Vaccines in Nigeria are causing Polio

[shance]

I would certainly hate to attribute any type of eugenics program to this.........however, history shows there have been men who have sought just that.

Men that are still alive and in power today.



LONDON - A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed.



It is a frightening paradox in a part of the world that already distrusts western vaccines, making it even tougher to stamp out age-old diseases.

The outbreak was caused by the live polio virus that is used in vaccines given orally — the preferred method in developing countries because it is cheaper and doesn't require medical training to dispense.

"This vaccine is the most effective tool we have against the virus, but it's like fighting fire with fire," said Olen Kew, a virologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC and the World Health Organization announced the cause of the polio outbreak last week, even though they knew about it last year.

Outbreaks caused by the oral vaccine's live virus have happened before. But the continuing Nigerian outbreak is the biggest ever caused by the vaccine. It also follows a nearly yearlong boycott of the vaccine in Africa's most populous country because of unfounded fears the vaccine was a Western plot to sterilize Muslims.

Officials now worry that the latest vaccine-caused Nigerian outbreak could trigger another vaccine scare.

Experts say such outbreaks only happen when too few children are vaccinated. In northern Nigeria, only about 39 percent of children are fully protected against polio.

The oral polio vaccine contains a weakened version of polio virus. Children who have been vaccinated excrete the virus, and in unsanitary conditions it can end up in the water supply, spreading to unvaccinated children.

In rare instances, as the virus passes through unimmunized children, it can mutate into a form that is dangerous enough to spark new outbreaks.

In 2001, officials reported that 22 children were paralyzed from polio in the Dominican Republic and Haiti in this way. Subsequent vaccine-caused polio outbreaks have occurred in the Philippines, Madagascar, China and Indonesia.

In the West, the polio vaccine is given as a shot and uses an inactivated virus, but that method is more expensive and requires training.

In Nigeria, the outbreak comes "in the wake of all the other problems they've had in," said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who led WHO's smallpox eradication campaign in the 1970s.

In 2003, politicians in northern Nigeria canceled vaccination campaigns for nearly a year, claiming the vaccine was a Western plot to sterilize Muslims. That led to an explosion of polio, and the virus jumped to about two dozen countries.

Now, health officials' decision to keep quiet about the cause of the outbreak for so long may look suspicious.

Dr. David Heymann, WHO's top polio official, said that because the organization considered the outbreak to be a problem for scientists and not something that would change global vaccination practices, they thought it was was unnecessary to immediately share publicly.

CDC's Kew added: "The people who are against immunization may seize on anything that could strengthen their position, even if it's scientifically untenable."

Rumors are still rife among Nigerians that the vaccine is unsafe, and several religious leaders continue to lecture on its dangers. Another mass vaccine boycott could lead to further polio spread, derailing long-standing eradication efforts for good.

Nigerian health officials contacted by The Associated Press declined to comment on the situation.

"Convincing the Nigerians to take even more of this vaccine will be a tough sell," said Dr. Samuel Katz, an infectious diseases specialist at Duke University and co-inventor of the measles vaccine.

More than 10 billion polio doses have been given to children worldwide, and the vaccine has been credited with cutting polio incidence by more than 99 percent since 1988. Far more children are paralyzed by the wild polio virus than the virus spread by the oral vaccine. But no vaccine is risk-free.

WHO said that changing the vaccination strategy is unnecessary. "It would be nice if we had a more stable oral polio vaccine, but that's not the way it is today," Heymann said. "We will continue working the way we have been working because we don't want children to be paralyzed anywhere."

[xchrom]

1. i have wished for some time the WHO would switch to

the inactive shots.

but the west wants to see vast improvemnts in african and other third world countries health infrastructure.
so that the issue of training can go away.

africa and other poor countries really must have both.

[bananas]

2. thanks - got a link? nt

[shance]

3. My apologies - here you are.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071005/ap_on_he_me/nigeria_polio_paradox

[shance]

4. Kick

n/t

[hedgehog]

5. It's very irresponsible to call this eugenics.

Should the vaccine have been withheld from all the children because some parents believed rumors that the vaccine was designed to sterilize Moslims? Children given the vaccine excreted the virus. Other children drank contaminated water and caught the virus. The live virus vaccine is used because the killed virus vaccine must be refrigerated and refrigeration can't be guaranteed.

"More than 10 billion polio doses have been given to children worldwide, and the vaccine has been credited with cutting polio incidence by more than 99 percent since 1988. Far more children are paralyzed by the wild polio virus than the virus spread by the oral vaccine. But no vaccine is risk-free."

[shance]

6. Hedge, understand I'm not calling it eugenics........yet. I'm concerned of so many

outbreaks. I just heard about the outbreak of cholera in Iraq.

Who benefits from all these outbreaks?

Surely not the people being inflicted with it.

It could be said the profiteers have a lot to profit from when the inhabitants conveniently die off.

Look at the intentional deaths they are creating through bombs and bullets?

Why would disease be any different when you think about it?

Just wanting fair and accurate assessments of what is happening.

At the VERY VERY least most of this could all be prevented.

Perhaps there is no "monetary" incentive by which those who profit see in preventing such massive disease and death.

[hedgehog]

9. There is cholera in Iraq because we destroyed the sanitation sewers and

water treatment plants. Cholera is adapted to spread through water contaminated with sewage. Cholera is endemic in the area. All it takes for a flare is for people to be forced to drink dirty water.

In Nigeria, children were getting polio from contaminated water. A bunch of kids were vaccinated, and they shed the virus. This is normal and expected. What was unexpected was that local Muslim elders would be suspicious of foreign Christians and would put a stop to the vaccinations. The unnatural surge in the population of the polio virus in the water could not be stopped. The un vaccinated kids weren't protected, so they came down with polio.



In the first case, the cholera could have been prevented if we hadn't bombed the shit out of the country. The current fear that chlorine meant for water treatment might be stolen to make a terrorist weapon exacerbates the situation.

In the second case, hatred and ignorance combined to stop something good. It'd be like stopping a Cesarean section after the first incision. Who killed the mother and child, the surgeon or the one who stopped the surgery?

[SaveElmer]

7. This is a problem Rotary International has encountered...

They have been one of the leaders in the fight to eradicate polio from the face of the earth. Nigeria, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan are the last countries with endemic polio. They have run into quite a bit of pushback in Nigeria because of these fears...which are unfounded...

[shance]

8. If the accusations are unfounded, then why is there fear?

Why is there a lack of trust.

Trust can only be present when it is earned.