Jenny, you mention a public bath in New York that was open until 1958. In Montreal, public baths were around quite a bit longer than that. The one in my old neighbourhood, Schubert Bath (aka Bain Schubert), was open as a bath until around 2000, when it was renovated and converted to an indoor swimming pool.

Dan, very interesting series, thank you.

It's really incredible how so much of our cultural beliefs and practices are based on myths that few have questioned. And we think we're so advanced. No matter how lonely it gets out there, please stay on the trail, Dan!

Dan,
I wish the series was published daily instead of weekly. I don't like waiting a whole week.
It's funny how certain memories are vivid. I don't remember most of the day to day of my childhood, but I do distinctly remember standing in line for that sugar cube and putting it in my mouth. Now that I think of it, I wonder if it was put in my hand or into my mouth? I think I have a vague memory of it in my hand, which now that I know it contained live polio virus, would have been dangerous, right? Anyway, at the time I was little and had no idea of the significance of what was happening at the time, yet I remember it. Must be some spiritual reason why.

Tim and all,

I have to comment on the hypoglycemia experiments. Horrifying to learn what this Sandler guy did to monkeys and rabbits. Pure torture. How many of you could do that to beautiful innocent animals - even ugly ones, for that matter? So horrible.

Tim Lundeen Thanks for the summary. It is very interesting.

How come arsenic puts weight on Chickens? Have they ever figured that one out?

I hope these will be published in hardcopy (book) form. If so, I might just stop now and wait for the rest all at once moved away from my brain-irradiating computer (probably not, but...). Waiting a week for a little more (I'm sure hard-won) insight shouldn't be so hard (on my part), but ... so if I suddenly stop complaining, I mean commenting on this series assume I've resorted to the above course...

@dan

I've been following up on some ideas from previous threads, and it does all check out so far.

Sandler (http://whale.to/a/sandler_b.html) showed that low-blood-glucose (hypoglycemia) dramatically increases the risk of paralysis from polio infection.

(1) Low blood glucose can be caused by intense exercise, and it is well-accepted that this increases the risk of paralysis when there is active infection. "Dr. Levinson found that monkeys forced to swim to the point of exhaustion in cold water developed more severe paralysis than did either those that remained in cages or those that were immersed in water at body temperature and protected from exercise and chilling.” Shades of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

(2) Hypoglycemia following a bolus of starch or sugar would also increase the risk. Sandler did experiments with rabbits, infecting them with polio and then giving them insulin to cause low blood glucose, and this increased the risk of paralysis: "The next step was to lower the blood sugar of the rabbit to subnormal values with insulin injections, and then inoculate the rabbit with polio virus. This was done and it was found that the rabbits became infected and developed the disease."

What Sandler didn’t know at the time is that cane sugar can be contaminated with deoxysugars, and that deoxysugars cause effective hypoglycemia. With the deoxysugar deoxyglucose, for example, cells preferentially take up deoxyglucose, but can’t use it for energy — so cane sugar contaminated with enough deoxyglucose would increase the risk of paralysis from polio infections. (This idea comes from van Meer’s paper, http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/diet-and-polio-Van-Meer-science.pdf.) The paper "THE EFFECT OF 2-DEOXY-D-GLUCOSE INFUSIONS ON LIPID AND CARBOHYDRATE METABOLISM IN MAN” says “In the presenceof 2-DG [the deoxysugar deoxyglucose], although the measured plasma level of glucose is high, if cellular utilization of glucose cannot occur the organism can be considered to be functionally hypoglycemic.”

van Meer also notes that DDT affects blood sugar, and that this effect could cause increased risk of polio with concurrent DDT exposure. I haven’t been able to find definitive evidence that DDT triggers hypoglycemia or effective hypoglycemia, but this paper in mice is suggestive: http://thirdworld.nl/the-inhibitoty-effect-of-ddt-on-insulin-secretion-in-mice It says "In fact, a slight hypoglycemia was observed at both the 5- and ?-hr intervals. Interestingly, at these time periods the DDT-treated mice were exhibiting marked tremors.” So they found some hypoglycemia, and tremors can be a symptom of hypoglycemia (although they can have other causes). So it is certainly plausible that DDT causes increased polio paralysis due to hypoglycemic effects.

The funny thing is that Sandler didn’t know about deoxysugar causing effective hypoglycemia, and van Meer didn’t know about Sandler’s work showing that hypoglycemia increases polio paralysis risk, but they both could see a relationship between paralysis risk and blood sugar. Sandler thought the risk was from hypoglycemia in response to a bolus does (which does happen in some people), but actually deoxyglucose contamination is a more likely trigger. van Meer thought increased risk was due to high blood glucose, because that’s what deoxysugars trigger — when cells have effective hypoglycemia, there is a counter-regulatory response to raise blood glucose to try to resolve the apparent low-blood glucose state.

Laura: I waited till the second cup so I could savor it with a fully-engaged brain. Agreed, Dan, you're a gem. You've really done your homework, and given us enormous food for thought. By the way, to this day you can see oxcarts with wooden wheels in the rice fields in the Philippines, and even in Manila!

Better than any thriller I've ever read. Great work, Dan!