Health Impact News Editor Comments

There is a dirty secret in the vaccine business that is very well documented: the live oral polio vaccine can actually spread polio and causes “non-polio acute flaccid paralysis.”

This is very well-known throughout the world, but in the pro-vaccine U.S. mainstream media, this information is seldom, if ever, published, so most Americans are still under the assumption that polio has been eradicated due to vaccines.

Unfortunately, that is a false belief not supported by the facts.

As usual, we need to look at reports outside the U.S. media to find out what is happening with vaccines around the world.

LiveMint in India reported on the polio-free myth in India, explaining how the live polio vaccine was responsible for increases in paralysis. LiveMint is the second largest business newspaper in India and has an exclusive relationship with the Wall Street Journal. So this report was from the “mainstream” media in India.

Vidya Krishnan reported the story: India to get polio-free status amid rise in acute flaccid paralysis cases.

What is clear from this report, and well documented in peer-reviewed literature, is that the term “polio-free status” is completely meaningless. The designation of a country as “polio-free” is simply a triumphant marketing cry by pharmaceutical interests to continue promoting their live polio vaccines, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that oral polio vaccines do far more harm than good. The oral polio vaccine is banned in the United States and many other countries.

Here are some excerpts from Vidya’s article:

New Delhi: India will on Monday be accorded “polio-free” status by the World Health Organization (WHO), with not a single case of the crippling disease being reported in the past three years, but studies show the alarming rise of another similar paralytic condition that experts suspect may be a result of increased dosage of polio drops.

The last case of polio in the country was reported on 13 January, 2011, from West Bengal. Following the “polio-free” status, India will be certified as a polio-free nation by March, leaving Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria as the remaining polio endemic countries.

India’s dramatic turnout in polio eradication, though, has seen a consistent sidelining of the increasing incidence of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) cases. In the last 13 months, India has reported at least 53,000 cases of NPAFP.

Many health activists say the government, in its rush to get the polio-free certification for the country, ignored the increasing incidence of NPAFP.

Acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) is a condition in which a patient suffers from paralysis that results in floppy limbs due to reduced muscle tone. While AFP is symptomatic of polio, it can be caused by other diseases such as the Guillain-Barre Syndrome and nerve lesions as well—the primary cause fueling the argument that India is not really free of wild polio virus.

Highest NPAFP rate

Government surveillance data show that while India is set to be tagged as polio-free, it has actually become the nation with the world’s highest rate of NPAFP incidence. In the past 13 months, India has reported 53,563 cases of NPAFP at a national rate of 12 per 100,000 children—way above the global benchmark set by WHO of 2 per 100,000.

Two doctors from Delhi’s St. Stephens Hospital, Neetu Vashisht and Jacob Puliyel, who compiled data from the national polio surveillance project, found a link between the increase in dosage of polio vaccination and the increasing cases of NPAFP.

“Most experts will tell you the cases of NPAFP have increased because of better surveillance. This is bunkum,” said Puliyel. “As per global benchmarks, as polio incidence comes down, the rate of NPAFP should also reduce. Instead, AFP cases have been increasing steadily.”

“In 2010, the government reduced the number of pulse polio doses from 10 to 6. What we found was that between 2010-2013, the number of APF cases also came down. Our paper argues that other kinds of polio are being caused by the excessive administration of polio dosages,” Puliyel said. “Another proof is that states like Kerala and Goa, where dosages were less, AFP cases was also less. Majority of NPAFP cases are reported from Bihar and UP, where several immunization rounds are held to reach universal coverage. These are figures the government does not want to admit.”

Polio’s global resurgence