“Use of either Salk or Sabin vaccine will increase the possibility that your child will contact the disease. It appears that the most effective way to protect your child from polio is to make sure that he doesn’t get the vaccine “—Dr Mendelsohn M.D.(1984)
About Polio
Polio used to be one of the most dreaded childhood disease of the early 20th century. Not isolated to children, President Teddy Roosevelt himself contracted Polio and was permanently crippled by the illness. Pictures abound of young children living in iron lungs. At it’s peak in 1952, there were over 21,000 cases of paralytic polio reported. (source: Polio.com)
Polio is caused by a virus that leaves in the intestines and is passed through the feces. The virus continues through the blood stream to the brain. Paralysis occurs when the Poliovirus damages the nervous system.
Post-Polio Syndrome
Post-Polio Syndrome describes the symptoms that 25-40% of adults who had Polio as children still experience, such as fatigue, muscle weakness or pain, sleep problems, or difficulty swallowing or breathing.
The Risks of Polio Verses The Risks of The Vaccine
Most parents are willing and eager to have their children inoculated against Polio because some of us know people who had it. Since the wild-type (that is, naturally occurring) Poliovirus has been eradicated from the western hemisphere, parents have every reason to believe the Polio vaccine is a lifesaving miracle.
Incidentally, we no longer inoculate ourselves against other diseases not found in this hemisphere anymore, such as Small Pox. Chances are, if a visitor comes into the United States carrying Poliovirus, they will have the non-wild Oral Poliovirus. (source link) According to the World Health Organization, there were less than 2,000 cases of wild-type Polio reported world wide in both 2005 and 2006.
Parents should weigh the risks of contracting Polio against the risks associated with the vaccine. An excellent place to start is the package insert provided by the vaccine manufacturers themselves. A package insert provides information such as ingredients, intended use, contraindications (circumstances under which the vaccine should not be administered) and dosages.
IPOL, Produced by Aventis Pasteur SA
The brand of injected Polio vaccine used most commonly is called IPOL, and the package insert can be viewed online in PDF format by clicking here.
Ingredients
The first listed ingredient is monkey kidney, specifically and old continuous line of monkey kidney cells. Some resources claim that animal tissue is no longer used, since contamination of monkey cells in prior versions of the vaccine has been linked to AIDS and cancer, but as the manufacturer states, monkey tissue is still being used.
Formalin is the chemical used to inactivate the viruses. Formalin (formaldehyde, methanol, and water solution), is considered a toxic waste, and the laboratories that use it have strict protocols for its disposal.
According to the University of Minnesota, http://www.mntap.umn.edu/health/20-Formalin.htm “Low to moderate exposure to formaldehyde can irritate the eyes, nose, mouth, throat and skin, and cause headaches. Formaldehyde may be carcinogenic, and toxic or fatal to humans at high concentrations.” In addition, they state that “Formalin waste is toxic due to the presence of formaldehyde and methanol. When poured down the drain, it kills some of the biological organisms used for sewage treatment. Although formalin waste can generally be disposed into the sanitary sewer once tissue samples have been removed (check with your sewer authority), some municipalities have talked about banning the practice.”
2-phenoxyethanol is another chemical used in the production of this Polio vaccine. It is a hazardous material considered harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and may cause reproductive defects. This is worthy of note because, like other vaccine package inserts, this one clearly states that long-term studies on the vaccine’s effect on fertility have never been done. This chemical’s material safety data sheet can be viewed by clicking here.
Additional chemicals present in the Polio vaccine are neomycin, streptomycin, and polymyxin.
Efficacy
“Vaccination with IPOL may not protect 100% of susceptible individuals.” This statement, found on the package insert, has been very highly debated since the vaccine’s inception in the 1950’s.
One line of thinking attributes Polio’s worldwide decline to better hygiene and health practices, since Polio is passed through the feces.
In 1942, the epidemic of the first half of the century subsided, and there were fewer than 5,000 cases of polio in the United States. Around 1948, the number of polio cases began to soar. Interestingly, this is about the time the pertussis vaccine appeared on the public health scene. Polio reached a high in 1949, and then began its natural decline. In 1949 there were nearly 43,000 cases of polio. By 1951 the number had dropped to below 28,000. Following a government-subsidized study of polio vaccine, the number soared to an all-time high of more than 55,000 cases. A “bad batch” of vaccine produced by Cutter Laboratories was deemed the cause of many cases of polio. Fortunately, better quality control procedures governing the inactivation of the virus were initiated, and the number of cases continued to decline. Of course, the vaccine got the credit — not nature.” THE POLIO VACCINE MYTH, by Christopher Kent, D.C., FCCI, March 2000. The Chiropractic Journal
Another theory is that Polio still exists, but has simply been redefined. In Canada, young, healthy children who come down with paralysis are classified as having Acute Flaccid Paralysis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, or simply transverse myelitis.
Within VRAN, we know of several families whose children have suffered acute long term paralytic illness following MMR vaccination which later was reclassified as transverse myelitis. Yet the attending medical experts vociferously deny a vaccine association. One can almost hear a collective sigh of relief every time a paralysis is diagnosed as AFP –never mind what caused it — it’s not polio!” – Edda West, “Vaccines: Polio Perspective” (source link )
In her article, Edda West further states that “In May of 1960, Dr. Ratner chaired a panel discussion, at the 120th Annual Meeting of the Illinois Medical Society to review the increasing rise in paralytic polio in the U.S. The proceedings were reprinted in the August, 1960, Illinois Medical Journal which exposed the Salk vaccine as a frank and ineptly disguised fraud. One of the experts on the panel, statistician Dr. Bernard Greenberg, who went on to testify at Congressional hearings, revealed how data had been manipulated to hide the dangers and ineffectiveness of the vaccine from the pubic. Dr. Greenberg explained that the perceived overall reduction in polio cases was achieved by changing the criteria by which polio was diagnosed…
… In Canada, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics issued an official bulletin in June 1959 titled Poliomyelitis Trends, 1958. “Data shown in this report are confined to paralytic poliomyelitis only. It may be noted that the Dominion Council of Health at its 74th meeting in October 1958 recommended that for the purposes of national reporting and statistics the term non-paralytic poliomyelitis be replaced by ‘meningitis, viral or aseptic,’ with the specific viruses shown where known.”
Contraindications and Adverse Reactions
The Polio vaccine package insert warns that anyone with prior reactions or sensitivity to 2-phenoxyethanol, formaldehyde, neomycin, streptomycin, polymyxin B, or latex (found in parts of the syringe) should not get the vaccine. They goon to advise that, “Epinephrine injection (1:1,000) and other appropriate agents should be available to control immediate allergic reactions.”
As with other vaccines, it also states, “Long-term studies in animals to evaluate carcinogenic potential or impairment of fertility have not been conducted.”
Adverse Reactions or Side Effects of the Polio Vaccine:
Erythema
Swelling
Tenderness
Fever
Irritability
Tiredness
Anorexia
Vomiting
Persistent crying
Guillain-Barre Syndrome
Death
Reports of Vaccine Injury
The government has a website called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System that lists reported vaccine reactions, though it is estimated that only 10% of adverse reactions are actually reported. One can download a very large file that covers each year and has thousands of entries.
The National Vaccine Information Center has taken the data each year and organized it into a searchable database, so that one can more easily search by vaccine type, injury type, year, gender, and many other criteria.
Between 1999 and 2007, 410 reports of adverse reactions to the IPV (Injected Polio Vaccine) have been reported to this system though it should be noted that some of the recipients received other vaccines at the same time, so it might not be possible to tell which vaccine caused the reactions.
