definitely > significant.
There were several of what would now call large clinical trials in areas that historically had large outbreaks of polio fairly regularly. It was the success of those trials that prompted mass immunization. It order to fairly evaulate the above fact – a dip in polio BEFORE immunization – it is not enough to consider the whole country at large. You would need to compare areas with large vaccine trials with those that did NOT have such trials to eliminate the possibility that success with these trials were skewing the national statistics. So, CAN the dip in disease prior to mass immunization be accounted for by successful clinical trials – or not? If clinical trials affected the statistics just prior to mass immunization then Researcher’s argument on this point falls apart. Researcher said: >: 2. The definition of ‘epidemic’ was changed from 20 cases/1000,000 to 35 >: cases/100,000.
Young said: > Which would change nothing except the timing of reactions by Public > Health organizations to outbreaks of the disease. It wouldn’t > change the actual number reported. This "fact" is irrelevant.
I agree with Young on this point. Researcher is confusing "rate at which a disease occurs" to "classification of the seriousness of that rate of occurance". These are perhaps related, but they are not the same thing. Researcher said: >: 3. Polio itself was redefined. To be classified as paralytic polio >: post-vaccine, symptoms had to exist for only 24 hours, whereas before the >: vaccine, they had to be present 60 days.
Young said: > The definition of polio was revised so that reports would more > closely reflect the true incidence of the disease. Prior to the > revision, many apparently paralytic diseases were reported as > polio when in fact they were NOT polio.
Researcher said >: 4. Pre-vaccination, cocksackie virus and aseptic meningitis were >: classified as polio; post-vaccination they were classified separately.
Young said: > See above. The reclassification was done to improve statistical > accuracy, not to flummox the public at large.
This reflects in part an increasing knowledge of the diseases in question. Pre-19th Century "infantile paralysis" was applied to *all* cases of paralytic symptoms in infants and children without regard to the true cause – there was no way to determine "true cause" and often no notion of germs as we now understand them. Over time, it was learned that what was once thought to be one disease was actually several, each with their own separate cause. It is not possible to go back and "correct" prior reports of disease incidence because there is no way to correctly determine in a given case what disease caused the symptoms once a certain amount of time has passed. Unless someone has a time machine. [snip] Researcher said: >: Thought polio statistics as recorded evidenced a decline from 1955-66, >: viral and aseptic meningitis showed increases.
Young said: > I should think that was to be expected, given the redefinition. If > there were, say, 100 cases of paralytic disease in prior years, all > classified as polio (but half of which were actually meningitis), > then reclassification would result in 50 reported cases of polio > (a decrease) and 50 cases of meningitis (an increase), without > actually requiring a change in total infection rate or the ratio of > one disease to the other.
Researcher said: >: In 1975, it was reported >: that polio showed a count of zero, while a footnote explained that all >: such cases were now reported as meningitis.
Excuse me – there is something wrong with stating "all cases with these symptoms were found to be caused by meningitis"? That’s what I took the above to mean. Meningitis and polio CAN have similar symptoms – that DOESN’T mean they are the same thing. Young said: > Vaccination *did* reduce the incidence of polio to one or two a year, > and in some years there were no reported cases. 1975 may have been > one of those years. Given no cases of polio, other incidents of > paralytic disease must have been due to something else…like > meningitis.
Researcher said: >: Salk and other scientists testified in Sept. 1977 that most of the polio >: cases since the 1970’s were a product of the live polio virus vaccine in >: use. *[a 1985 CDC report concur with this as well; there are a >: documented 8-10 cases of VAPP, vaccine associated (i.e. induced) >: paralytic polio each year in the U.S., even though there have been no >: cases of wild polio in the western hemisphere for at least 4 years now]
Young said: > This is true…[snip]…The Salk vaccine was the first effective vaccine > to hit the market, but it was soon relegated to second place because > the Sabin vaccine was more easily given, less expensive, and had the > unique ability to confer immunity even to those not directly receiving > the vaccine (through oral ingestion of the weakened virus from one > who HAD been vaccinated).
Which *also* caused a few cases of the "real thing". Given the rise of immune-suppressive symdromes in the world today (such as AIDS and organ transplants) I really have to question the wisdom of continuing to use a vaccine that can potentially "spread" to individuals whose systems may not be able to cope with even a weakened virus. Heck, I have to sort of question the wisdom of using this sort of vaccine when there is an alternative that DOESN’T spread. Using live virus, even weakened, makes me nervous. But let’s give credit where credit is due – either vaccine has saved many more lives than it has taken. Reasearcher said: > It’s interesting to note that the CDC has recently acknowledged that > virtually all cases of polio in the U. S. are now iatrogenic and is > advising that the first in a series of polio immunizations be with > the injected Salk-type vaccine (which uses killed virus and cannot > cause the disease). This would confer a degree of resistance to > possible serious infection by later doses of the Sabin vaccine. As > a matter of personal choice, there’s no good reason why ALL > polio vaccinations in the series can’t be Salk, however…several > European countries have followed this path from the first vaccine > availability.
Yeah, why not used the Salk? We already stick kids full of needles at and shortly after birth – what’s one more? (And just when DID doctors in hospitals start with the needle fetish? – You know, you come with a scraped knee and the first thing they do is stick a needle in your arm.) [snip] Researcher said: >: Finally, in Oman, 6 months after being the first country to achieve >: complete vaccination of polio (98%), there was a widespread outbreak.
Young said: > And no one knows why. But it was short-lived and very local. Also > note that no quantification of "widespread" has been supplied.
Early vaccines, and early in the development of vaccines, they don’t always work quite as well as hoped. For that matter, some batches of vaccines have been known to be faulty. There was an instance of German Measles vaccines in the mid to late 1960s that weren’t effective, requiring large numbers of American children to undergo re-vaccination as adults. This doesn’t mean the vaccine doesn’t work – it just means that *particular* batch doesn’t work. This could be one explanation for Oman. Or, if they were using oral vaccine, it could be that "unique ability" of spreading "weakened" virus at work. Simply holding this up is nothing more than a scare tactic. Eliminate the obvious potential causes I’ve listed above – THEN make the argument that this incident is significant in your arguments. Researcher said: >: Heretical as it seems (before examining the facts), vaccinations are not >: only given undue credit for the elimination of disease, but are >: themselves an unacknowledged source of disease suffering.
Young said: – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Both of which statements are wholly and unequivocally not only > unsubstantiated, but demonstrably untrue.
… read more »
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->I’m not going to repost Rich Young’s able trashing of the original post, but I >thought of this: >How many people do I know personally that have actually had polio? None. >How many do my parents know? How many did their parents know? >A large fraction more than none, I’d wager. >Coincidence? >Scott >– >Scott S. Lindstrom | The only other sound’s >http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottl/homepage1.html | wind and downy flake
I work for Paraquad, an organization in St. Louis that assists people with disabilities to learn to help themselves in various areas of their lives. At least one of the individuals with whom I work (a woman in her 30s) is post-polio. So it does still show up.
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->How many people do I know personally that have actually had polio? >None. How many do my parents know? How many did their parents know? >A large fraction more than none, I’d wager. >Coincidence? >Scott >– >(I do happen to know a couple, so perhaps I am better aquainted with the >consequences than you…) >But re: the above: Your parents (are likely to) know more polio >victims than you. Their parents (are likely to) know more than your >parents, and so on… >Notice that this trend, looking backwards in time, begins post vaccine >and continues pre-vaccine. No coincidence here, just the lack of an >adequate explanation for the phenomena.
I believe there is plenty of "adequate explanation" for the phenomenon. Called the Salk vaccine. I am of an age where I remember poliomyelitis most vividly. It scared the hell out of us back before the vaccine. You can still easily find cases of polio among peoples who are not vaccinated against it as a normal part of their health care, and who, historically, have not been. Bill Whedon — * Bill Whedon, Tektite Diversified Corp., Lenexa, KS 66214 USA * * The misc.fitness.* photo album pages are at ftp.netcom.com in * * /pub/wh/whedon named page1.gif .. pagen.gif You can point a * * Web browser at ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/wh/whedon/page1.gif *
Response:
<<"In 1948, during the height of the polio epidemics, Dr. Benjamin Sandler, a nutritional expert at the Oteen Veteran’s Hospital, detailed a relationship between polio and an excessive consumption of sugars and starches. >> This is not entirely a surprise (at least to me), though it’s an interesting example. Various sugars are well documented for dampening the immune response, such as by making phagocytes sluggish. References on request. Jack Challem Editor & Publisher THE NUTRITION REPORTER TM newsletter THE NUTRITION REPORTER, an independent newsletter, summarizes recent medical journal articles on vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. For sample issues, send $3 and a long self-addressed envelope with 55 cents postage to The Nutrition Reporter, PO Box 5505, Aloha OR 97006 USA. By the way…we do not sell vitamins.
Response:
Here are a few abstracts (my selection must have been biased though, I didn’t cite any journals or books that state "Vaccines Don’t Work" in the title) culled from Medline (please don’t sue me) on the polio vaccination topic. Perhaps if the statistical arguments being used don’t convince you either way, check out the experimental evidence. Of course, if you don’t believe that lab experiments have any relation to the "real world" as you see it, these papers will appear only as further flummery of the Vaccine Mafia. Ann N Y Acad Sci 754: 97-107 (1995) Comparative evaluation of immunization with live attenuated and inactivated poliovirus vaccines. P. L. Ogra Department of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston 77555-0351, USA. The development of serum and nasopharyngeal antibody response, as well as the magnitude and temporal pattern of fecal shedding of vaccine and revertant polio-viruses, have been examined in infants previously immunized with one or more doses of orally administered live attenuated poliovaccine, enhanced potency inactivated polio-vaccine, or both. The nature of serum immune response appears to be similar after either immunization schedule, although the antibody titers are quantitatively higher after two doses of EP-IPV than those observed after a similar schedule with OPV. Highest antibody activity is generally detected in subjects immunized with a combination of EP-IPV followed by OPV. ELISA antibody activity in the nasopharynx was regularly detected after either form of immunization. However, neutralizing and VP3 poliovirus virion protein-specific antibody responses in the nasopharynx were consistently observed in subjects immunized with OPV or EP-IPV followed by OPV. Subjects immunized with EP-IPV alone exhibit significantly lower or absent neutralizing or VP3-specific responses. The nucleic acid sequences of the purified RNA obtained from all virus isolates have also been examined in the 5′ noncoding region by dideoxy-sequencing to determine whether the viruses shed represent revertants (vaccine), non-revertants, or both. The frequency and duration of vaccine virus shedding appears to be similar in both immunization schedules. Revertant virus shedding was not demonstrated 30 days after immunization with OPV alone. However, shedding of revertants was detected for as long as 60 days in some subjects previously immunized with EP-IPV. The duration of shedding of revertant virus differed with different serotypes and different immunization regimens. Prior immunization with one or more doses of OPV reduced the length of shedding of revertant virus. Significantly, however, prior immunization with one or more doses of EP-IPV was not associated with reduced shedding of revertant virus types. Based on these observations and a number of other epidemiologic data summarized in this review, it is clear that both OPV and EP-IPV when used alone are highly effective and safe in inducing effective immunity to polio-virus and in the eradication of poliomyelitis. While the combination schedule employing EP-IPV followed by OPV should result in a decline of vaccine-associated paralytic (VAP) disease in OPV recipients, such immunization schedules may have little or no impact on the development of VAP in susceptible contacts. Furthermore, the logistics and the cost of combination schedules must be considered before current recommendations based on the use of OPV or EP-IPV alone are revised. I thought it was interesting that the next paper’s authors noted journal bias for POSITIVE evidence of a causal link – far from the portrayal of vaccine researchers holding hands in solidarity to hush up any negative publicity about vaccines. Of course, the authors’ are probably biased, as are the journal editors. Note also that the authors do not categorically deny that there may be a link… unlike previous posters who affirm correlational studies when they support their point but cry foul at the use of the same to oppose them. Ann N Y Acad Sci 753: 245-256 (1995)[95336055] Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and polio: is there an association? H. Okumura, L. T. Kurland & S. C. Waring Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA. Because polio and ALS are both manifestations of anterior horn cell disease, consideration of some etiologic or pathogenetic relationship continues to recur. Studies that show an association are infrequent and are greatly outnumbered by negative reports in spite of possible journal bias to report positive results. Our limited studies in Guam and Rochester, Minnesota, have added to the negative list, and support the conclusion that there is no etiologic association of these two distinct diseases. The role, if any, of nonparalytic polio and polio vaccines with respect to ALS is not clear. With such a high proportion of the population having antibodies to polio, it may not be feasible to differentiate ALS with respect to the presence or absence of polio antibodies. Although the results to date do not support a polio-ALS relationship, further long-term studies are desirable for both the classical and the Western Pacific forms of ALS with respect to past polio outbreaks and, for the future, the unknown effect of polio vaccines on the incidence of ALS. This next one was not specifically on polio vaccine, but it may have (biased, of course) references which one may look up to see if the statistics back up either side. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 9185: 2464-2468 (1994)[94195763] Quest for life-long protection by vaccination. W. R. Dowdle & W. A. Orenstein Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333. Life-long protection from disease through immunization can be accomplished through individual or community protection. Individual protection is the goal for vaccination against diseases that have inanimate or animal reservoirs or that pose risks for certain populations. Community protection is the goal for vaccination against diseases that are transmitted only from human to human. Community protection afforded by childhood vaccines has been highly successful against measles, rubella, mumps, and polio. However, outbreaks of measles, rubella, and mumps continue to occur, primarily because of inadequate immunization of children under age 2. Simplification of vaccination regimens, provision of incentives to care providers and parents, and increased access to care should improve vaccination rates in the United States. Better protection requires better use of available vaccines. Eradication of disease through vaccination is the ultimate goal of community protection. Elimination of the infectious agent is the most effective means of achieving life-long protection. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) smallpox eradication campaign eliminated a serious disease as well as the need for a vaccine with frequent and severe adverse reactions. The discontinuation of smallpox vaccination in the United States has produced a savings of over $3 billion. Polio has been targeted by WHO for eradication by the year 2000. The eradication of polio and the elimination of the need for polio vaccination in the United States should result in a savings of $110 million per year in vaccine costs alone. Strong United States support is crucial for WHO to reach its goal. Any of the vaccine-preventable childhood virus diseases could be eradicated with sufficient national and international will. Measles and hepatitis B should be high priorities. The ultimate goal of vaccination is life-long protection of all individuals. Any disease of sufficient public health importance to warrant routine vaccination is of sufficient importance to warrant eradication wherever judged to be possible. Science 195: 834-47 (1977)[77127285] Control of influenza and poliomyelitis with killed virus vaccines. J. Salk & D. Salk (The Devil of Vaccination himself! A biased report, of course :>) The requirements for inducing immunity against an infectious disease are outlined, and the application of these requirements to the development of effective vaccines (vaccinology) is discussed. Influenza and poliomyelitis are examined from this viewpoint, and data are presented that demonstrate the effectiveness of killed virus vaccines against these diseases. A comparison between live and killed poliovirus vaccines suggests the desirability of returning to the use of a killed virus vaccine for the eradication of polio. The natural history of influenza and experience with vaccination suggest that influenza might be brought under effective control by routine immunization in childhood with a polyvalent killed virus vaccine potentiated by an immunologic adjuvant. I hope this will be of help to anyone interested in pursuing the topic further. My apologies to those in the afflicted newsgroups of this thread for continuing a possibly off-topic crossposting. Dave — http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ae047/Profile.html "Everything has a mirror image – except, of course, a vampire."-Morrison and Boyd, _Organic Chemistry_
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:In 1948, during the height of the polio epidemics, Dr. Benjamin :Sandler, a nutritional expert at the Oteen Veteran’s Hospital, :detailed a relationship between polio and an excessive :consumption of sugars and starches. Jack Challem, THE NUTRITION REPORTER: >This is not entirely a surprise (at least to me), though it’s an >interesting example. Various sugars are well documented for >dampening the immune response, such as by making phagocytes >sluggish. References on request. But in the case of polio, the virus doesn’t generally kill the cell it infects; rather, CNS cells marked with viral antigen are attacked by the host immune system resulting in the characteristic pathology we associate with the disease. So it would seem "sluggish" histiocyte activity might be desirable here, Jack. Of course, I’m not recommending sugar to treat polio any more than I’m certain that, like the immune system, Jack hasn’t reflexively glommed onto that lame morsel of nutritional innuendo left on MHA’s cell surface by that viral bug, Alan Phillips. I mean, just because you advertise your ‘nutrition newsletter’ with every post doesn’t mean that even polio is a ‘nutritional illness’..does it? JB.
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Much applause to Mr. Young for taking the time to examine in detail the information posted. I thank you for taking the extra time and making a complex subject understandable to most anyone. But it also makes me wonder about so much of the information one finds on the net. Are people accepting it, or are they waiting until they see a good critical examination from the other side? Thanks again. RHGerber
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"In 1948, during the height of the polio epidemics, Dr. Benjamin Sandler, a nutritional expert at the Oteen Veteran’s Hospital, detailed a relationship between polio and an excessive consumption of sugars and starches. He compiled records showning that countries with the highest per capita consumption of sugar had the greatest incidence of polio. He claimed that such ‘foods’ dehydrate the cells and leech calcium from the nerves, muscles, bones, and teeth. A serious calcium deficiency precedes polio.22 "Researchers have always known that polio strikes with its greatest intensity during the hot summer months. Dr. Sandler observed that children consume greater amounts of ice cream, soda pop, and artificially sweetened products in hot weather. In 1949, before the polio season began, he warned the residents of North Carolina (through newspapers and radio) to decrease their consumption of these products. During that summer North Carolinians reduced their intake of sugar by 90 percent and polio decreased in that state in 1949 by the same amount. (The North Carolina State Health Department reported 2,498 cases of polio in 1948 and 229 in 1949).23,24 "Note: One manufacturer shipped one million less gallons of ice cream during the first week alone following the publication of Dr. Sandler’s anti-polio diet. Coca Cola sales were down as well. But the powerful Rockefeller Milk Trust, which sold frozen products to North Carolinians, combined forces with the Coca Cola power merchants and convinced the people that Sander’s findings were a myth and the polio figures a fluke. By the summer of 1950 sales were back to oridinary levels and polio cases returned to ‘normal’ during that year.25 "22. Benjamin P Sandler, MD, Diet Prevents Polio, (The Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1951). Also see Note 10, pp. 116-118; 146. 23. Ibid p. 146 24. See Note 22, p. 43 25. See Note 10, p.146 (10. Eleanor McBean, The Poisoned Needle, (Mokelumne Hill, CA: Health Research, 1974), p. 142.)" From _Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?_, Neil Z. Miller "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds." Albert Einstein
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>How many people do I know personally that have actually had polio? >None. How many do my parents know? How many did their parents know? >A large fraction more than none, I’d wager. >Coincidence? >Scott >–
(I do happen to know a couple, so perhaps I am better aquainted with the consequences than you…) But re: the above: Your parents (are likely to) know more polio victims than you. Their parents (are likely to) know more than your parents, and so on… Notice that this trend, looking backwards in time, begins post vaccine and continues pre-vaccine. No coincidence here, just the lack of an adequate explanation for the phenomena. Name: Alan Phillips "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds." Albert Einstein
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Did vaccines eliminate polio? Yes – except in underdeveloped countries where there are still polio cases because many people are not vaccinated!!
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> 1. Vaccination began in 1955, yet a 61% decrease in 1954 was credited to > the Salk vaccine- when it was not even yet available in the state! *[in > fact, polio had been in a steady decline for a few years prior to the > vaccine; England saw an 82% decline from its 1950 peak prior to the > vaccine programs in 1956]
The statement is false. Vaccination began *nationwide* in 1955. In Berkeley, California, my home town, students were vaccinated as early as late 1953/early 1954; i was vaccinated while in the 1st grade during those years. I have read elsewhere that these trial-run Salk vaccinations in 1953-54 occurred in several urban areas known to have had large polio outbreaks in previous years. Obviously the elimination of polio those urban areas beginning in 1953 would have contributed to the nationwide decline in 1954. >How many people do I know personally that have actually had polio? >None. How many do my parents know? How many did their parents know? >A large fraction more than none, I’d wager.
I am 48 years old. For the benefit of younger folks who have not known many polio victims, i’d like to answer that question in the most literal way possible: My late father-in-law Selig Paskin (born circa 1900) had polio and was crippled and grossly deformed for life — which, by the way, did not stop him from becoming a high school principal in New York City or leading a Boy Scout troup, but did contribute to his early death, due to paralytic problems with his rib cage and lungs. Mrs. Willis, the school librarian in my own school, Whittier Elementary in Berkeley, had been afflicted by polio in her youth, too. She walked with a severe limp and many of the children made fun of her, calling her "Mrs. Wiggle-Butt" because of the lurching way she got around. She was a wonderfully kind woman nonetheless and once, when arrangements to have a babysitter ick me up after school fell through, she took me to her own home and let me stay there until my mom showed up. The year before i was vaccinated for polio, a woman on my block (McGee Street in Berlkeley) named Charlotte was stricken with the disease. She had been a nice "young bride" type of person, under 30 years of age, but after she got out of the hospital, she cried all the time. Apparently she would never be able to have children and she was doomed to remain in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Her husband, a city fireman, bought her a television — at that time a rare and expensive item — because she could not leave the house. She used to invite all the neighborhood kids to come and watch it, and we sat on the floor laughing at Wally Cox as "Mr. Peepers" and other such foolery. I felt sorry for her, but i didn’t know how to help. There was nothing we could do. In later years i only met one person around my age who had polio — a man who lived in the town of Mendocino, California, and who had contracted the disease in 1954, at the time my school-mates and i were being vaccinated. I often thought, as i saw him hauling himself around on his one good leg, dragging his useless leg behind him, how lucky i was to have grown up in Berkeley, not Mendocino, and to have been vaccinated early on, before the nationwide program was instituted. That’s my polio story. If you are young and don’t know anyone who was damaged by the disease, consider yourself fortunate. catherine yronwode alt.lucky.w — the newsgroup of synchronicity, amulets, and talismans http://sunSITE.unc.edu/london/The_Sacred_Landscape.html
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>No coincidence here, just the lack of an adequate explanation >for the phenomena. >Name: Alan Phillips > >"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from > mediocre minds." Albert Einstein Why is it that it’s always those WITH mediocre minds who use this Einstein quote in their .sig, Alan? As you say, "No coincidence here, just a lack of an adequate explanation for the phenomena." More specifically related to polio vaccinations, can you explain to me why an _improvement_ in sanitation practices increase the risk of paralytic polio? And, on a related track, the Sabin or ‘LIVE’(eeeeeek!) vaccine is used in the U.S. and the Salk, or ‘killed’ one, used in Europe. What are the risks and benefits of each? Presumably, as a vaccination ‘Researcher’ AND "Great Mind," you are informed enough to easily answer these straightforward questions. Peep-hole want to know. JB.
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Just wondering out loud (as an ignorant Brit) but I remember reading a paper on the dissappearence of wild type polio virus from the US which said that the last real out-break of wild type polio was in an unvaccinated group of adults in a religous community. The virus was of a type which was imported from Holland via Canada by a member of the commune. The polio did not spread outside the community to the general population. Also if the wild type virus is effectively extinct in the US is this also the case in Mexico? I don’t think it is, but correct me if I’m wrong. Is there something special about the Rio Grande? or is it because with a vaccination rate of approx. 80% sero-conversion, I believe, north of it the virus, which if I remember correctly has no zoonotic reservior, cannot sustain itself? I doubt that better sanitation can be the answer since, if I remember correctly, polio is notoriously perverse in that as living standards improved the incidence went up. As to diet etc. polio dissappeared in the UK over a short period of time I can’t believe that changes in diet were responsible, we were eating the same bad food before and after polio went. As to changes in mortality figures are they important? There are lots of reasons why people survive illness’s that were previously killers, the development of ventilation, access to hospital etc. Surely it’s the incidence that matters and that is a lot lower today. That the virus died out in America (which you say it has) of its own accord I could believe but only north of the Rio Grande seem a little far fetched. As I say I’m not an expert, but just a thought. Mike. — The opinions expressed in this communication are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
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> Dr. Bernard Greenburg, Head of the Dept. of Biostatistics at the Univ. of > North Carolina Sch of Public Health didn’t think so, with testimony > before Congress that…
Are we starting this again? People, if you are fed up with this dreck fairly closely on the tails of yet another vaccination pro/con war, then ponder the sound of one hand clapping. You need two to make a noise. C. Feldman
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> The definition of polio was revised so that reports would more > closely reflect the true incidence of the disease. Prior to the > revision, many apparently paralytic diseases were reported as > polio when in fact they were NOT polio.
[..] > The reclassification was done to improve statistical > accuracy, not to flummox the public at large.
Semantics, semantics. And we bombed the city in order to promote democracy, not as an act of agression. > The whole idea was to separate true polio > from conditions which simply mimic the disease.
Who cares what the "idea was". The result was that if you look at the raw data, it will seem like the incidence of "true polio" declined. Who ever went back to correct the old statistics to reflect the new definition? Would the decline have been that sharp? >: Though polio statistics as recorded evidenced a decline from 1955-66, >: viral and aseptic meningitis showed increases. > I should think that was to be expected, given the redefinition. If > there were, say, 100 cases of paralytic disease in prior years, all > classified as polio (but half of which were actually meningitis), > then reclassification would result in 50 reported cases of polio > (a decrease) and 50 cases of meningitis (an increase), without > actually requiring a change in total infection rate or the ratio of > one disease to the other. > Talk about trying to lie with statistics! Mr. Phillips owes a debt > of gratitude to Mark Twain for having supplied the perfect description > of his presentation here.
Why the righteous sarcastic indignation? All you did was to restate Alan’s argument! Which is, if you narrow the definition of polio after having introduced a vaccine, you will have the illusion that the true disease went down, because the word has one meaning pre-vaccine and another meaning post-vaccine. It will look like the infection rate dropped 50% when in fact there was no change. Pretty funny, Rich. First you say that the vaccine caused the sharp decline in reported cases of polio. But then you say that such a decline is to be expected regardless of whether the vaccine really worked, which is exactly what Alan’s been saying all along. Funny, people (including yourself) think you "trashed" his argument, when in fact you support it! > Except in odd, and extremely localized, > outbreaks, polio has never again threatened a vaccinated population > as the unvaccinated population was threatened before Salk’s vaccine.
No one’s denying that that polio disappeared. The issue is was it because of or in spite of the vaccine? The thing to do is to compare modern vaccinated and unvaccinated populations and look at the rate of polio. Who has done that? Comparing modern vaccinated and epidemic-era unvaccinated populations is not going to prove anything. >: Heretical as it seems (before examining the facts), vaccinations are not >: only given undue credit for the elimination of disease, but are >: themselves an unacknowledged source of disease suffering. > Both of which statements are wholly and unequivocally not only > unsubstantiated, but demonstrably untrue.
We’re still waiting for you to demonstrate their untruth, without relying on tautologies. > If this is the quality of the information supplied by Mr. Phillips’ > organization, one would be well-advised to avoid it.
If this is the quality of the rhetoric supplied by Mr. Young, one would be well-advised to read it very critically. –Alex
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Without the reader having an adequate >background, the kind of misinformation that Mr. Phillips and his >organization are putting out gets mistaken for fact.
A background which prevents one from seeing both sides of an issue, when there are knowledgeable experts on both sides, is not a background I would choose. How unfortunate that as some of us rise in academic standing we loose our ability to hear new information. I don’t have the background to challenge an expert in biostatistics, but I do have the critical thinking skills to evaluate his evidence. Those who also possess this faculty will also do so. They are the fortunate ones.
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>How many people do I know personally that have actually had polio? None. >How many do my parents know? How many did their parents know? >A large fraction more than none, I’d wager. >Coincidence?
This is a valid question (see following post). Anyone looking into the issue with open eyes will not see an easy answer to this complex question. Disagree with Dr. Greenberg? That is your right, though the information is documented. It is fascinating to me (if not a bit distressing) that it is far easier to dismiss that which seems inconsistent with our world view (however well substantiated) than to accept evidence which leaves us without an easy answer. What a narrow existence!
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John, >Your reply still begs the question as to what reduced the incidence of >paralytic poliomyelitis. You might just as well blame INCREASED >sanitation for the high incidence of the disease in the early part of >this century. There is an epidemiological connection between the age of >first exposure to the virus and the paralytic syndrome (later is worse). >John Peloquin
The original post answers that quite clearly for the years immediately following vaccination–in the redefining of the disease. As far as associating sanitation and decrease incidence, we could also blame the space program for the recorded fall in polio incidence, as they occurred at about the same time…but let’s get real here. The lack of a clear understanding of an observed phenomena does not negate the existance of the phenomena. A true scientist seeks to understand what is, not to contrive an explanation, ignoring the realities which don’t fit his theory, in order to obtain whatever profit or prestige may be in the offing. Allow me to repeat myself briefly to establish a point: since disease mortality decline was firmly established prior to the vaccine, and continued at the same rate post vaccines (the short term increase in incidence post-vaccine seems not to have affected mortality, at least as it was recorded), it is difficult to establish what if any effect the vaccine had on mortality; i.e. *whatever* the cause(s), they seem to have been unaffected by vaccines (which is quite fortunate, given the adverse effect that the polio vaccine *did* have on incidence). However, it would appear that *eventually* both polio and meningitis incidence continued to decline as they had been doing pre-vaccine, in spite of the initial post-vaccine increases, and the question "Why?" is an extremely valid and important one. This is the very question which should have been addressed in earnest and in depth a long time ago. The short answer is I don’t know (which certainly does not negate the declines). I could speculate on possible causes, but not being an expert in the evolution and mutation of disease (and either the experts don’t know, or their story too has been supressed, though it is more likely a very complex issue not completely understood by anyone), and given the evidence substantiating the purposeful manipulation of statistics to present a false picture of the state of the disease, such speculation would be better spent on *why* this question was not persued by medical researchers at a time that it might have helped decrease the actual occurance of illness, when instead medical authorities chose to mislead through manipulation of the data. Not to mention that even if you consider calming public panic a valid reason to lie (which I sure don’t), it is certainly a poor ethical practice to continue using fear to promote a practice for decades after it has been shown to be of questionable efficacy and harboring iatrogenic consequences, especially given the complete and total lack of polio in the western hemisphere for years now. Anyway, for one, a disease which declines on its own before vaccinations such as occurred with polio (and by even greater %’s, the other major childhood infectious diseases) does not offer the opportunity for profit from a successful cure or preventative, or a chance to enhance authority by demonstrating power/contrl over nature. Lest you consider me a complete cynic, I also speculate that our society of the time, fearing an out of control disease, was eager to hear a success story, and willing to shut out a less optimistic one, however more rational, or the congressional hearing referred to in the original post would certainly have gotten more attention. Although I blame public health officials for hiding the truth, I blame society equally for allowing this to occur. Perhaps both are understandable consequences of the fear that surely virtually all felt amidst the epidemics and the publicity surrounding them. The issue now is not about condemning or punishing public health officials and Drs. or society; it is about bringing to light the previously denied facts, however uncomfortable or unexplainable they may be. If this inspires some to search for the true causes, we may benefit all the more. Sorry you didn’t get the "short answer that could easily be disputed" that I suspect you wanted, but the truth of the matter is that this topic is not one with simple answers, only with simple truths. Alan Name: Alan Phillips, Director Human Development Services, Inc. "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds." Albert Einstein
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I’m not going to repost Rich Young’s able trashing of the original post, but I thought of this: How many people do I know personally that have actually had polio? None. How many do my parents know? How many did their parents know? A large fraction more than none, I’d wager. Coincidence? Scott — Scott S. Lindstrom | The only other sound’s http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottl/homepage1.html | wind and downy flake
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Thanks for answering this set of misleading statements, Rich. This kind of thing is a good example of why the Internet/Web is such a dangerous place to find information. Without the reader having an adequate background, the kind of misinformation that Mr. Phillips and his organization are putting out gets mistaken for fact. Martin Hewlett, Ph.D. Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona "Contemplare, et contemplata aliis tradere"
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: Dr. Bernard Greenburg, Head of the Dept. of Biostatistics at the Univ. of : North Carolina Sch of Public Health didn’t think so, with testimony : before Congress that… : ..the incidence of polio *increased substantially* after introduction of : mass immunization programs–by 50% in 1957-58 and by 80% 1958-59 Where? Nationwide, or in some local area? : –and : that statistics had been manipulated to give the opposite impression, as : follows: : 1. Vaccination began in 1955, yet a 61% decrease in 1954 was credited to : the Salk vaccine- when it was not even yet available in the state! *[in : fact, polio had been in a steady decline for a few years prior to the : vaccine; England saw an 82% decline from its 1950 peak prior to the : vaccine programs in 1956] Polio epidemics were cyclic. A decline over a few years means absolutely nothing. The sharp decline in polio incidence in the decades following vaccine introduction, however, are definitely significant. : 2. The definition of ‘epidemic’ was changed from 20 cases/1000,000 to 35 : cases/100,000. Which would change nothing except the timing of reactions by Public Health organizations to outbreaks of the disease. It wouldn’t change the actual number reported. This "fact" is irrelevant. : 3. Polio itself was redefined. To be classified as paralytic polio : post-vaccine, symptoms had to exist for only 24 hours, whereas before the : vaccine, they had to be present 60 days. The definition of polio was revised so that reports would more closely reflect the true incidence of the disease. Prior to the revision, many apparently paralytic diseases were reported as polio when in fact they were NOT polio. : 4. Pre-vaccination, cocksackie virus and aseptic meningitis were : classified as polio; post-vaccination they were classified separately. See above. The reclassification was done to improve statistical accuracy, not to flummox the public at large. : In addition, non-paralytic polio cases were now reported as viral or : aseptic meningitis. Not as a general rule. The whole idea was to separate true polio from conditions which simply mimic the disease. : Thought polio statistics as recorded evidenced a decline from 1955-66, : viral and aseptic meningitis showed increases. I should think that was to be expected, given the redefinition. If there were, say, 100 cases of paralytic disease in prior years, all classified as polio (but half of which were actually meningitis), then reclassification would result in 50 reported cases of polio (a decrease) and 50 cases of meningitis (an increase), without actually requiring a change in total infection rate or the ratio of one disease to the other. Talk about trying to lie with statistics! Mr. Phillips owes a debt of gratitude to Mark Twain for having supplied the perfect description of his presentation here. : In 1975, it was reported : that polio showed a count of zero, while a footnote explained that all : such cases were now reported as meningitis. A footnote in WHAT? Vaccination *did* reduce the incidence of polio to one or two a year, and in some years there were no reported cases. 1975 may have been one of those years. Given no cases of polio, other incidents of paralytic disease must have been due to something else…like meningitis. : Salk and other scientists testified in Sept. 1977 that most of the polio : cases since the 1970’s were a product of the live polio virus vaccine in : use. *[a 1985 CDC report concur with this as well; there are a : documented 8-10 cases of VAPP, vaccine associated (i.e. induced) : paralytic polio each year in the U.S., even though there have been no : cases of wild polio in the western hemisphere for at least 4 years now] This is true. Something that must be noted, however, is that Salk carried a grudge toward the Sabin (oral) vaccine for years because he felt slighted. The Salk vaccine was the first effective vaccine to hit the market, but it was soon relegated to second place because the Sabin vaccine was more easily given, less expensive, and had the unique ability to confer immunity even to those not directly receiving the vaccine (through oral ingestion of the weakened virus from one who HAD been vaccinated). It’s interesting to note that the CDC has recently acknowledged that virtually all cases of polio in the U. S. are now iatrogenic and is advising that the first in a series of polio immunizations be with the injected Salk-type vaccine (which uses killed virus and cannot cause the disease). This would confer a degree of resistance to possible serious infection by later doses of the Sabin vaccine. As a matter of personal choice, there’s no good reason why ALL polio vaccinations in the series can’t be Salk, however…several European countries have followed this path from the first vaccine availability. : We must wonder if New England Drs. were not as adept at making the : distinction between polio and viral/aseptic meningitis, as a year after : the Salk vaccine was introduced, 6 states showed increases in the : incidence of polio ranging from more than doubling in Vermont to : Massachusett’s increase of 642%. There was one last blip in the incidence curve as polio took its last good shot at an epidemic. The time was ripe for one, and it might have been worse, but large numbers of children had been vaccinated, and it was mostly the yet-unvaccinated adults who were caught unprotected. Except in odd, and extremely localized, outbreaks, polio has never again threatened a vaccinated population as the unvaccinated population was threatened before Salk’s vaccine. : Finally, in Oman, 6 months after being the first country to achieve : complete vaccination of polio (98%), there was a widespread outbreak. And no one knows why. But it was short-lived and very local. Also note that no quantification of "widespread" has been supplied. : Heretical as it seems (before examining the facts), vaccinations are not : only given undue credit for the elimination of disease, but are : themselves an unacknowledged source of disease suffering. Both of which statements are wholly and unequivocally not only unsubstantiated, but demonstrably untrue. If this is the quality of the information supplied by Mr. Phillips’ organization, one would be well-advised to avoid it. — – Rich Young (E-mail will be posted publicly as I see fit. You have been warned.)
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Dr. Bernard Greenburg, Head of the Dept. of Biostatistics at the Univ. of North Carolina Sch of Public Health didn’t think so, with testimony before Congress that… ..the incidence of polio *increased substantially* after introduction of mass immunization programs–by 50% in 1957-58 and by 80% 1958-59–and that statistics had been manipulated to give the opposite impression, as follows: 1. Vaccination began in 1955, yet a 61% decrease in 1954 was credited to the Salk vaccine- when it was not even yet available in the state! *[in fact, polio had been in a steady decline for a few years prior to the vaccine; England saw an 82% decline from its 1950 peak prior to the vaccine programs in 1956] 2. The definition of ‘epidemic’ was changed from 20 cases/1000,000 to 35 cases/100,000. 3. Polio itself was redefined. To be classified as paralytic polio post-vaccine, symptoms had to exist for only 24 hours, whereas before the vaccine, they had to be present 60 days. 4. Pre-vaccination, cocksackie virus and aseptic meningitis were classified as polio; post-vaccination they were classified separately. In addition, non-paralytic polio cases were now reported as viral or aseptic meningitis. Thought polio statistics as recorded evidenced a decline from 1955-66, viral and aseptic meningitis showed increases. In 1975, it was reported that polio showed a count of zero, while a footnote explained that all such cases were now reported as meningitis. Salk and other scientists testified in Sept. 1977 that most of the polio cases since the 1970’s were a product of the live polio virus vaccine in use. *[a 1985 CDC report concur with this as well; there are a documented 8-10 cases of VAPP, vaccine associated (i.e. induced) paralytic polio each year in the U.S., even though there have been no cases of wild polio in the western hemisphere for at least 4 years now] We must wonder if New England Drs. were not as adept at making the distinction between polio and viral/aseptic meningitis, as a year after the Salk vaccine was introduced, 6 states showed increases in the incidence of polio ranging from more than doubling in Vermont to Massachusett’s increase of 642%. Finally, in Oman, 6 months after being the first country to achieve complete vaccination of polio (98%), there was a widespread outbreak. Heretical as it seems (before examining the facts), vaccinations are not only given undue credit for the elimination of disease, but are themselves an unacknowledged source of disease suffering. Name: Alan Phillips, Director Human Development Services, Inc. "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds." Albert Einstein
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