The Age of Polio: Explosion. Part 14.
Note: You can read the entire series on our sidebar here.
By Dan Olmsted
Note: You can read the entire series on our sidebar here.
By Dan Olmsted
As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.
Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.
Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them.
Your Information
(Name and email address are required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)
Koch had a PhD in chemistry. He was also a medical doctor.
He wrote about extreme prejudice to his ideas. He was a threat to the cancer industry even back then. He was a forerunner to every other cancer "quack" that there was.
Conventional chemo/radiation has a terrible success rate, but better non-toxic alternatives are consistently suppressed. His ideas were good enough to be endorsed by Nobel Laureate Otto Warburg, the only other person to win 2 Nobel Prizes besides Linus Pauling, as well as Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Gyorgyi. This is 3 Nobel Prizes behind Koch's theory.
I would trust what he is saying about polio rates. It would be nice to find the primary source though.
Posted by: Narad | August 20, 2016 at 07:56 AM
Koch was apparently a distinguished predecessor of that other cancer researcher at Detroit Medical School, David Gorski
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Frederick_Koch
Posted by: Koch and Bile | August 20, 2016 at 06:05 AM
Hi Narad
Koch is obviously a controversial figure - I don't comment either way but do we have any other source for those figures? It may be like what has happened in India as reported by Vashisht and Puliyel:
"It was hoped that following polio eradication, immunisation could be stopped. However the synthesis of polio virus in 2002, made eradication impossible. It is argued that getting poor countries to expend their scarce resources on an impossible dream over the last 10 years was unethical. Furthermore, while India has been polio-free for a year, there has been a huge increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP). In 2011, there were an extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received. Though this data was collected within the polio surveillance system, it was not investigated. The principle of primum-non-nocere was violated. The authors suggest that the huge bill of US$ 8 billion spent on the programme, is a small sum to pay if the world learns to be wary of such vertical programmes in the future."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22591873
Posted by: John Stone | August 20, 2016 at 04:52 AM
I just came across some polio vaccine and polio case statistics circa 1964. I comes from the famous cancer researcher William Koch. Here is an excerpt:
Nationwide statistics issued January 4, 1960, by the United States Public Health Service, show that for the year 1959, up to December 26th (51 weeks), the increase in the incidence of Polio rose 85% over that of the same period of 1958. There were 8,531 cases listed for 1959, of which 5,661 were paralytic, as compared to 5,987 in 1958, of which 3,090 were paralytic. We just showed the great increase in 1958 over the incidence of the total and the paralytic cases of 1957. Where compulsory vaccination was practiced as in North Carolina and Tennessee, Bealle’s investigations report a 400% increase in paralytic and non-paralytic Polio during 1959 over 1958. So it seems that the more vaccine that is used the more the actual infection that comes about.
http://www.williamfkoch.com/web/version2/drkoch.php?id=138.0&dispID=disp(2);%20disp(3);
There is more. He talks about the alarming death rates following the smallpox vaccine as well. His theory on paralysis is that viruses (chemicals) block oxidation, or electron chain reactions. The carbonyl group initiates oxidation, but it can be irreversibly bound by certain chemicals.
He claims to have reversed paralysis and cancer with conjugated carbonyls such as ethylene diene.
Posted by: Narad | August 20, 2016 at 04:24 AM
Re: Ontario 1936/1937 polio demographics
I believe this is also the same time that sulphanomides (just before penicillin) came on the market up there?
Also, sugar itself is a known wound healer: is that because of it's antibacterial properties?
Maybe probiotic activity helps to control viral influence in the body, just like it balances yeast. If suphanomides and then antibiotics (in addition to sugar) were all beginning to be heavily used during that time period, in addition to vaccines with contain known poisons that are also registered antibiotics, some of which I bet if we properly tested them they lead to opening up tight junctures in many areas of the body, well, it would make sense that those in higher or slightly higher socio economic circumstances in certain geographical areas might see polio before others, as their probiotic balance would have been destroyed first.
Skilled laborers would have been more likely to injure themselves, and having more money would have been more likely to seek medical help from doctors using the newly available suphanomides, vs clerical workers who would be less likely to injure themselves in work-related ways but whom would also seek medical help in those circumstances. Skilled laborers (welders? industrial workers? plumbers/ construction workers & millers cutting treated wood?) would have also been exposed to more metal work/toxins..
The hypothesis might be that too many antibiotics in multiple forms from multiple sources or a lack of probiotics or the destruction of probiotics leads to an increase in death and disability (paralysis-loss of motor control) in the human population because it allows existing toxic antibiotic resistance bacteria and viruses to exert influence over the body in ways they can't in the presence of a healthy probiotic micro biome.
Posted by: Jenny | August 08, 2016 at 08:51 AM
Polio came knocking on the doors in the Cumberland's in 1946.
Posted by: Benedetta | August 04, 2016 at 10:48 PM
Eindeker;
That is a good study that you brought to light.
Did this take place in 1936?
It does really point out that more of those with skilled labor had more polio.
So how to interpret and figure out the reason.
The first knee jerk would be they could afford clean running water, indoor toilets with a real septic system - and even pine sol, Lysol, and even electricity to help them clean with pine sol.
My Dad just had his 92 birthday yesterday. My Mother is also still alive and very quick of mind; she reads all the time -and has better eyes that I do. Dad is quick in his mind too - but he has Parkinson and he is deaf almost too.
So, I know all the tales of how it was growing up in the 30s.
This was a time when there was a world wide depression going on, and it hit pretty hard in the Appalachian mountains where my parents were raised. Well really they were raised in the Cumberland Mountains.
There seemed to be a big difference in the poor and the middle class, esp when I listen to my in-laws; one was raised on the East Coast - Peekskill, NY and the other in southern California. Big - big difference.
Maybe the Middle class had running water and bathrooms? In the Cumberland Mountains no one had in door bathrooms or running water in 1936 ..
My parents nor any of their brothers or sisters had polio - but there was a younger cousin that did. Polio did hit here, but I am unsure of the years - that this did happen.
But I know that my parents were so poor that the only time they had a bit of candy was at Christmas time. Dad always talked about the Christmas blues. I never understood what he was talking about. Mother finally told me that they had nothing and the excitement of the season that they might get a little something was almost just too much of a let down when they received nothing or very little. Thus the Christmas blues. .
Dad said that one Christmas evening he had eaten all of his hard candy - which was not much and he was saving on his caps he got for his cap pistol - they were almost gone; when his uncle came riding along on a white mule and pulled out another bag of candy - for all his siblings. His Christmas blues were lifted.
Polio comes around just like a common cold - that is my understanding and if you go to public school and there was public schools up in the mountains - and in Canada too - I would suppose - and school kids take it home to the infants - I just don't see the clean theory working.
Another theory could just as easily fit and that would be what can the middle class afford that the poor cannot?
I find myself saying some times "cheap as molasses" I am surprised - and wonder where I picked that up. As a child I suppose, I have heard it. Molasses was really cheap and sugar was too even for my parents as children. Yet, at that time the local custom of making their own sorghum was slowly being replaced by store bought molasses, though sorghum molasses is still preferred if you can get it in this part of the country.
There might very well be more to it than a middle class with electricity and running water and toilets. and cleaner. It might be more of what the middle class could afford; a few extra store bought luxuries perhaps.
You would reasonably have to concede that. .
Posted by: Benedetta | August 04, 2016 at 09:46 PM
The abstracts below the double-dotted line refer to "persistent poliovirus."
The first abstract here, below the single-dotted line, is about persistent measles virus. (Between the single- and double-dotted lines.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Pathol. 2015 Jan;235(2):253-65.
Pathological consequences of systemic measles virus infection.
Ludlow M, et al.
Abstract
The identification of poliovirus receptor-like 4 (PVRL4) as the second natural receptor for measles virus (MV) has closed a major gap in our understanding of measles pathogenesis, and explains how this predominantly lymphotropic virus breaks through epithelial barriers to transmit to a susceptible host. < some text deleted for space >
"It also requires well-characterized and rather rare human tissue samples from patients who succumb to neurological sequelae to help study the consequences of the long-term persistence of this RNA virus in vivo."
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
What threat from persistent vaccine-related poliovirus?
MacLennan C, MacLennan J.
Lancet. 2005 Jul 30-Aug 5;366(9483):351-3. N
Failure to clear persistent vaccine-derived neurovirulent poliovirus infection in an immunodeficient man.
MacLennan C, et al.
Lancet. 2004 May 8;363(9420):1509-13.
Poliovirus mutants excreted by a chronically infected hypogammaglobulinemic patient establish persistent infections in human intestinal cells.
Labadie K, et al.
Virology. 2004 Jan 5;318(1):66-78.
One amino acid change on the capsid surface of poliovirus sabin 1 allows the establishment of persistent infections in HEp-2c cell cultures.
Pelletier I, Duncan G, Colbère-Garapin F.
Virology. 1998 Feb 1;241(1):1-13.
12
Persistent poliovirus infection in mouse motoneurons.
Destombes J, et al.
J Virol. 1997 Feb;71(2):1621-8.
Persistent poliovirus infection of human fetal brain cells.
Pavio N, et al.
J Virol. 1996 Sep;70(9):6395-401.
Search for persistent infection with poliovirus or other enteroviruses in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-motor neurone disease.
Swanson NR, Fox SA, Mastaglia FL.
Neuromuscul Disord. 1995 Nov;5(6):457-65.
Cell clones cured of persistent poliovirus infection display selective permissivity to the wild-type poliovirus strain Mahoney and partial resistance to the attenuated Sabin 1 strain and Mahoney mutants.
Calvez V, et al.
Virology. 1995 Oct 1;212(2):309-22.
Acute, chronic and persistent enterovirus and poliovirus infections: detection of viral genome by seminested PCR amplification in culture-negative samples.
Leparc I, et al.
Mol Cell Probes. 1994 Dec;8(6):487-95.
Identification of a region of the poliovirus genome involved in persistent infection of HEp-2 cells.
Calvez V, Pelletier I, Borzakian S, Colbère-Garapin F.
J Virol. 1993 Jul;67(7):4432-5.
Persistent infection of human erythroblastoid cells by poliovirus.
Lloyd RE, Bovee M.
Virology. 1993 May;194(1):200-9.
Posted by: Nonnymouse | August 04, 2016 at 04:33 PM
If polio hit the affluent hard in the 1950's, then I must point out that they were the most likely to skip breastfeeding and the most likely to have vaccinated their children for small pox and DPT.
Funny, in 2016, the affluent are the ones most likely to skip vaccinating. It has come full circle. No coincidence. 70 years of pertussis vaccine and the outbreaks are in the vaccinated? Whew. If polio was "wiped out" how come we can't do it again with every disease?
Speculation serves each of our agendas. Today, we must choose a common sense approach to the current vaccine schedule. There is enough evidence that makes me think vaccines are the first culprit in so called, "co-factors."
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | August 04, 2016 at 12:11 PM
David,
I completely agree. Every vaccine has both known and unknown risks, and most parents are unaware of them.
I grew up after the decades of justified terror of polio, but everyone in my parents' generation, friends, and relatives, remembered it and told me about it, and I had one roommate permanently crippled by polio. Everyone in my generation had gotten the vaccine(s), and was healthy both mentally and physically, no autism, little autoimmune disease (I had a boyfriend in second grade who had asthma), no polio (except for the roommate whose parents had refused the vaccine, and she got a crippling case of polio). Of course there are still a lot of unknowns either way, but you just have to make a decision on it, yea or nay. The polio vaccine and the tetanus vaccine appear to be the safest vaccines, although both have caused serious reactions. But the diseases can be devastating and deadly.
And you're right, we need to educate parents on the risks of the vaccines, we're all trying to do it, and I wouldn't force anyone to get any vaccine for any reason, but I think it would be reasonable to get the polio vaccine IF polio came back here. Or maybe take homeopathic lathyrus sativus, which has done very well in studies showing how it prevented polio in large groups that took it during epidemics. And then no risks from the vaccine.
Posted by: ciaparker | August 04, 2016 at 11:15 AM
Eindeker
Benedetta:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11620075 "The middle-class plague: epidemic polio and the Canadian state, 1936-37 " ....held most strongly by the middle class-- polio's principal target--shaped a unique Canadian response"
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269659871_A_middle-class_plague_Distribution_of_polio_deaths_by_socioeconomic_class_in_southern_Ontario_Canada_1900-1937
Canadian socioeconomic analysis & polio deaths in Ontario
From the 336 total polio deaths, sufficient information was available for assignment of a status score (SS) for 203 individuals. Of these, 39.4% fell under SS 3 (skilled labourers), 33.0% at SS 2 (entrepreneurial and clerical workers), 14.3% at SS 4 (semi-skilled labourers), 8.4% at SS 5 (unskilled labourers), and 4.9% at SS 1 (professionals). In urban areas, SS 3 was overrepresented in polio deaths compared to its proportion of the urban child population, while SS 2 was underrepresented. These findings suggest that at least in terms of mortality, the families of skilled and semi-skilled labourers in southern Ontario were disproportionately at risk from polio, experiencing a deadly combination of lower risk of exposure to the virus at early age and a higher risk of intensive exposure later.
& finally data from Copenhagen http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/1/181.full
If, indeed, intensive exposure is a critical factor, part of the reason for the changing epidemiology of polio in this century may have been a gradual improvement of hygienic conditions, transforming a disease from endemic to epidemic with longer intervals between outbreaks. With longer intervals between epidemics, increasing accumulation of simultaneously susceptible individuals will occur in a family, thereby increasing the risk of intensive exposure and intra-family spread
Posted by: Eindeker | August 04, 2016 at 10:03 AM
Eindeker writes: > "Disease prevalence was higher in more affluent suburbs, presumably reflecting the better sanitation and lack of exposure to polio virus in infants"
Your assumption there is an hypothesis only. Dan's toxin exposure "cofactor" hypothesis is equally valid and in many ways makes more intuitive sense. More affluent people during the polio epidemic years were more likely to have a lot of sugar (potentially arsenic contaminated, per Dan) in their diets, were more likely to have been buying and using the miracle chemical "DDT" to keep bugs out of their gardens, houseplants, and bedrooms, more likely driving around in cars that burned leaded gasoline, and also having more mercury-laden amalgam fillings placed in their decaying teeth.
Posted by: Hypotheses are not facts | August 04, 2016 at 09:40 AM
Eindeker:
In one of your three points: "Disease prevalence was higher in more affluent suburbs, presumably reflecting the better sanitation and lack of exposure to polio virus in infants."
Was it really????? How was that determined? I would be interested in how they decided poor communities/ middle class communities/ rich communities. So are you saying that when it hit the middle class (which was kind of hard to determine from the poor communities at that time) so let us just go with rich communities - so when it hit the rich communities - there was no problem and no polio happening in the poor communities at all?
Cause from what I noticed it came like a thief in the night - hitting one house but missing another - rich or poor.
Posted by: Benedetta | August 04, 2016 at 09:18 AM
Correction: It's slide #8, not 4, from the Austrian slide set that compares paralytic attack rates amongst Europeans & Moroccans in Casablanca: 13.4/100,000 amongst Europeans 0.7 for Moroccans
Peak age range for paralytic polio: 2-9 years Europeans 0-1 year for Moroccans
It clearly supports the delayed exposure and more severe disease picture, also slide #7 seroconversion rate by age comparing Miami & Cairo, American children much later seroconversion compared to Egyptian children
Posted by: Eindeker | August 04, 2016 at 09:01 AM
Dan your comment I believe it ended epidemics by knocking out the virus, though not the co-factor that amplified it in the first place recognises that the introduction of the polio vaccine has eliminated polio in many countries, and hopefully in the next few years will send it the same way as smallpox.
But you build a whole hypothesis on some speculative co-factor whereas the commonly accepted explanation for the polio outbreaks in cities in the early 20th C is bizarrely improved hygiene and sanitation. This is based on 3 firm facts:
> Paralytic polio is a far more serious disease in adults than in infants The death-to-case ratio for paralytic polio is generally 2%–5% among children and up to 15%–30% for adults depending
on age). It increases to 25%–75% with bulbar involvement.
> Disease prevalence was higher in more affluent suburbs, presumably reflecting the better sanitation and lack of exposure to polio virus in infants
> During this period the age distribution increased quite dramatically, evolving from “infantile paralysis” into a disease mainly of children and young adults
There is a really excellent slide set from an Austrian University http://www.meduniwien.ac.at/100yearspolio/pfds/nathanson.pdf which goes through serology, case age distribution and many other factors in the pre-vaccine era. Dan (& others) I would strongly recommend you go through this, particularly striking is slide 4 which looks at the distribution of paralytic polio cases in Europeans & Moroccans living in Casablanca immediately prior to the vaccine era.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/polio.pdf
There is no need to invoke some speculative co-factor (arsenic et al) in changes in polio epidemiology during the 20th Century, unless you classify increasing hygiene and reduced exposure at a young age, as a co-factor. I'd be really interested to see your comments on the Austrian slide set Dan
Posted by: Eindeker | August 04, 2016 at 04:10 AM
My thought, for what it's worth: Demyelination of spinal cord tissue leading to paralysis has been associated with a variety of vaccines, and occurs in conditions such as MS (including as a result of the Hep B vaccine as a recent comment tells us) and poliomyelitis. Is it normal for microbes, whether pathogenic or not, to be in the circulation, or in other tissues, such as nerve tissue? If not (I think not), and clearly poliovirus has been detected in cerebrospinal fluid of victims of polio, something, such as a toxin (gluten has this effect on everyone), disrupted the tight junctions of the intestinal endothelial cells, allowing it, along with the toxin, into the circulation, and thereby to nerve tissue. Dan, has anyone ever looked for toxins in cerebrospinal fluid of polio victims? Perhaps the toxin is causal, and the virus, for unknown reasons, just appears at the scene of the crime? Have any other microbes been detected for any of the other conditions caused by demyelination? Hope I'm making some sense. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the meaning of amplification. I'm beginning to come around to your evolving theory, but I still can't help but think that without a toxic input, and a susceptible host, the poliovirus is itself benign. And a whole host of virological questions come to mind, but that's for another day.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | August 03, 2016 at 07:50 PM
Dan,
Thanks for asking me questions. I believe the standard thought on the existence of viruses. I also believe that it is the general health of an individual that allows viruses to grow or not, become lethal or not.
I believe the polio epidemic was probably the result of a confluence of factors, not the least of which could have been pesticides. Ironically it was yours and Mark B's influence on me that may be the actual cause of any differences we may or may not have!
The word, "co-factor" seems to have made its way into the vaccine controversy rather recently. To the degree that scientists are honest, they speculate that the autism epidemic may have environmental factors. To you, Mark and most of us, well, duh. And you have taken it a bit further by applying that same logic to polio for instance.
How hard is it to believe that an environmental toxin that can result in an assault on the nervous system, might also exacerbate a virus' ability to cause neurological problems? So that's where I agree with you. But it comes down to the overall health of the individual doesn't it? A person with less exposure to pesticides could be healthier and less susceptible to disease, than a person who is exposed to pesticides.
Where we might differ is in asking what is, and what would have been, a better way to deal with an epidemic than a vaccine. So you might say that my hypothesis is that health doesn't come from a needle and proving that comes from finding populations with no vaccines and showing they are, or were healthier. And again, that's why I appreciate your early work on the Amish population.
Polio is so difficult because we cannot separate sound science from folk lore. The culture believes that there was a disease that could cause paralysis and death and then there was a vaccine and then there was no polio. It's too simple on its face, yet that is the start and finish of it. It seems a lot more believable to say, if mothers kept breastfeeding, if we had no arsenic, if we were not also vaccinating with the crude DTP vaccine and small pox at the time of the epidemics, if we had not manipulated stats to show a decline in the epidemic conveniently after the mass vaccination campaigns, if we hadn't re-named paralysis, if our breathing machines were tiny instead of huge and scary, if we used physical therapy instead of leg braces, then maybe folk lore would have been much different than it is today.
In other words if what causes an epidemic and its subsequent societal hysteria are things that were man-caused mistakes, then the answer must lie in not doing those things, not adding another man-caused disaster of imperfect vaccines. Especially when we can see very plainly in our current population that unvaccinated kids are healthier.
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | August 03, 2016 at 07:28 PM
The greatest number of polio cases in the US was in 1952: it had declined tremendously by 1959. Polio as a disease entity caused by the polio virus was real, apparently potentiated by different chemicals. If DDT alone were sufficient, there should still have been a huge number of cases until its
use went down starting in 1959.
Dr. Yazbak has written about how he witnessed a tremendous drop in polio cases as soon as the polio vaccine was administered during an outbreak of polio in Rhode Island. I don't think there was a drop in the use of any of the suspect chemicals at that specific time: I think the vaccine prevented the disease, regardless of what might have potentiated it.
Posted by: ciaparker | August 03, 2016 at 06:53 PM
"Your arguments are strengthened if and when you might find a geographical area where DDT was not used in the 50's and 60's and then found a corresponding lack of polio outbreaks."
If we wish to strengthen Dan's arguments, I suggest we find a way to exhume the bodies of some polio fatalities and check for toxins such as arsenic and DDT. Arsenic is a base element so it does not degrade over time. DDT is said to be persistent in the environment, so we may be able find it too.
If we can prove that these polio victims had been poisoned, denial will be difficult.
Posted by: Francis Weibel | August 03, 2016 at 03:55 PM
thanks cynthia. i'll check this out in more detail. let me ask -- is your hypothesis/view that there really were no epidemics caused by poliovirus? was it just toxins? my view as you know, which i believe mark b and i were the first (and still the only!) to propose, is that the cause was amplification of the poliovirus by a toxic co-factor, in the beginning arsenic and lead arsenate. if so that's a difference we can have an interesting discussion about, and i welcome your continued input, but i want to make sure i am clear on how our hypotheses differ. -- dan
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | August 03, 2016 at 03:32 PM
Dan,
So I found one quick reference to the decline of DDT on the EPA website.
"The peak year for use in the United States was 1959 when nearly 80 million pounds were applied. From that high point, usage declined steadily to about 13 million pounds in 1971, most of it applied to cotton." https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/ddt-ban-takes-effect
So if a reduction in DDT started in 1959, maybe that helped the decline of polio more than the vaccine could have. And the popularity of the book, "Silent Spring" could have had an impact also. So hard to be definitive, but we try.
Your arguments are strengthened if and when you might find a geographical area where DDT was not used in the 50's and 60's and then found a corresponding lack of polio outbreaks.
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | August 03, 2016 at 01:59 PM
Hi Birgit -- a lot of crops were treated with arsenic and lead arsenate. lots and lots of fruit, some produce, cotton, tobacco, pineapples, and so on. it got to be so ubiquitous that it is hard to tease out the effect, which is why the earlier epidemics, just like the early cases of autism, are most interesting to me in terms of offering clues.
teresa and benedetta -- the ability of arsenic to suppress the immune system is certainly interesting, as is the fact that ingesting it causes damage to the GI tract which might let the poliovirus -- also a GI bug -- escape into the nervous system. of course, all of this is considered voodoo by the powers that be but the "biological plausibility" seems clear.
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | August 03, 2016 at 01:29 PM
Oh, so titers against viruses not arsenic.
Thanks Teresa--
The polio viruses are like colds - they circulated - not always present - but common enough - that is my understanding of them too.
.
Posted by: Benedetta | August 03, 2016 at 11:20 AM
Hi Benedetta,
Yes, the study showed that arsenic caused a virus to increase - and titers indicated that:
"Relative to As-unexposed controls, the As-exposed mice exhibited a significant 10-fold increase in viral titers at this time point, correlating with their relative increase in morbidity..."
Dan's "The arsenic interacted with the poliovirus -- "amplified" its ability to cause paralysis and death" suggests the same, and it seems possible that this study shows that "amplification."
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | August 03, 2016 at 09:25 AM
Teresa Conrick
Titers - increased more if arsenic was included with the flu protein, or just all by itself?
High titers does not sound like something that might be a good thing, but a dangerous health condition - perhaps?
Posted by: Benedetta | August 03, 2016 at 07:17 AM
Birgit Calhoun
They said the took niacin out of the corn meal by grinding it different. They all started dying with some kind of horrible disease - skin sores, weakness in limbs, then no control of limbs and then insanity and there was a large number of them too. The NIH kept up the myth it was some kind of pathogen .
I always felt that it could not have been just a lack of niacin in the cornmeal, that was going in in the poor south, not the numbers that died from this illness.
Anyway; right now they are saying rice has lots of arsenic because it is being grown in area that they use to raise cotton and they sprayed heavily with pesticides were cotton was raised.
If you go wheat gluten free - well - when we did start reintroducing grains - more carbohydrates back into our diet; I did turn to rice. I am thinking buckwheat is better right now. If I can get it in grouts and grind it myself - cause the buckwheat flour you buy is toasted and has too strong a taste to it, and makes it very dark.
Now some one tell me what is the practices of raising buckwheat?
For that matter - what about navy beans? I use that as a flour, or Lima beans? or chickpeas?
For that matter - how is that coconut flour made?
Posted by: Benedetta | August 03, 2016 at 07:03 AM
david m bird: That double dose of flu vaccine in 2009 is likely the cause of the big spike in autism rates among California kindergarteners last school year. I believe that was also the cause of Dr. Humphries beginning her journey into vaccine research.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | August 02, 2016 at 10:47 PM
Teresa Conrick, First, thanks so much for all you do.
Secondly, you said: "Many questions have been raised concerning the increased mortality as a result of H1N1 infection in Mexico compared with relatively mild disease in other infected populations.:"
As to Mexico H1N1 Flu mortality, the answer is quite simple, and their deaths were virtually all due to one of the most lethal antiviral/antiretroviral drugs that are sold over-the-counter in Mexico; this drug is called Ribavirin and was publically recommended for the average Mexican citizen to take regards respiratory distress. Ribavirin is a nucleoside analogue that directly destroys red blood cells that carry oxygen. Also, Ribavirin has an array of toxicities and mutagenic effects.
Here in the U.S. various hospitals also tried Ribavirin with no success, as all died (no surprise here).
The H1N1/Swine Flu was yet another ludicrous concoction of the U.S. CDC. With their instantaneously issuing of 80 million doses of new toxic Flu vaccines, including two doses to pregnant women during the Autumn of 2009 -- causing many thousands of mothers to abort their fetuses and/or being terribly damaged, and prospective mothers further damaged.
You can't make it up -- and I have not.
Posted by: david m burd | August 02, 2016 at 09:32 PM
Just wondering: What other food crops were also treated with arsenic weed killers or pesticide? If there were other much consumed food stuffs containing arsenic, wouldn't they also cause polio? I am thinking grains such as corn, wheat, barley etc. or potatoes.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | August 02, 2016 at 06:04 PM
Hi Dan,
I am really enjoying this series! Your use of history and real life accounts, along with photos and maps just adds to the intrigue. I'm not sure if this was ever posted but i think it gives more credence to your hypothesis:
Low-Dose Arsenic Compromises the Immune Response to Influenza A Infection in Vivo http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/0900911/
"Arsenic was associated with a number of significant changes in response to influenza, including an increase in morbidity and higher pulmonary influenza virus titers on day 7 post-infection. We also found many alterations in the immune response relative to As-unexposed controls, including a decrease in the number of dendritic cells in the mediastinal lymph nodes early in the course of infection....Arsenic has been identified as a potent immunomodulatory agent in many experimental models and epidemiologic studies (Andrew et al. 2008; Hernandez-Castro et al. 2009; Lemarie et al. 2006; Nayak et al. 2007; Zhou et al. 2006). We recently showed that chronic low-dose As exposure can profoundly alter the gene and protein expression of many regulators of the innate immune system in a mouse model of exposure (Kozul et al. 2009). We hypothesized that As-induced alterations on the immune system in the lung will lead to a compromised response to a subsequent immune challenge. ...
Additionally, the impact of As exposure on the potential for a pandemic flu outbreak is of particular concern, considering that many of the geographic areas with confirmed human cases of avian flu or H1N1 (swine) flu are known to include populations that also have significantly elevated As exposures, such as in Southeast Asia and Mexico. The recent outbreak of H1N1 flu in Mexico and across the world has demonstrated the impact a pandemic flu can have on global populations. Age and under lying medical conditions influence susceptibility and severity of infection; however, these factors cannot account for the extreme variability observed in response to influenza infection. Many questions have been raised concerning the increased mortality as a result of H1N1 infection in Mexico compared with relatively mild disease in other infected populations....Our studies demonstrated that As exposure had a significant impact on the immune system, resulting in a severely compromised response to influenza A infection and increased morbidity. ..."
And this is very astounding: "...titers were increased 10-fold in the As-exposed mice relative to control mice at day 7"....
And this is an interesting glimpse then of the 1918 FLU epidemic -- ."....An overly exuberant macrophage and neutrophil response has also been observed with highly pathogenic strains of influenza, such as H5N1 (Perrone et al. 2008) and the 1918 strain (Kobasa et al. 2007)."
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | August 02, 2016 at 12:44 PM
Nonnymouse,
You're right, I confused the names. However, both the black plague and hantavirus continue to kill a small number of people in the US, both transmitted by rodents, like the Black Plague in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.
http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/2954/20120906/bubonic-plague-hantavirus-west-nile-virus-symptoms-prevention-how-its-spread-where-it-occurs-bubonic-plague-colorado-hantavirus-yosemite-national-park-west-nile-texas.htm
"Bubonic Plague
Recently, a seven-year-old girl caught a case of the bubonic plague, a disease that killed millions of Europeans in the Middle ages. The girl got the disease after coming in contact with a dead squirrel at a Colorado camping ground. The girl is recovering and will survive after treatment.
How it's spread: Bubonic plague is spread when a person comes in contact with infected fleas that are found on rodents like rats, mice and squirrels.
Symptoms: Sudden high fever, chills, headache, weakness, swollen lymph nodes, seizures and hemorrhages under the skin.
Where it occurs: Bubonic Plague is very rare as only about 10 cases occur each year in the U.S. Most cases occur in the Southwest. The latest case in in Colorado.
How to avoid It: Avoid contact with rodents; eliminate rock and wood piles where rodents can breed near the home, check pets for fleas and have them treated.
Hantavirus
This summer, some people who camped at Yosemite National Park, died from Hantavirus and thousands of others may have been exposed to the illness.
How it's spread: Hantavirus is contracted when a person touches or breathes in air particles that contain urine, saliva or feces from certain mice or rats, especially deer mice.
Symptoms: Symptoms can form within one to six weeks after exposure. They include flu-like symptoms such as chills, fever and muscle aches. This then progresses to dry coughs, headache, nausea and vomiting, followed by shortness of breath as the lungs fill with fluid.
Where it occurs: It can occur anywhere in the U.S. where infected rodents dwell. The most recent case was at Yosemite National Park in California.
How to avoid it: Eliminate rodent nesting areas. Open windows of buildings that have been closed for a while and allow the area to air out for half an hour. If you see mouse droppings, spray them with a mix of water and bleach, wait 15 minutes and mop up or wipe with paper towels."
Posted by: ciaparker | August 01, 2016 at 07:42 PM
Cia makes her point that parents are THE ones' to decide if their children take vaccines (when ALL of these vaccines have arrays of toxic excipients and contaminants) in order to avoid possible damage by such disease. The trouble is the vast majority of parents don't know these vaccines' dangers,
That's what we here all want (except the trolls): Decisions for helpless babies and children must NOT be made by coercing doctors & nurses/mandated or legally-required by dictatorial government or school boards.
Our criminal Medical Cabal will never permit a vaxxed versus unvaxxed study (easily done in a heartbeat with all the data out there) -- -so, we are a Grassroots rebellion that keeps inexorably growing. To paraphrase one of our Naval Heroes, "Damn the needles - full speed ahead!"
Posted by: david m burd | August 01, 2016 at 06:02 PM
ciaparker,
Hantavirus is not "black plague." It is a virus, a bunyavirus.
Plague is a bacterial disease. It is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
Two completely different health problems.
Posted by: Nonnymouse | August 01, 2016 at 02:50 PM
Jenny,
I agree that many diseases become much less virulent over time, both from the natural mutations of the pathogen (less virulent strains spread more widely) and people's immune systems developing methods of successfully combatting them, including non-specific resistance built up over generations and with which babies are eventually born with. Measles, pertussis, smallpox, and scarlet fever are some examples. On the other hand, rabies seems to be as dangerous as it ever was. I don't know if polio would have followed such a course, but if outside chemicals were what potentiated the polio virus, I'm not sure the immune system could have come up with methods of dealing better with the chemicals. Sort of like vaccine mercury poisoning, it's very hard to get rid of the mercury which causes many disabling symptoms.
The black plague (now called hantavirus) is still around, there are still fatal outbreaks of it in India, Africa, and, a couple of years ago, in Madagascar. There have been a few people in recent years in the US who have died of it in Colorado, from exposure to mice which had it. I think the black plague disappeared partly because the pandemic burned itself out, after either killing or giving immunity to all the potential victims in Europe, and eventually because people no longer had rats in their homes. I don't think the disease itself has become less dangerous.
We may never have the full story on polio, because if it comes back, nearly everyone will get the vaccine, so we won't see how many would be disabled if there were no vaccine.
Posted by: ciaparker | August 01, 2016 at 12:00 PM
I believe that there were factors which changed the formerly mild, universal polio virus into a much more dangerous one which would cripple many thousands. The DPT vaccine, DDT and other chemicals in the environment, arsenic all probably did so, and Dr. Sandler showed that those who avoided sugar consumption also avoided large numbers being affected in polio epidemics. But there is no way to avoid exposure to all such factors in the modern world, and it would be impossible for most people to completely avoid sugar, meaning that it is conceivable that polio could come back in a big way if a lot of people stopped vaccinating for it. I agree that polio is ultimately harmless in the vast majority of those exposed to it, but how could you ever know if you or your child has had NONE of the problematic exposures which might make them vulnerable to sudden and unexpected crippling by polio as so many thousands experienced in the '40s and '50s in the US?
I am certain that the polio vaccines eradicated polio from the US and most other countries as well. I think it would be wise to consider both sides before getting this or any other vaccine, and I would not recommend getting the polio vaccine unless polio made a comeback here, but if it did, everyone would have to weight the risks and the benefits of the vaccine, bearing in mind the large number of those permanently disabled by polio and many killed by it as well in the early to mid-twentieth century in the US. We have no idea of the complete list of chemicals which can enable polio. Not a single one of us has had no exposure to any of the possible culprits, and it would not be possible for any of us to avoid them completely unless we lived in an impossible bubble. Just another uncertainty which has to be placed on the risk/benefit scale and evaluated to the best of our ability. But we should respect the decision to get the polio vaccine as a reasonable one on the part of anyone who chooses it.
Posted by: ciaparker | August 01, 2016 at 11:46 AM
Can anyone speak to why polio, even the worst cases that ended in paralysis or even death, wouldn't follow a natural self-limiting pattern attributed to attenuation? Similar to how the black plague must have worn itself out somehow?
Posted by: Jenny | August 01, 2016 at 11:11 AM
Hi Eileen, I did look at that list you sent me and yes, it is interesting. i will get the ones not available online when i go to the national library of medicine -- it's just up the beltway from me. this series will end up in the autism world, trust me. otherwise i would not be publishing it here.
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | August 01, 2016 at 10:52 AM
Dan, Poliovirus is not the star of your series. Co-factors also are likely important in autism caused by vaccines.
I sent email (Jun 2) in response to your request for info on arsenic. I suggested putting keywords "arsenic autism" into PubMed. This morning I see 25 citations!!! Keywords "arsenic polio" brings up 2 citations; the 1984 paper by JH Gear is on non-polio causes of polio-like paralytic syndromes.
Other keywords I suggested: "arsenic brainstem" 59, "arsenic psychosis" 13, "arsenic auditory" 19. Keywords "arsenic encephalopathy" brought up 3358 citations, and if you go to the last page of the list you will find papers going back to the 1840s. Many of the papers on encephalopathy are free online, but you will find them on the shelf at the National Library of Medicine.
My interest is in brain circuits essential for comprehension of speech. Mercury, lead, valproic acid, alcohol, virus infections, and asphyxia at birth all affect relay centers in the brainstem auditory pathway. Toxicity of arsenic in the brain is likely similar to that of mercury and lead, asphyxia, or substances like valproic acid and alcohol.
In genetic disorders, like PKU (phenylketonuria), a faulty enzyme produces toxic metabolites that poison the same vulnerable brainstem circuits. This should be considered as the likely problem in all genetic disorders that cause autism.
I wish I knew how to write more clearly. I am taking a lot of writers' workshops to try to learn how to put my ideas about autism and language circuits in more understandable form. Do my ideas above contribute anything?
Posted by: Patience (Eileen Nicole) Simon | August 01, 2016 at 09:19 AM
No David, I did not forget how WIKI has put a stain on good people's reputation. . WIKI is a sorry excuse for an encyclopedia, and I hated using them. They are the perfect example of how information can be so abundant and yet twisted by anyone with a bit of power. I was sorry to used it. Even college research classes/courses say do not use WIKI in your references. So we all know they have a poor reputation.
And yet I did use it when I was looking up who did invent blood typing - I knew it was before WWI but was unsure and was surprised that in the very first short paragraph the inventor of blood typing was linked to the way they identified the polio virus.
When they say identify, that is what they mean - they have a quick, reliable way of identifying a microbe. --- but that was not what I was wanting to discuss.
.
Posted by: Benedetta | August 01, 2016 at 08:43 AM
Hi Cynthia, no need to apologize, i don't think you "missed" anything relevant to these issues in my other writings! In fact, I was not aware that ddt was banned right at the time the polio epidemics mostly disappeared in a way that would suggest causation. i would welcome more information about that as I am open to revising and revisiting this series -- one of the benefits of blogging. I have made several changes and additions based on reader input. on areas with no pesticides but wild polio virus circulation, i'm not quite sure what the relevance is there to my theory. -- best dan
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | August 01, 2016 at 08:31 AM
Benedetta, I must say you gave me the biggest laugh when you complimented Wiki/Wikipedia as "always good for a quick reference." ???!!
Perhaps you forgot to include the caveat: "except anything whatsoever to do with autism, age of autism, Dan Olmsted, or anything to do with vaccines or disease." Thanks for the humor!
Posted by: david m burd | August 01, 2016 at 06:42 AM
About epidemics dying out . . .
Remember Fallon, Nevada, and the cancer cluster among children? It was one of the few clusters that the CDC -- a/k/a "cluster busters" (their own name for themselves) -- was not able to deny. An acknowledged cancer cluster.
* The water supply had very high levels of arsenic.
* The trees had taken up tungsten -- someone from Arizona studied tree rings
* The air had cadmium from a factory or industrial facility, right in town --
someone was able to visualize the plume coming right out of the facility
* And of course, there was mercury which had come down out of the mountains from
gold-mining days (the '49ers). Plus naturally-occuring mercury from spalling off from granite
mountains.
* Plus there was a suspicion that jet fuel -- from the military, which shared the landing strip(s)
with the town -- suspicion that jet fuel may have leaked into the water supply from some
occult location(s).
The town finally installed a water-treatment facility to remove the arsenic. And have to wonder how much else, in the way of toxins, might also have been removed.
Fallon is not in the news these days. The "cancer cluster" seemed to trail off and end. But a resident told me, a few years back, that were plenty of other kinds of cancer around town. Have to wonder if that might be getting better, as the younger folks and children have clean(er) water. Many fewer toxins for their bodies to contend with.
And FWIW, the CDC was "mystified" about why there would be a cancer cluster !!
Posted by: Nonnymouse | August 01, 2016 at 04:11 AM
Here, I found that the man that discovered a way to distinguish blood types had everything to do with identifying the polio virus too.
This is just WIKI -but always good for a quick reference.
."Karl Landsteiner, ForMemRS[1] (June 14, 1868 – June 26, 1943), was an Austrian biologist and physician.[2] He is noted for having distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the blood, and having identified, with Alexander S. Wiener, the Rhesus factor, in 1937, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood without endangering the patient's life. [it is worth mentioning about the contribution of Prof.Jan Jansky in this field]. With Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper, he discovered the polio virus in 1909. He received the Aronson Prize in 1926. In 1930, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was awarded the Lasker Award in 1946 posthumously, and is recognized as the father of transfusion medicine :
Posted by: Benedetta | July 31, 2016 at 11:40 PM
They were studying viruses way before the electron microscope, and even when the electron microscope came along - it was never a choice for identification - at least that was what I was taught. We are all stuck on the hook look of the ebola virus picture, but you are looking at some thing really tiny and there are plenty of viruses that look just alike under the electron microscope
I thought that they did it like they do-- blood types?
They took enzymes - or antibodies from the blood of people, or monkeys that had polio and refined it and then added it to the blood of infected person, and watched to see if it clumped.
I thought that when they said they identified it in 1908 that was what they were doing?
Perhaps that was too early for them to know about such?
Posted by: Benedetta | July 31, 2016 at 11:34 PM
Dan,
I understand that DDT came in closer to our 1950's epidemic of polio, so since polio epidemics seemed to decrease, corresponding to the banning of this pesticide, it begs the question as to whether or not the answer to saving lives had more to do with reducing the "pesticide co-factor" in the spread of polio than did the vaccine.
Additionally I was asking if there were populations in our country or others where no pesticides were used, while also confirming wild polio exposure? And then, did those areas see more or less or the same epidemic? Depending on what is found, I think that would strengthen what you are saying about the pesticides playing a role in making polio epidemics worse.
I am sorry, if you addressed this in other writings that I may have missed. Since diseases that never had a vaccine for them also showed steep declines, it is difficult to separate each of the confounding factors in the retrospective look at polio, the epidemic, and the vaccine.
If the polio virus existed in nature, and then epidemics manifested only after pesticides "amplified its ability to cause paralysis," then how could we retrospectively prove that the removal of these neurotoxins could have been the most effective weapon against the virus, which until then, co-existed without disaster? And, as you know my bias, more effective than the vaccine, given the near disappearance of other diseases or fatalities without a vaccine.
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | July 31, 2016 at 10:17 PM
Eindeker
Autism Uncle was asking specifically about the Amish community.
Please provide the source for your comment.
Thanks
Posted by: Danchi | July 31, 2016 at 08:59 PM
Eindeker, Thanks.
My continuing questions are: Were the "paralytic" cases you cite transient or permanent, and how serious were the paralyses? And, what were the nutritional statuses, etc., of those afflicted? And, were they children or adults?
And then we (I, anyway) must ask what were other cofounders, such as other recent vaccinations that could cause similar symptoms (i.e. Guillane Barre)?
The Medical World has forever thrown similar symptoms in the same bowl, then announcing a Crisis, then declaring they will save us with a new vaccine. It never stops, aka Zika today (what a ludicrous Practical Joke!)
Posted by: autism uncle | July 31, 2016 at 07:52 PM
The answer to your question Autism Uncle is yes polio has occurred in unvaccinated groups:The last wild poliovirus outbreak in the United States occurred in 1979 and was caused by a wild type 1 poliovirus. In that outbreak, 10 paralytic poliomyelitis cases and four other poliovirus infections occurred among unvaccinated Amish persons and members of other religious communities with low levels of vaccination who lived in Iowa, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The source of this outbreak was traced to religious groups in Canada and the Netherlands that also had low levels of vaccination (7). A polio outbreak in 1993 in the Netherlands with 71 paralytic cases among members of unvaccinated religious communities also resulted in poliovirus transmission without paralytic disease in Alberta, Canada; no evidence of transmission from this outbreak was found in the United States (8).
Posted by: Eindeker | July 31, 2016 at 06:05 PM
hi cynthia, if i understand your question, and please restate it if don't, my answer is the "bad apples" did not decrease. ddt and other pesticides came along after world war 2 and while arsenic type pesticides decreased, apples (etc) were still getting sprayed with bad stuff right up to the point the polio vaccine entered the picture. i'm unclear on the no-co-factors question. and about other countries who had exposure -- to what? an example of each would help. thanks for your interest, i respect your views and appreciate your raising these issues.
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | July 31, 2016 at 05:24 PM
Carol and Dan (Olmsted), and All ---
I'm thinking of Dan's original series on the Amish having zero cases of autism (except a very few of young adopted children from outside the Amish Community).
So, Has so-called "polio" ever stricken the non-vaccinated Amish Communities, at all?? I am aware of several instances when the National Media fear-mongered about two teeny polio episodes about 12 years ago, and 35 years ago when our moronic media trumpeted about 4-5 cases among the Amish, though NONE were paralytic, but that didn't stop the media from its hysterical reporting.
I can't find any literature/media at all about Amish having polio cases in the early 1950's when the Panic erupted; and not any mention of Amish having polio any other time.
By the way, today's Amish do seem to use modern refined sugar in some of their pies and pastries, though I don't know their sugar use about 1916 and later like in the early 1950's.
I would also bet my social security check the Amish never allowed the massive spraying of the toxic herbicides and pesticides on farm crops all around the U.S. preceding and during the 1950's Polio Panic. Gee, maybe there's a connection of such pesticides/herbicides to the Polio Crisis at that time?
Posted by: autism uncle | July 31, 2016 at 04:47 PM
Dan,
I have a question. Did polio cases decrease as "bad apples" disappeared? If you could find cases where there were no co-factors, would we find less epidemics? What about other countries who had exposure but ate differently?
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | July 31, 2016 at 04:42 PM
The fact (or just some more correlation?) that the live vaccine seems to be able to cause cases of paralysis in those around the vaccinated suggests to me that a virus was (at least often) involved in diagnosis of poliomyelitis.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/staten-island-dad-22-5m-polio-case-lederle-laboratories-article-1.369105
Whether or not the vaccine stopped outbreaks or maybe just accelerated (or dispersed?) a less natural "herd immunity" acquisition or just correlated with a course polio would have taken anyway or mostly provided a mechanism and incentive for diagnostic substitution.... I have no idea....with factors like SV40, Acute Flaccid Paralysis (or whatever vaccine induced polio is) it really hard to say the made/makes things better though.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | July 31, 2016 at 04:11 PM
on the poliovirus -- it is not the star of this series because it is not the cause of poliomyelitis outbreaks -- a toxic co-factor that "amplifies" it is the cause. that's my theory anyway. still, the fact that a vaccine stopped the epidemics seems like pretty strong evidence that the poliovirus was involved. what am i missing?
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | July 31, 2016 at 02:13 PM
Dan, Also the need for iron lung assisted breathing and death from polio was due to damage within the brainstem as well as spinal cord. The pattern of brainstem damage was similar to that of Wernicke's encephalopathy.
The article below by Thomson is free online, and the one by Barnhart et al. is surely on the shelf at the National Library of Medicine:
Barnhart M, Rhines R, McCarter JC, Magoun HW. Distribution of lesions of the brainstem in poliomyelitis. Arch Neurol Psychiatry. 1948 Mar;59(3):368-77.
Thomson AD, Cook CC, Guerrini I, Sheedy D, Harper C, Marshall EJ. Wernicke's encephalopathy revisited. Translation of the case history section of the original manuscript by Carl Wernicke 'Lehrbuch der Gehirnkrankheiten fur Aerzte and Studirende' (1881) with a commentary. Alcohol Alcohol. 2008 Mar-Apr;43(2):174-9.
Posted by: Patience (Eileen Nicole) Simon | July 31, 2016 at 09:22 AM
Dan, Glad to see you are using the National Library of Medicine, and forget about Orac, who is part of the misguided medical establishment.
Yesterday, I was responding to a critic of Anne Dachel's observation of increasing numbers of autistic adults; I looked up a 19th century report of then very rare echolalic speech, and found another interesting paper. This was an authoritative report written in 1905 on how beriberi was an infection caused by contaminated rice.
Beriberi was later found to be caused by vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency in people who had begun eating refined white rice. The brainstem damage in beriberi is the same as in Wernicke's encephalopathy caused by alcohol abuse or toxic substances like mercury, lead, valproic acid, or asphyxia at birth.
See: Wright H. The Cause, Course, Prevention, and Treatment of Beriberi. Public Health Papers and Reports. 1905; 31(Pt 1): 289–299.
Online at http://conradsimon.org/WrightBeriberi1905.html
Posted by: Patience (Eileen Nicole) Simon | July 31, 2016 at 09:09 AM
As Francis Weibel noted, they DIDN'T identify the polio virus until the 50s.
Landsteiner/Popper and a couple of years later, Simon Flexner, basically took matter from the spine of paralyzed monkeys and injected that to the brain of healthy monkeys, thereby passing the "virus".
This is considered by science historians as "Identifying the virus".
Quite a bad joke...
Posted by: VE | July 31, 2016 at 07:26 AM
The polio virus was first identified in 1908, but the ability to diagnosis the illness by seeing the actual virus did not happen until the late 1950s. I found the following at: http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/timelines/polio
1908
Polio Virus Identified
In Vienna, Karl Landsteiner, MD (1868-1943), and Erwin Popper, MD (1879-1955), announced that the infectious agent in polio was a virus.
Popper and Landsteiner deduced the viral nature of polio by carefully filtering preparations of spinal cord fluid from a person who had died of polio. The filters were known to trap bacteria. When Popper and Landsteiner injected the filtered preparations into monkeys, the monkeys developed polio. The researchers then concluded that an infectious particle smaller than bacteria caused the disease.
Polio virus itself would not be visible to researchers until the 1950s, when the electron microscope was available.
Posted by: Francis Weibel | July 30, 2016 at 11:56 PM
VE; They had been having a few outbreaks back in the 1800s.
They had identified by 1908 the polio viruses.
So, in the outbreak of 1916 - when they became paralyzed and ill - they did have ways of identifying the polio viruses and it's main disease characteristic which was something in Greek meaning Grey marrow- or inflammation of the spinal cord. I think I remember that right.
But 1908 they could identify the virus.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 30, 2016 at 07:06 PM
This particular abstract is specific to pregnancy. But the basic concept doesn't necessarily have to apply to pregnancy, one would not think.
- - - - - - -
Environ Res. 2015 Oct;142:273-80. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2015.07.004. Epub 2015 Jul 15.
Arsenic exposure and hepatitis E virus infection during pregnancy.
Heaney CD, et al.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Arsenic has immunomodulatory properties and may have the potential to alter susceptibility to infection in humans.
OBJECTIVES:
We aimed to assess the relation of arsenic exposure during pregnancy with immune function and hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection, defined as seroconversion during pregnancy and postpartum.\
METHODS:
We assessed IgG seroconversion to HEV between 1st and 3rd trimester (TM) and 3 months postpartum (PP) among 1100 pregnancies in a multiple micronutrient supplementation trial in rural Bangladesh. Forty women seroconverted to HEV and were matched with 40 non-seroconverting women (controls) by age, parity and intervention. We assessed urinary inorganic arsenic plus methylated species (∑As) (µg/L) at 1st and 3rd TM and plasma cytokines (pg/mL) at 1st and 3rd TM and 3 months PP.
RESULTS:
HEV seroconverters' urinary ∑As was elevated throughout pregnancy. Non-seroconverters' urinary ∑As was similar to HEV seroconverters at 1st TM but declined at 3rd TM. The adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of HEV seroconversion was 2.17 (1.07, 4.39) per interquartile range (IQR) increase in average-pregnancy urinary ∑As. Increased urinary ∑As was associated with increased concentrations of IL-2 during the 1st and 3rd TM and 3 months PP among HEV seroconverters but not non-seroconverters.
CONCLUSIONS:
The relation of urinary arsenic during pregnancy with incident HEV seroconversion and with IL-2 levels among HEV-seroconverting pregnant women suggests arsenic exposure during pregnancy may enhance susceptibility to HEV infection.
TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00860470.
Posted by: Nonnymouse | July 30, 2016 at 06:26 PM
VE:
"What scientific evidence until 1926 do you have, these epidemics had anything to do with the polio virus? "
I think you mean historical evidence, not scientific evidence. "Scientific evidence" suggests double blind placebo trials which cannot be done on historical evidence.
Posted by: Francis Weibel | July 30, 2016 at 04:48 PM
Dan,
Sorry for knocking on your door the 10th time (and not getting in :-), but why on earth do you (half) blame this mysterious virus (it was surely mysterious in 1926 or 1916) with causing an epidemic? What scientific evidence until 1926 do you have, these epidemics had anything to do with the polio virus?
Posted by: VE | July 30, 2016 at 04:20 PM
Respectful Insolence never had to sit in lots of classes in biology; and hear their unsatisfying explanation of why suddenly a very old virus that did nothing; started causing such a horrible disease.
To burn with curiosity for want of a better explanation that did not have d so many holes; a society that got so clean that babies did not come into contact with the virus and they had stronger - or different immune systems thus could handle it better. I had kind of in my mind thought it has mutated in some small way; and a bunch of top notch scientists just don't know it.
Yeap, no senior research soil microbiologist at the coal reclamation research lab, or Dow Chemical environmental labs figured it out -- it took a hard working journalist to come up with a decent answer
And the Blogger under the name Baby Jesus; The main problem why we cannot get the masses to see that the vaccine schedule is killing us -- even my own mother - says OHHHHH how she lived in fear of polio - and was grateful for the vaccine -- If we could find the real reason for the polio epidemic - it would weaken that fear of polio and we might get some where. If not - mental illness will continue to rise and we are doomed, to poverty and the end of society .
Posted by: Benedetta | July 30, 2016 at 01:14 PM
How about trying to disprove it? Polio epidemics in populations which didn't eat sugar and didn't have other exposure to arsenic compounds? If you could find such.
If you can't find counter examples, it makes the argument that much stronger.
Posted by: Carol | July 30, 2016 at 11:28 AM
Jesus Baby, it's ok to be snotty. but i wish you would be less elliptically snotty. it's looks like you're coming from a point of view so self evident, to you, that it needs no elaboration. yes, please, it does. if you will lay out your issue i will be glad to respond. best dan
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | July 30, 2016 at 10:33 AM
How much longer until you finally say it wasn't the vaccines?
Posted by: Jesus baby | July 30, 2016 at 10:30 AM
Respectful Insolence should have had to sit through college classes and listen to them try to explain to students why a common virus that did not cause any problems over the course of human existence suddenly started causing problems and the only thing they came up with was babies no longer crawled through filth - and immune systems of babies is different form adults-- they were some how tougher.
I bought the last part - even though there were not studies or research that pointed to that fact.
Yep, Respectful Insolence must have never felt the burn to know .
And to think it is being answered to my satisfaction; not by a health/biology/environmental science college professor, or a senior environmental forest soil microbiologist, or anyone in the medical field , or the CDC --- but by a sure enough researching journalist.
Thank You, Dan.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 30, 2016 at 09:26 AM