Health Impact News Editor

Have you heard the news? Polio has become a huge threat to the human race and is making a comeback. Here are a couple samples from the mainstream media headlines:

WHO: Polio outbreak is an international emergency

The Global Polio Threat, Back Again

So what are the actual numbers of polio cases underlying this new polio epidemic? Oh, we need to turn away from the mainstream media reports to find those:

74 cases so far this year. Worldwide. And 59 of those cases are in Pakistan. There were 416 cases worldwide in all of 2013. (Source.)

Compared to all other diseases occurring around the world, is this something new that qualifies as an “epidemic” here in May of 2014?

Obviously not.

So why did the World Health Organization put out such a frightful press release this week, which was promptly broadcast by all the major mainstream media outlets?

UNICEF, which partners with WHO for global vaccine purchases and distribution, is one of the largest purchasers of vaccines for worldwide distribution. Last year, for example, they purchased 1.7 billion doses of the live oral polio vaccine to administer to children under the age of 5.

Why such huge numbers for 2013? Because they leveraged two huge humanitarian crises to justify such large purchases and distribution: the Syrian refugee crisis and the Philippine typhoon crisis. We covered both of these mass vaccination efforts here at Health Impact News in 2013:

So is there an absence of humanitarian crisis here so far in 2014 that has resulted in sales of the live oral polio vaccine decreasing compared to last year??

Unfortunately, history shows us that without government intervention to create “epidemics,” and government intervention to collect tax revenues and purchase vaccines that would never make it in a free market, the vaccine market would never survive (see: The Vaccine Bubble.)

We have seen this historically in the United States, where the vaccine market has even more government sponsored protection with legal immunity against any harm caused by vaccines. With such recent government appointed epidemics like the Bird Flu and Swine Flu scares of recent years, these government-announced pandemics greatly increased vaccine purchases, but the outbreaks never materialized because the threats were never real to begin with.

The real tragedy with the live oral polio vaccines is that they can cause the very thing they are supposed to be preventing: polio. Both “vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis” and “non-polio acute flaccid paralysis” are known side effects of the live oral polio vaccine. It sheds the virus from the vaccine through feces and into sewers and sanitation systems. India recently achieved its “polio-free” status, but at the cost of tens of thousands of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis cases each year (see: The Vaccine Myth of “Polio-free” Status – Polio Vaccine Caused 53,000 Paralysis Victims in India Last Year.)

This dangerous vaccine is no longer used in developed countries like the U.S. But, it is mandated, purchased, and distributed in poor countries. Vaccination record-keeping can often be suspect in many places, and the vaccine is so easy to administer that it can be given to children right on the streets, without even bothering to find out if the child has already been vaccinated.

Doctors and researchers who understand the dangers and risks of the oral polio vaccine (OPV) have been calling for an end to this terrible vaccine for years now. An editorial appeared in the Oxford Journals Clinical Infectious Diseases periodical in 2005 titled, “When Can We Stop Using Oral Poliovirus Vaccine?” It was written by Dr. Harry F. Hull of the Minnesota Department of Health, and Dr. Philip D. Minor of the Division of Virology, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, in the United Kingdom. They requested that the oral polio vaccine be stopped:

Why must OPV vaccination be stopped? Vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis was recognized shortly after the introduction of OPV, with cases occurring in both vaccines and their contacts. The time is coming when the only cause of polio is likely to be the vaccine used to prevent it. Ample molecular data are now available to demonstrate that vaccine viruses can revert to full neurovirulence. Outbreaks of polio in China, Egypt, Haiti, Madagascar, and the Philippines caused by circulating, neurovirulent vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) demonstrate that these revertent strains are fully transmissible and pose significant population risks. (Source.)

Again, in 2009, an editorial was published in the Oxford Journals Clinical Infectious Diseases periodical titled, “Time for a Worldwide Shift from Oral Polio Vaccine to Inactivated Polio Vaccine“, by Dr Aamir Shahzad of the Department of Structural Biology and Biomolecular Chemistry at the University of Vienna. He wrote:

OPV has lost its effectiveness in providing herd immunity. It seems that children are getting polio from OPV, and it also seems that OPV is proving to be ineffective in stopping polio transmission from another source. Therefore, the whole world—and especially developing countries—should shift from OPV to IPV. (Source.)

It is interesting to note that when Dr. Shahzad wrote this in 2009, he said: “According to the World Health Organization, routine immunization with OPV must cease after the eradication of poliovirus because of the danger of outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus and the risk of VAPP.”

Sadly, the World Health Organization is doing just the opposite here in 2014.

See Also:

Vaccine Epidemic

How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children

by Louise Kuo Habakus and Mary Holland J.D.

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