The WHO’s Global Polio “Emergency”

Did you hear? The World Health Organization declared that the spread of polio is an international health emergency.

By Megan Heimer, NHE, JD, ND

You can’t possibly have missed this. I don’t have a t.v. and somehow I found out about this crisis. Polio is all over the news which I find completely ironic considering it was mumps last week, measles the week before, chicken pox, and whooping cough before that. There’s a theme here…clearly. Next week it will be Hep B, tetanus, or maybe anthrax? I’ve read the articles and I’ve seen the pictures…like this one from the BBC’s website (which may have led to a silent scream inside my head).

Here’s a statement taken from the BBC about the current “outbreak:”

The WHO recorded 417 cases of polio worldwide for the whole of 2013. For 2014, it had already recorded 68 cases by 30 April – up from 24 in the same period last year. […] The virus is transmitted through contaminated food and water, and multiplies in the intestine.”

I know, this might be asking the obvious here, but for the sake of not jumping to any conclusions, is that 417 cases of vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP) or wild polio? You see, the boy in the picture above is getting the oral polio vaccine which we finally stopped using in the United States in 2000 because, for 27 years there were more cases of vaccine-associated paralytic polio in our country than wild-strain polio due to this monstrosity of a vaccine. Apparently it’s not good enough for our children anymore, but totally okay for the babies in third-world countries.

Each year during National Immunization Days we vaccinate millions of third-world, little children, with OPV and turn a blind eye to the vaccine-associated paralysis it can leave behind, unless of course we need it to boost our polio numbers to put pressure on others to vaccinate – then we’ll pretend its wild polio and we might call it an “emergency.”

Here’s what the CDC says about VAPP from the oral polio vaccine:

A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of poliovirus that was initially contained in OPV and that has changed over time and behaves more like the wild or naturally occurring virus. This means it can be more easily spread to others who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or oral secretions (e.g., saliva) of an infected person. These viruses may cause illness, including paralytic poliomyelitis.

So let me get this straight: the oral polio vaccine can cause vaccine-associated paralytic polio, sheds and infects others, and “has changed over time” and “behaves more like” the wild virus it’s supposed to protect us against? Is that code for…mutated vaccine virus? Logic of course would suggest we should all get vaccinated. It’s cool, we will just cross our fingers and hope we don’t get paralysis or that the virus doesn’t mutate and infect other populations. If it does, we’ll just pretend the vaccine has nothing to do with it and push more vaccines since eradicating paralysis with something that causes paralysis makes compete sense.

“[…] VAPP never disappears. Paralysis associated with OPV or caused by infection with circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses is unavoidable so long as OPV continues.”

The “Case” Conundrum

Secondly, I’m not trying to downplay the numbers here but we’re up 24 cases “world-wide” and we’re freaking out and causing mass hysteria and anger towards the unvaccinated why? According to CNN there were 74 cases of reported polio in 10 different countries including Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Somalia, Syria, and Kenya. Three countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria have never seen polio eradicated and 59 of the 74 cases occurred in Pakistan. So we’ve got 15 other cases split up between 9 other countries?

These “epidemics” (which according to the WHO, need only comprise of one individual) have nothing to do with the unvaccinated and everything to do with the fact that these countries have contaminated food and water, poor sanitation and hygiene, utilization of the oral polio vaccine, and still spray DDT on everything. Problem here?

In case you didn’t hear this on the news, we used to spray the highly toxic DDT on everything too and the people who were paralyzed as a result…were diagnosed with polio. DDT paralyzes mosquitos but it also paralyzes people. If we worked as hard to get other countries to ban DDT as we do shoving vaccines at everyone we might see “polio” eradicated from these countries too.

A Good Polio Freak-Out

I’m all for a good polio freak-out but let’s do this properly. First, let’s put things in perspective, we have 74 cases of polio out of a roughly 7 billion, 237 million+ world population and 80% of people infected live in a single country that has never been polio-free. Second, let’s figure out if these polio-symptoms or paralysis are actually due to polio, or something else. If it is polio, let’s determine whether it’s vaccine-strain, or wild (though it’s sad we even have to do that), and let’s see if its a polio strain the vaccine actually provides temporary (if any) immunity to.

I am not anti-World Health Organization and I too would love to see diseases minimized in our world, but if you really want to eradicate polio, put the OPV drops away. Aint’ nobody want paralysis and shedding, mutating, viruses. Get these peeps some clean water, some good food, a clean place to poop, and I don’t know…maybe some soap?

Megan Heimer has a bachelors in political science, a law degree, and is a naturopath, registered yoga teacher, and certified natural health educator. She’s married to a Physician and blogs about all things alternative medicine, whole foods, healthy living, and attachment parenting at www.LivingWhole.org