Monday, September 13, 2021

The Mythical Polio Narrative.

 


Preface:

   Internet discussion seems to be prone to false absolutism.  Either you buy the entire 'official story' without question, or you must be a True Believer in some backwards, paranoid, tinfoil hat crackpottery that puts sane people at risk.  Right?

   Wrong.  You can actually understand how viruses, immunity, and inoculation work, while strongly doubting the 'authorities' about which diseases are caused by certain pathogens, what treatment and preventative measures are called for, and if some diseases even exist!

   Further, when we observe patterns of error and misrepresentation in science and medicine, past and present, it doesn't always mean there is intentional deception for evil purposes.  Sometimes it may just be human nature to over-report the dramatic and sensational. 

   Since it's so difficult for some people to make sense of the maelstrom of information (and disinformation) of the current Global Panic-Demic, let's look back a few generations at the Doomsday Disease that set the template the folks in power are trying to apply now...



Polio:  The Official Story.

   The surviving GI Generation and older Boomers remember the Horrors of Polio.  First-wave GenXers heard the tales from our elders, saw the references in old movies, newsreels, and in US History textbooks. 

   It was a nightmare!  Even as America was rebuilding prosperity after WWII, it seemed that half the country was being laid to waste by the dreadful plague that had children hobbling around with leg braces and crutches, and thousands condemned to a Living Hell in the steampunk coffin known as the Iron Lung...

   But then secular saint Jonas Salk developed a vaccine, and the dread curse was over just like that.  SCIENCE!  Modern Medicine for the WIN!  How dare you even think of questioning the wisdom of vaccinating everybody for everything all the time from then on?!


Looking a Little Closer.

   The meaninglessness of case numbers, over-blowing the situation:  Even now, when you look up the polio epidemic, you'll get scary-looking case numbers, references to "paralysis", and images of crippled children and wards crammed full of dozens, maybe hundreds of poor souls vegetating in iron lungs.  Most people don't go beyond this first impression to learn that the bulk of polio cases were non-paralytic.  And even those who did get the braces, crutches, and iron lungs usually recovered.  Yes, some people were crippled long-term, or even died.  But the vast majority came through okay, if they got sick at all.  Reported polio deaths at the peak of the worst outbreak year came to 0.002% of the US population.  The actual threat never came close to the terror associated with it.

   The vaccine salvation...  Polio cases in America dropped by roughly 90% between the peak in 1952 and 1957, which is often cited as conclusive proof that Salk's vaccine, and vaccines in-general, work miracles.  But there's an obvious problem with this assertion.  The vaccine wasn't announced until '55, and was just entering wide distribution in '57...  AFTER THE EPIDEMIC WAS OVER. 

   So, if it wasn't the Magic Jab that vanquished the Polio Menace, what did?


Normal Course of Events:

   Only in Hollywood movies do viral epidemics sweep across nations and obliterate everyone.  In reality, they tend to run their course and essentially burn-out, returning to endemic levels when natural immunity develops in a sufficient percentage of the population to inhibit spread of the infection.  Given that the vast majority of people infected with polio don't even get sick, it's likely that enough people already had been immunized by contracting (and beating) the virus without even knowing it.


Diagnostic Bias and Reclassification:

   When the medical authorities declare an epidemic, enormous pressure falls upon doctors not to let cases of the plague slip through the cracks, lest the collective 'fight against the disease' be hampered!  So every patient who had any symptoms that might resemble some form of polio became a 'polio case'.   On top of that, media-induced paranoia will drive people with minor maladies they would likely have ignored otherwise to go to the doctor, who would err on the side of caution and list them as polio cases as well.  Lab tests don't help nearly as much as you'd think, since it is possible to have polio virus in your body while your symptoms are caused by something else entirely.

   Around the same time the Salk vaccine was introduced, the AMA did an 'about-face' on polio diagnostic guidelines.  Instead of encouraging doctors to label every case of the shakes as polio, they were instructed to diagnose what would previously have been polio cases as Acute Flaccid Paralysis, Aseptic Meningitis (for what was previously non-paralytic polio), and a long list of other diseases.  There wasn't so much a huge decline in sick people, as roughly the same number of sick people, just no longer labeled as 'polio victims'.


Conclusions:

   Does the fact that the vaccines didn't end the polio epidemic mean they don't work?  No.  Given that the early versions were based on straightforward immunization through inoculation, they probably did work.  They just weren't really needed.  And, thanks to the undue polio panic and a hell of a public relations effort, little thought was given to the cost/benefit of vaccination.

   Whether or not vaccines cause autism and other conditions which have been rising exponentially as the number and frequency of vaccinations has been increasing is a discussion I'll leave for another time.  But there is no denying that there is a cost associated with the polio vaccination programs, both in treasure and in fully-documented reactions and deaths.  Vaccine proponents argue that severe reactions are extremely rare, and it is worth the risk to protect the patient, and the population as a whole.

   Since the polio virus is actually a gut infection, primarily spread by ingestion of contaminated fecal residue, the much-vaunted "eradication of polio" is probably more a result of improving sanitation standards than vaccination programs.  (Plumbers work miracles, doctors get the credit.) 

   With the spread vectors of the virus virtually eliminated by the marvel of indoor plumbing and the plague status of the disease having been more imagination than contagion to begin-with, the cost of polio vaccination is balanced by almost no benefit whatsoever.

   Yet, not only is our indoctrination to the Mythical Polio Narrative cult so strong that we keep injecting generations of Americans with the pointless (and at least slightly dangerous) drug, but we're also enthusiastic about pumping an ever-expanding array of potions into people, so long as they are called "vaccines" (the term seems to have been re-defined far beyond basic inoculation) and endorsed by the same 'authorities' that pushed the polio narrative. 
 
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