5 ms·
My med student girlfriend points out that while this is a huge victory for public health, only polio virus type 2 is being declared eliminated. Types 1 and 3 ar
by tomkinstinch 11y ago
My med student girlfriend points out that while this is a huge victory for public health, only polio virus type 2 is being declared eliminated. Types 1 and 3 are still endemic in pockets of the world, and are next to eliminate. Each type has a different capsid protein.
It's pretty amazing that for my parents who were born in the mid-20th century, polio was still a concern. When they were growing up, FDR had recently died of complications from the disease and they knew people who were debilitated by it. Within their lifetimes the vaccine literally changed the world, to the point where polio is not present in developed countries. Vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs of human ingenuity.
- Kristine1975 11y agoFrom the article: >WPV3 has not been detected globally since November 2012 (in Nigeria); the only remaining endemic WPV1 strains are now restricted to Pakistan and Afghanistan. So things are looking good.
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- rmc 11y agoThe activities of superpowers like the USA setting up fake vaccination centres to collect blood samples in Afghanistan is hindering vaccination work.
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- bpodgursky 11y agoThey weren't fake AFAIK. They just happened to be searching for Bin Laden's family's blood while they were at it.
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- tripzilch 11y agoThe truth is somewhere in the middle. Check out the full story about the killing of Bin Laden, I found it fascinating and worth reading: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-... Fake or not though, the US is definitely responsible for destroying decades of work to get local people to trust these vaccination programs. Pretty much for nothing but PR-points in the form of revenge.
- elemenopy 11y agoBe careful about relying too heavily on Hersh's article. It makes some pretty bold claims about a conspiracy of eyewatering proportions that have never really been backed up. There has been a lot harshly critical responses to it. [1] Historically Hersh has been a successful investigate reporter but his LRB piece hasn't really been widely accepted: [2] > Were it not for the byline of Mr. Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who first gained notice more than 45 years ago for exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the story would likely have been readily dismissed and gained little attention. 1. http://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bin-laden http://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bin... 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/seymour-hersh-article-alleges-cover-up-in-bin-laden-hunt.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/seymour-hersh-article-a...
- tripzilch 11y agoCool and thanks for the extra info, I'll check out those links. You're right that the story comes off as incredibly one-sided, and some of the claims did indeed leave me with a feeling of "there's gotta be another side to this". On the other hand, many of the claims by themselves weren't that surprising either (of the type that makes people use the "I don't see why anyone is surprised"-non-dismissal). But I'm always interested to try and balance that view somewhat. That said, even without having read your links, I can't imagine any other interpretation of the events (as also corroborated by the US' PR themselves) that would not have caused the destruction of decades of building of trust in vaccination programs to the local populations. That part doesn't just come from Hersh, the US admitted as much themselves--well not the repercussions obviously, but that they did (ab)use the vaccination programs as cover for a conspiracy furthering US military interests. As anyone remotely familiar with the difficulties for vaccination programs should know, that alone, well-substantiated rumours, are more than enough to ruin a local vaccination program entirely. I mean, obviously, the act of administering a vaccine to a person is not the hard part of these programs. It's the part to get them voluntarily choose to receive the vaccines. Regardless of all the other bold claims and conspiracy surrounding the OBL operation, the US should have reconsidered thrice before involving the vaccination programs. The scales should have been abundantly clear: One the one hand there's the possibility of a monumental achievement for the whole of mankind, the complete eradication of a terrible disease, saving who-knows how many lives, something that can without any reservations whatsoever be placed on the "good" side of just about anyone's moral compass. Those were the stakes, and they knew it. And on the other hand, there's getting revenge on Osama Bin Laden, who didn't play a serious role any more in the wars the US is waging. Already when he was killed, the only reasonable reaction I could (sort of) understand was "yes of course it's just for PR and ego reasons alone. but eh, let them have it, maybe it'll provide some closure". So yes, whoever made that call and went on with it, did it for extremely petty reasons. And yes it probably was not a single person that decided this, it was probably a rotten system stuck in a feedback loop of hate, like an ingrown toenail, that made it pretty hard for anyone involved not to go along with it. It's still petty, and they can still own it.
- duaneb 11y agoI believe this was in Pakistan. And yea, it's pretty scummy.
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- epmatsw 11y agoWhile it seems obvious that this probably didn't help, Atul Gawande's Better (which came out before the CIA business had been exposed) has a really interesting chapter about polio vaccinations in Pakistan which includes stories about parents hiding their children from the vaccination crews for various non-US-related reasons.
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- indians_pro 11y agocan you list some off the top of your head? At work right now, but im too interested to wait to get home.
- epmatsw 11y agoGeneral distrust of authority leading to rumors about the "true purpose" of the shots. As a specific example, he meets a mother who hid her male infant from the authorities because of a rumor that the shots were designed by Hindus to sterilize Muslim boys.
- Retric 11y agoAt this point I think it might be reasonable to simply pay people in that area to be vaccinated. We stopped vaccinating most of the world so the risks of an outbreak and in the long term existing vaccinations stop being as useful due to the disease mutating.
- tsotha 11y agoThe problem is there are some religious leaders telling everyone westerners are trying to sterilize them under the pretext of administering a vaccine. It will be many years before polio is gone from Pakistan and Afghanistan. If ever.
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- zellyn 11y agoThe principal of my high school in Georgia walked with crutches due to polio, so it's within our lifetimes. (I'm 40…)
- bsimpson 11y agoMy grandpa's cousin had polio. If not for a bizarre accident, she'd probably still be alive today.
- Naga 11y agoNot to discredit what you are saying or how amazing the success of human ingenuity has been, FDR might not have had polio. Modern research seems to imply that he actually had Guillian-Barre Syndrome. The Roosevelt family wouldn't let them exhume his body, so we probably will never know. Either way, there was no cure in FDR's life and his treatment would largely have been the same. Just food for thought! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27s_paralytic_illness#Retrospective_diagnosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27s_para...