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“The U.S. case and most of the current outbreaks in Africa (which was declared a polio-free continent in 2020) are linked to vaccine-derived strains of the viru

by e44858 4y ago

“The U.S. case and most of the current outbreaks in Africa (which was declared a polio-free continent in 2020) are linked to vaccine-derived strains of the virus. These strains were originally part of oral polio vaccine. They were shed in human stool from those who'd been inoculated and mutated in the wild, regaining strength and becoming just as dangerous as the original virus.”

mschuster91 4y ago
It would not have been an issue had more people been vaccinated.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  Not really, because it was the live virus from the cheap vaccine, that mutated and got dangerous again.
  - epgui 4y ago
    That doesn't change that the campaign could have been successful if more people were vaccinated, even with that defective vaccine. If 5 people get iatrogenically infected but the infection has nowhere to spread, what do you think happens? Casualties: 5. Polio: gone. (downvoters: I'm a biochemist)
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      Can you cite a researcher that says the problem has anything to do with people refusing the vaccine? They say very clearly it was the vaccine that was the problem. Those oral vaccines are very quick to deploy, but still, your solution would require that EVERY PERSON ON EARTH takes the vaccine at the same time and then goes into isolation. And the problem does not stop there. Or how would it work your way? You realise that the virus from the vaccine goes into the sewer and god knows where else and stays contagious? The only solution the researchers are saying is for everyone to get the expensive shot, which is not using a live virus.
      - iudqnolq 4y ago
        Why do you think going into isolation would be needed? The whole point of the comment you're replying to is that contagious people aren't a problem if there's no one vulnerable for them to spread it to. (Also, that doesn't require everyone vaccinated, just a high percentage).
        hutzlibu 4y ago
        "(Also, that doesn't require everyone vaccinated, just a high percentage)" Yes, and that high percentage of vaccinated people was achieved. But ... Polio is still back. So how would be your plan to get everyone not vulnerable with the cheap (and dangerous) vaccine? (the vaccine does not give 100% protection btw.)
        partomniscient 4y ago
        One other thing to consider is even if its eradicated - it originally arose from pre-Polio building blocks of some sort, how do you prevent it from re-occurring 'from scratch'?
        iudqnolq 4y ago
        You keep trying to turn things into binary factors: it either is a high percent or it isn't, 100% protection or bust. That's not how this works. The percentage of people who need to be vaccinated is based on many factors, including the degree of protection the vaccine provides. There's no one number, it varies based on the totality of the circumstances. One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher. As you can see in this chart the level of vaccination, while high in many countries, could be higher. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/polio-vaccine-coverage-of-one-year-olds https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/polio-vaccine-coverage-of...
        hutzlibu 4y ago
        "You keep trying to turn things into binary factors" I am citing the researchers, about the significant problem that prevented eradication of Polio. None of them mentioned antivaxxers as the main reason(or any reason at all), only people here in this thread did, with the original comment implying it was only because of antivaxxers. Which is just not true here. "One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher." So I am not a virologist, but if you think your simple solution and intepretation is a valid one, then it should not be hard, to find an actual virologists who states the same. And if you cannot, maybe accknowledge, that the problem is a bit more complex. If vaccine refusers would have significantly prevented the rollout of the vaccine to reach significant numbers, it would have been mentioned as a reason. But it wasn't. The campaign alltogether was still likely a huge success, but just not in its goal to eradicate polio.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > it was the live virus from the cheap vaccine, that mutated and got dangerous again To the unvaccinated. We recently had New York’s water tested for poliovirus. Turns out we’re lousy with it [1], most recently by an unvaccinated traveller to Europe bringing it to Long Island [2]. It’s not a problem for the vaccinated because the moment the virus hits the blood it gets zonked. Still it replicates in the gut, which is why it’s in our sewage. (IPV is not sterilising.) [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/nyregion/polio-nyc-sewage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/nyregion/polio-nyc-sewage... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7133e2-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7133e2-H.pdf
    - Izkata 4y ago
      For the majority, also not dangerous to the unvaccinated. Most of the time people use numbers for paralytic polio (death rate of like 20% IIRC) and just call it "polio", which is completely wrong and misleading. The actual numbers for polio in general: https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/index.htm * 72% of infections are asymptomatic * 25% of infections are flu-like * 3% of infections result in something serious (not just paralysis) * Between 1 in 200 and 1 in 2000 infections (0.5% to 0.05%) result in paralytic polio (which includes weakness, not just fully paralyzed limbs) Polio is scary because of the visibility of the survivors in that 0.5%, but as a proportion of the population the vast majority of the population won't get that (and polio infects by ingestion, so on top of all this making it less visible, clean food and good hygiene can also prevent infection).
tunesmith 4y ago
Honest question. What's the "therefore" after this statement? The article mentions there have been 15 cases this year. After hundreds of thousands in 1988. So I can't exactly accept "therefore, vaccines are the problem" with a straight face. What "therefore" was actually intended here?
- jfengel 4y ago
  Unfortunately, there isn't a straightforward "therefore". The default would be "therefore, we have to accept that very small numbers of people will be harmed for the benefit of the vastly greater number". Only the most diehard utilitarian would love that. A better answer is "therefore, we need to radically alter the polio strategy, which will be expensive and difficult but would prevent those 15 cases, and maybe eventually eliminate it entirely. Oh, and we don't know how to do it". That makes the diehard utilitarians grumble, and everybody else cranky.

by e44858 4y ago

mschuster91 4y ago

It would not have been an issue had more people been vaccinated.

hutzlibu 4y ago
Not really, because it was the live virus from the cheap vaccine, that mutated and got dangerous again.
- epgui 4y ago
  That doesn't change that the campaign could have been successful if more people were vaccinated, even with that defective vaccine. If 5 people get iatrogenically infected but the infection has nowhere to spread, what do you think happens? Casualties: 5. Polio: gone. (downvoters: I'm a biochemist)
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    Can you cite a researcher that says the problem has anything to do with people refusing the vaccine? They say very clearly it was the vaccine that was the problem. Those oral vaccines are very quick to deploy, but still, your solution would require that EVERY PERSON ON EARTH takes the vaccine at the same time and then goes into isolation. And the problem does not stop there. Or how would it work your way? You realise that the virus from the vaccine goes into the sewer and god knows where else and stays contagious? The only solution the researchers are saying is for everyone to get the expensive shot, which is not using a live virus.
    - iudqnolq 4y ago
      Why do you think going into isolation would be needed? The whole point of the comment you're replying to is that contagious people aren't a problem if there's no one vulnerable for them to spread it to. (Also, that doesn't require everyone vaccinated, just a high percentage).
      - hutzlibu 4y ago
        "(Also, that doesn't require everyone vaccinated, just a high percentage)" Yes, and that high percentage of vaccinated people was achieved. But ... Polio is still back. So how would be your plan to get everyone not vulnerable with the cheap (and dangerous) vaccine? (the vaccine does not give 100% protection btw.)
        partomniscient 4y ago
        One other thing to consider is even if its eradicated - it originally arose from pre-Polio building blocks of some sort, how do you prevent it from re-occurring 'from scratch'?
        iudqnolq 4y ago
        You keep trying to turn things into binary factors: it either is a high percent or it isn't, 100% protection or bust. That's not how this works. The percentage of people who need to be vaccinated is based on many factors, including the degree of protection the vaccine provides. There's no one number, it varies based on the totality of the circumstances. One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher. As you can see in this chart the level of vaccination, while high in many countries, could be higher. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/polio-vaccine-coverage-of-one-year-olds https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/polio-vaccine-coverage-of...
        hutzlibu 4y ago
        "You keep trying to turn things into binary factors" I am citing the researchers, about the significant problem that prevented eradication of Polio. None of them mentioned antivaxxers as the main reason(or any reason at all), only people here in this thread did, with the original comment implying it was only because of antivaxxers. Which is just not true here. "One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher." So I am not a virologist, but if you think your simple solution and intepretation is a valid one, then it should not be hard, to find an actual virologists who states the same. And if you cannot, maybe accknowledge, that the problem is a bit more complex. If vaccine refusers would have significantly prevented the rollout of the vaccine to reach significant numbers, it would have been mentioned as a reason. But it wasn't. The campaign alltogether was still likely a huge success, but just not in its goal to eradicate polio.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > it was the live virus from the cheap vaccine, that mutated and got dangerous again To the unvaccinated. We recently had New York’s water tested for poliovirus. Turns out we’re lousy with it [1], most recently by an unvaccinated traveller to Europe bringing it to Long Island [2]. It’s not a problem for the vaccinated because the moment the virus hits the blood it gets zonked. Still it replicates in the gut, which is why it’s in our sewage. (IPV is not sterilising.) [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/nyregion/polio-nyc-sewage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/nyregion/polio-nyc-sewage... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7133e2-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7133e2-H.pdf
  - Izkata 4y ago
    For the majority, also not dangerous to the unvaccinated. Most of the time people use numbers for paralytic polio (death rate of like 20% IIRC) and just call it "polio", which is completely wrong and misleading. The actual numbers for polio in general: https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/index.htm * 72% of infections are asymptomatic * 25% of infections are flu-like * 3% of infections result in something serious (not just paralysis) * Between 1 in 200 and 1 in 2000 infections (0.5% to 0.05%) result in paralytic polio (which includes weakness, not just fully paralyzed limbs) Polio is scary because of the visibility of the survivors in that 0.5%, but as a proportion of the population the vast majority of the population won't get that (and polio infects by ingestion, so on top of all this making it less visible, clean food and good hygiene can also prevent infection).

tunesmith 4y ago

Honest question. What's the "therefore" after this statement? The article mentions there have been 15 cases this year. After hundreds of thousands in 1988. So I can't exactly accept "therefore, vaccines are the problem" with a straight face. What "therefore" was actually intended here?

jfengel 4y ago
Unfortunately, there isn't a straightforward "therefore". The default would be "therefore, we have to accept that very small numbers of people will be harmed for the benefit of the vastly greater number". Only the most diehard utilitarian would love that. A better answer is "therefore, we need to radically alter the polio strategy, which will be expensive and difficult but would prevent those 15 cases, and maybe eventually eliminate it entirely. Oh, and we don't know how to do it". That makes the diehard utilitarians grumble, and everybody else cranky.