The Vaccine Myth of “Polio-free” Status – Polio Vaccine Caused 53,000 Paralysis Victims in India Last Year

The oral polio vaccine is so easy to administer, even non-doctors can give it. Bill Gates administering the oral polio vaccine in India.

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

“Even if the polio-free certificate was a legitimate success, it is just that—a certificate,” said Deepak Kapoor, head of Rotary International’s national pulse polio committee. Since 2005, there has been a resurgence of polio in Syria, Egypt, Tajikistan, and Israel. So, while India is celebrating the success of its polio campaign, the threat of a resurgence is ongoing and real, Kapoor said.

Gupta of the health ministry said: “India has become the first country to issue travel advisory concerning importation. Having said that, the WHO certification will not be affected by re-importation as it is about not having indigenous wild polio virus in the environment.”

India’s strategy to maintain its polio-free status involves phasing out the oral polio vaccine (OPV) due to adverse effects. To contain the “wild” polio virus, OPV uses viruses which are “attenuated” but still alive. This weakened version of polio virus activates an immune response in the body.

The India expert advisory group on polio has recommended that the country’s immunization programme switch from trivalent oral polio vaccine and only rely on the oral bivalent variant, reducing chances of vaccine derived polio virus infection. The switch will be accompanied with a booster shot of injectable polio vaccine. The WHO strategic advisory group of experts (SAGE) on immunization has called for a global, coordinated withdrawal of type 2-containing OPV by the end of 2016, and switch to bivalent OPV.

Read the Full Article Here.

Health Impact News Editor Comments

So let’s summarize what is reported in this article by two doctors who compiled data from the national polio surveillance project in India, the head of Rotary International’s national pulse polio committee, and someone from the Health Ministry in India:

There is a direct correlation between doses of the live oral polio vaccine and the incidence of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis.
In the past 13 months, India has reported 53,563 cases of “non-polio acute flaccid paralysis,” giving India the distinction of having the highest rate of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis in the world.
Even in other countries that have “polio-free” status, there is a resurgence of polio and that includes India.
The live oral polio vaccine is so dangerous, with so many side effects, that it is being phased out. WHO has called on a complete withdrawal of the vaccine by the end of 2016.

The big question is: why are they waiting until the end of 2016 when the dangers of this vaccine are so well known?? Could the fact that UNICEF, the primary agency used to “eradicate polio” by the pharmaceutical manufacturers, purchased 1.7 BILLION doses of the oral polio vaccine in 2013, representing BILLIONS of dollars of revenue for the vaccine manufacturers, have anything to do with not phasing out the oral polio vaccine immediately?

We reported late last year how UNICEF used the Philippines Typhoon tragedy, as well as the Syrian refugee tragedies, to buy more live polio vaccines and start giving these vaccines in mass polio vaccination programs, despite the fact that there had been no recorded incidents of polio in the Philippines since 1993, and none in Syria since 1999. They used these tragedies to justify increasing their purchase of the live oral polio vaccine from 1.35 billion doses to 1.7 billion for 2013. The financial motive to continue such a lucrative market, where these vaccines are purchased by the United Nations through tax dollars of contributing member countries, the largest of which is the United States, must be a very strong motivation indeed to continue the oral vaccine program, and get ALL countries around the world the “polio-free” certification.

To learn more about the known adverse effects of the live polio vaccine, see:

When Can We Stop Using Oral Poliovirus Vaccine? Oxford Journals Clinical Infectious Diseases
Time for a Worldwide Shift from Oral Polio Vaccine to Inactivated Polio Vaccine Oxford Journals Clinical Infectious Diseases
Polio programme: let us declare victory and move on. India Journal of Medical Ethics

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Published on January 15, 2014