A Story About Polio, Pesticides and the Meaning of Science

By  Tessa Lena

We’re told the science on polio is settled — but that may not be the case. There are scientists who believe polio-like symptoms could be caused by toxic substances, including pesticides.

Story at-a-glance:

We are told that the science on polio is settled — but that may not be the case.There are scientists who believe that polio-like symptoms could be caused by toxic substances, including pesticides.At the time of its popularity, DDT was considered not only “safe and effective” but also good for the prevention of polio.However, the opposite could be true, and DDT could have been a major contributing factor to the “polio epidemic.”

This story is about polio, pesticide poisoning as a possible cause of it and the meaning of science. We are taught that the science on polio has been settled — but is it so? And what if the world is far more complex than we think, and “the science” is not settled at all?

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The official story of polio

We all know the official story of polio: In the early 20th century, a polio epidemic showed up in the affluent West, and it was bad.

Then in 1954, the Salk Institute came up with a great polio vaccine — and hooray! The epidemic was stopped, and the people were no longer getting polio. Problem solved!

Vaccines save lives! (Therefore, it is immoral, unthinkable and despicable to ever doubt any vaccines. Any questions? Hope not. Case closed.) But is it really closed, or is there room for debate?

First, let’s examine the official theory about the onset of the polio epidemic that accidentally reveals a “bug” in modern science where the scientists go after fixing one thing — assuming they know better than nature — and then break something else that they have not quite thought through.

So then they “patch” it, break something else and so on.

At each turn, there is usually someone promoting each patch as the greatest thing in the world — while insisting that only a fool would consider unwrapping this “cabbage” of fixes and asking the village yokel question: “Is it possible that we haven’t quite thought things through at the very first turn — should we maybe finally think it through at long last, and change our approach accordingly?”

So here is the official theory of why polio outbreaks started happening, as told on historyofVaccines.org:

“Polio reached epidemic proportions in the early 1900s in countries with relatively high standards of living, at a time when other diseases such as diphtheria, typhoid and tuberculosis were declining. Indeed, many scientists think that advances in hygiene paradoxically led to an increased incidence of polio.

“The theory is that in the past, infants were exposed to polio, mainly through contaminated water supplies, at a very young age. Infants’ immune systems, aided by maternal antibodies still circulating in their blood, could quickly defeat poliovirus and then develop lasting immunity to it.

“However, better sanitary conditions meant that exposure to polio was delayed until later in life, on average, when a child had lost maternal protection and was also more vulnerable to the most severe form of the disease.”

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Poliomyelitis-like symptoms caused by poisoning

In 1951, Dr. Ralph R. Scobey published an article in Archives of Pediatrics, titled “Is the public health law responsible for the poliomyelitis mystery?”

In the article, Scobey investigated the evidence showing the contagiousness (or not) of poliomyelitis — and talked about how the research into complex causes of the disease had been decapitated once the “official” opinion was declared. Among other things, he stated the following:

“Unlimited poliomyelitis research ceased abruptly when this disease was legally made a communicable disease. However, definite progress toward a solution to the problem was being made before the public health law made poliomyelitis a germ or virus disease. For example, it was reported by toxicologists and bacteriologists that poliomyelitis could be produced both by organic and inorganic poisons as well as by bacterial toxins.

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The Rockefeller brand

In his article, Scobey also mentioned that in 1911, Sachs [Sachs, B.: Am. J. Obst. & Gynec., 63: 703-710, April 1911] indicated that “Our present knowledge of the possible methods of contagion is based almost entirely upon the work done in this city at the Rockefeller Institute,” and that children afflicted with the disease were kept in general hospital wards and that not a single one of the other inmates of the wards of the hospital was affected with the disease — which of course contradicted the “viral” theory of polio.

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More on polio and poisoning

In 1952, Scobey published a detailed meta-analysis titled, “The Poison Cause of Poliomyelitis And Obstructions To Its Investigation,”  in which he looked at a broad range of studies and analyses that existed on the topic of polio — and concluded that there seemed to be a causal relationship between polio outbreaks and consumption of certain agricultural products, potentially linking polio to pesticide poisoning (for example, lead and arsenic compounds during this pre-DDT period).

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There was a time when DDT was advertised as “safe and effective.” It was supposed to be an extremely effective pesticide, and “the experts” recommended that DDT should be sprayed everywhere. One of the “benefits” was preventing polio!

Parents sent their children to run after the trucks spraying DDT and also sprayed DDT everywhere in the house — clearly with the best of intentions, for the health of their kids and the household. Remind you of anything? Take a look at the Time Magazine issue from June 30, 1947, that ran the following ad:

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DDT as a possible cause of polio

There is a theory that DDT poisoning was a major contributor to paralysis diagnosed as polio. The timeline supports it, and it is one of those cases where I have to humbly accept not knowing the definitive answer at this very second.

The Salk vaccine was introduced in 1954. DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972. Polio was officially eradicated in the U.S. in 1979. (The vaccine-derived version of polio (!) is reported to be spreading now in developing countries, and according to ABC News, “More polio cases now caused by vaccine than by wild virus.”)

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Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/polio-pesticides-ddt-science/