I'd like to acknowledge a few books that opened my eyes to this controversial but fascinating field of research.
The first is The Virus and the Vaccine, a fascinating true story of the contamination of the polio vaccine with a cancer-causing monkey virus.
The second is Dr. Mary's Monkey. Although I didn't use this book as a source, it's a thrilling story in its own right, and weaves together the JFK assassination, the contaminated polio vaccine scandal, and a secret project to develop a bio-weapon to kill Fidel Castro.
Lastly I owe much of this research to the indispensable Vaccine Safety Manual for Concerned Families and Health Practitioners. The thousands of references provided have proved to be a veritable gold mine.
Paralysis and the Politics of Polio
Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a contagious disease caused by a virus that may attack nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord.
Fever, headache, sore throat, vomiting are some of the milder symptoms, and some victims develop neurological complications and paralysis of one or more limbs or respiratory muscles. In severe cases it can be fatal, due to respiratory paralysis.
Some people mistakenly believe that polio usually leads to paralysis, but this isn't the case.
95% of people exposed to the natural polio virus don't exhibit any symptoms, even under epidemic conditions, according to the Physicians' Desk Reference 2001 and Natural History of Infectious Disease by Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet and David O. White.
The Wikipedia article on polio initially cites the figure as 90%, but elsewhere on the page the “asymptomatic” outcome of poliovirus infection is listed as 90%-95%. According to the source used for these statistics, “Up to 95% of all polio infections are inapparent or asymptomatic.”
About 5% of infected people will experience mild symptoms such as a sore throat, stiff neck, headache, and fever—often diagnosed as a cold or flu. Muscular paralysis affects approximately one out of every 1,000 people who contract polio.
Usually there is a full recovery from paralytic polio—it rarely is permanent. Only a small percentage of cases will experience residual paralysis.
There are many serious questions about what factors contribute to increasing an individual's susceptibility to serious adverse reactions to the polio virus.
Several studies have demonstrated that injections, either for vaccines or antibiotics, increase susceptibility to polio. It's been known since the early 1900s that paralytic poliomyelitis can start at the site of an injection.
McCloskey, BP. “The relation of prophylactic inoculations to the onset of poliomyelitis.” Lancet (April 18, 1950):659-63
Geffen, DH “The incidence of paralysis occurring in London children within four weeks after immunization.” Med Officer 1950;83:137-40
Martin, JK. “Local paralysis in children after injections.” Arch Dis Child 1950;25:1-14
In 1992, a study was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases that again confirmed these results after documenting an outbreak of polio in Oman that was linked to the DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) shot. They concluded that “injections are an important cause of provocative poliomyelitis.”
A poor diet has been shown to raise one's susceptibility to polio.
Sandler claimed that sugars and starches lower blood sugar levels which leads to hypoglycemia.
As can be seen by this graph of United States polio rates, polio epidemics became a serious problem in the late 1940s and early 1950s, although it never quite reached the levels of 1916 (when the epicenter of the epidemic was mere miles from a Rockefeller research lab that was experimenting with an extremely virulent strain of the polio virus).
By the early 1950s, Jonas Salk began experimenting with a possible polio vaccine.
In 1955, the first polio immunization campaign was launched in the United States. Almost immediately, it became clear that something was very wrong with the vaccine. In the end, 70,000 school children became seriously ill from Salk's vaccine—the infamous “Cutter Incident.”
The renowned surgeon Alton Ochsner even gave the vaccine to two of his grandchildren...one died and the other was paralyzed. “Apparently, Salk's killed-virus vaccine was not completely inactivated.”
Perhaps it was their eagerness to get the polio vaccine developed and distributed as quickly as possible, but unfortunately the NIH did receive dire warnings before the release of the vaccine...a warning from one of their own.
Dr. Bernice Eddy and her research partner Dr. Sarah Stewart are two of the most important scientists of the 20th century in the field of viral research.
Perhaps he should have listened, for a result, “The director of the microbiology institute lost his job, as did the equivalent of the assistant secretary for health. Dr Sebrell, the director of the NIH, resigned.”
Incredibly, instead of acknowledging Eddy for her validated concerns, they took her off polio research and instead ordered her to the influenza research division. Eddy continued her polio research on her own time, ultimately leading to one of the greatest medical conspiracies of the 20th century.
Following the Cutter Incident, the authorities acted quickly to alleviate the public's legitimate concerns about the safety of the recently developed polio vaccine.
In 1957 Albert Sabin developed an oral live-virus polio vaccine over concerns that Salk's killed-virus vaccine would be ineffective at preventing epidemics. Sabin's goal was to simulate a real-life infection.
Strebel, PM., et al. “Epidemiology of polio in U.S. one decade after the last reported case of indigenous wild virus associated disease.” Clin Infec Dis, CDC (Feb 1992):568-79
Gorman, C. “When the vaccine causes the polio.” Time (October 30, 1995):83.
Shaw, D. “Unintended casualties in war on polio.” Philadelphia Inquirer (June 6, 1993):A1.
In 2000, the CDC “updated” its U.S. polio vaccine recommendations, reverting back to policies first implemented during the 1950s, namely the killed-virus shot. The oral polio vaccine should only be used in “special circumstances” (several countries still use the live-virus, oral vaccine).
However, a fact sheet on polio published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services warns parents that the inactivated polio vaccine can cause “serious problems or even deaths.” One of the manufacturers of the IPV also admits that Guillain–Barré syndrome has been “temporarily linked to administration of another IPV.”
Now that we understand the dangers of Salk's early vaccine and the possibility of it actually infecting the recipient with serious cases of polio, it should come as no surprise that statistics confirm that the reported cases of polio following mass inoculations with the killed-virus vaccine may have more than doubled in the U.S. as a whole. [McBean, E. & Allen, H.]
Many NIH doctors and scientists at the NIH during the 1950s were aware that Salk's vaccine was causing polio.
Salk himself allegedly said: “When you inoculate children with a polio vaccine you don't sleep well for two or three weeks.” [As reported by Saul Pett in an Associated Press dispatch from Pittsburg (October 11, 1954)]
In 1976, Salk even testified that the live-virus vaccine (used almost exclusively in the U.S. from the early 1960s to 2000) was the “principal if not sole cause” of all reported cases of polio in the U.S. since the early 1960s. [Washington Post, September 24, 1976.]
Although authorities claimed that the vaccine caused only 8 cases of polio each year, an independent study “uncovered 13,641 reports of adverse events following use of the oral polio vaccine. These reports included 6,364 hospital/emergency room visits and 540 deaths.” [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS); OPV Vaccine Report—Document #14]
Eventually, after the public became increasingly aware of the dangers of the oral polio vaccine, it was removed from immunization schedules.
There has been much speculation that the polio vaccine did little, if anything, to cause the virus to disappear. Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, a medical researcher and pediatrician, claimed that there was no scientific evidence this was the case.
Part of the reason for the apparent decline in polio rates after the introduction of the vaccine, even while it was infecting many people with polio, was that polio was redefined at the same the vaccination program began.
The subject was controversial enough to be discussed during congressional hearings in 1962, when Dr. Bernard Greenberg, chairman of the Committee on Evaluation and Standards of the American Public Health Association, provided expert testimony documenting this important fact.
Also, cases of aseptic meningitis, a condition with many variations and causes, were formally distinguished from the polio vaccine after the vaccine was introduced, as well as coxsackie virus infections (which can also lead to aseptic meningitis).
Dr. Bernard Greenberg, who also was head of the Dept. of Biostatistics for the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, “testified that not only did the cases of polio increase substantially after mandatory vaccinations—a 50% increase from 1957 to 1958, and an 80% increase from 1958 to 1959—but that the statistics were deliberately manipulated by the Public Health Service to give the opposite impression.” According to Greenberg:
Some have speculated that approximately 90% of polio cases were eliminated from statistics by health authorities’ redefinition of the disease when the vaccine was introduced. In reality, the Salk vaccine contributed to increased cases of polio in numerous countries at a time when there were no epidemics being caused by the wild virus.
According to proponents of this claim, polio now “hides” behind the following conditions: acute flaccid paralysis, transverse myelitis, viral or aseptic meningitis, Guillain–Barré syndrome, Chinese paralytic syndrome, spinal meningitis, inhibitory palsy, etc.
In July 1955, before the new polio definition was introduced, there were 273 reported cases of polio in Los Angeles County, as compared to 50 reported cases of aseptic meningitis.
In July 1961, after the new definition was introduced, there were 65 cases of polio and 161 cases of aseptic meningitis. In September 1966, there were only 5 reported cases of polio, and 256 reported cases of aseptic meningitis. [Los Angeles County Health Index: Morbidity and Mortality, Reportable Diseases.]
The incidence of meningitis skyrocketed as “official” polio cases declined, as the following data, compiled from national surveillance reports, shows.
Non-paralytic polio cases vs. aseptic meningitis cases:
1951-1960: 70,083 - 0
1961-1982: 589 - 102,999
1983-1992: 0 - 117,366
DDT is good for me-e-e!
DDT may have played a significant role in the polio epidemics of the 1940s and 50s. By the early 1960s, it finally became understood that DDT was having a devastating impact on the environment and possibly human health.
DDT spraying and DDT delousing were both extremely, and terrifyingly, common before this realization.
In 1953, Morton S. Biskind published a damning report called “Public health aspects of the new insecticides.” A decade before Rachel Carson would release her groundbreaking Silent Spring, Biskind was desperately trying to sound the alarm:
Biskind emphasized physiological evidence of DDT poisoning that resembled polio physiology:
A German study of the physiology of acute DDT poisoning confirmed that DDT often causes polio-like physiology.
Biskind's views fell into disfavor after the introduction of the polio vaccine, which “proved” to most that the majority of polio cases were caused by a virus. By 1955, Biskind, whose works had been published in established medical journals and who testified before the Senate on the dangers of pesticides, was forced self-publish his writings.
The Present Polio Predicament
Problems with the polio vaccine continue today, for in February of 2014, a study was published identifying a “polio-like” illness in five California children. “All children presented with acute flaccid paralysis of one or more limbs that reached peak severity within 48 hours of onset...All had been previously vaccinated against polio-virus.”
Incredibly, the oral polio vaccine was given to Indian children, despite the fact that in the U.S., the CDC had dropped the OPV from its vaccine schedule because it was causing polio.
According to Neetu Vashisht and Jacob Puliyel at St. Stephens Hospital in Delhi:
Vashisht and Puliyel published their findings in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics and “should have made headlines around the globe.” They determined:
For more information, here's one of the best lectures on the subject of polio available on Youtube. Suzanne Humphries, MD, speaks about the “disappearance” of polio, and includes detailed information about the deceptive reclassification of “polio” and the connection between the rampant use of DDT and polio-like disorders of the central nervous system.
If this brief overview doesn't already raise serious questions and concerns about the history of the polio vaccine, then strap yourselves in.
SV40
We return to 1959 and the pioneering work of Dr. Bernice Eddy, whose previous warnings about the Salk polio vaccine went unheeded, resulting in many deaths. For her efforts, she was removed from polio research at the NIH.
For a complete account of Eddy and her story, read The Virus and the Vaccine: Contaminated Vaccine, Deadly Cancers, and Government Neglect.
History, as they say, is doomed to repeat herself, for Eddy would yet again discover something was wrong with the polio vaccine. This time, however, the ramifications would be far more catastrophic, and her subsequent silencing was much more profound.
Dr. Eddy was fresh from her research into viral causes of cancer and her pioneering work in first describing the polyoma virus. However, she soon would earn the dubious honor of being the first to identify what we now call SV40 (Simian virus 40), an infectious agent capable of causing cancer.
SV40 had widely contaminated the polio vaccine, and Eddy desperately tried to sound the alarm. Even though her previous warnings, if heeded, would have prevented the tragic Cutter Incident, she yet again was met with astonishing opposition.
What happened next was tragic not only for Eddy herself, but it precipitated one of the worst medical blunders/conspiracies of the 20th century.
The Health Century by Edward Shorter offers the following account of this story:
Eddy tried every possible means to alert her peers to the danger, and ultimately decided she would “surprise” a meeting of the Cancer Society with her findings.
Bernice Eddy came to a shocking conclusion: an entire generation had been given cancer-causing monkey viruses. Using this knowledge, she predicted a future epidemic of cancer.
Maurice Hilleman and Benjamin Sweet came to similar conclusions. Sweet and Hilleman were pharmaceutical researchers for Merck and are credited with first identifying the virus as SV40, the 40th such simian virus discovered until that point. According to Hilleman:
Hilleman and Sweet noted the possibility that it might cause cancer, “especially when administered to human babies.” According to Sweet:
Further research uncovered even more disturbing information.
Experts have estimated that up to 100 million Americans and at least 100 millions others throughout the world were exposed to SV40 through the polio vaccine. [Bookchin, D., et al. “Tainted polio vaccine still carries its threat 40 years later. The Boston Globe (January 26, 1997)]
Even though SV40 is universally acknowledged to cause cancer in animal models, strangely enough its role in causing cancer in humans is still debated. As Wikipedia explains:
As the Wikipedia article points out, this is in contrast to a 2002 study conducted by The National Academy of Sciences Immunization Safety Review committee that declared, “The committee concludes that the biological evidence is moderate that SV40 exposure could lead to cancer in humans under natural conditions.”