Yet today, we find ourselves dismantling these hard-won achievements. Extraordinary cuts to disease prevention, research, and surveillance programs signal a large-scale reversal of a successful strategy of containment and elimination. Such an irresponsible pivot risks opening the door for vaccine-preventable diseases, drug-resistant infections and new pandemics to reemerge with devastating force. If we continue down this path, the consequences will be felt not just in developing nations, but across the industrialized world, where health systems already are under strain.

It could take years to regain the high ground we currently hold against infectious diseases; many countries may never get there again. While pursuing modernization and efficiencies in the global health system is vital, randomly eliminating or suppressing funding and institutions we rely on to develop the pipeline of new vaccines, therapeutics, and practices to fight tomorrow’s pathogens only weakens us further. Our most dangerous disease threats constantly evolve, probe our weaknesses, and exploit natural opportunities to strike.

The attack on America’s preeminent medical research institutions and the innovations they fuel severely undermines our ability to counter disease while degrading the very talent we need to protect us: the next generation of scientists and medical researchers.

Many prominent health leaders are sounding the alarm, but until a coalition of the informed begins to take shape, we may as well be screaming into the wind. Unless a concerted effort is made to change course, the infrastructure, jobs, institutional knowledge, and recruitment of future health experts that constitute one of humanity’s greatest achievements may be dismantled. Surely by now we have learned that research and disease prevention is dramatically less costly than deploying the vast resources necessary to respond to a new outbreak.

Here’s one path forward: U.S. health communicators, advocates, and leaders should coordinate framing the issues to state and congressional lawmakers who stand to lose the most from the current health funding policy direction. Many of the places contributing the most to America’s competitive advantage in biomedical research are in conservative districts that receive funding from the NIH and other public sources.

Similarly, emerging diseases often pose the highest threat to people battling chronic diseases or living in areas underserved by health services, which means all of us are affected, regardless of economic status or ideological belief. People at every level of the health system—from practitioners to patients, researchers to drugmakers—should be energized to speak with one voice and let policymakers know that retreat in the face of defeatable disease threats is the wrong direction for the U.S.

Disease is humanity’s greatest enemy, and it constantly hovers at our doorstep. Do we pretend not to hear it knocking, or do we recognize its dangers and act?

That’s exactly the moment we are facing now. Our situation is complicated by the fact that our most important defenses – biomedical research and disease prevention infrastructure – are being demolished before our eyes. It will take real courage to act, but we must marshal our resources, defying the ambivalence and dismissiveness that make us more vulnerable to looming infectious disease threats. This is no time to retreat.

The post A Turning Point for Global Health appeared first on Medika Life.

How was Salk’s vaccine received? Researchers said it was “junk science” and tended to dismiss it, favoring the live virus from Sabin’s lab. Not only was Salk’s vaccine safer, but it was also quickly manufactured and readily available to the public. But the dueling virus controversy lasted until the 1990s when Sabin’s vaccine was discontinued because it could infect others.

The Salk vaccine was involved in an unprecedented 1.8 million children in a human experiment to test its effectiveness. Salk had already tested the vaccine on himself and his family, and none developed polio.

The problem with the notable presence of the polio virus in NYC wastewater is that other countries worldwide still use the Sabin vaccine. Traveling and being vaccinated abroad means the virus has carriers that, unwittingly, bring the virus back to the US. Once here, it quickly enters the wastewater system and can spread the virus to the unvaccinated.

How many know about the 1949 polio epidemic that swept the nation and placed infants in iron lungs? The huge tubes, in short supply, were airlifted from location to location as the virus spread with unprecedented speed, striking the nation’s young. A complete explanation of the virus and how it attacks the body can be viewed here.

From 1916–1919, over two thousand people in New York City, primarily in Brooklyn, died from polio infection, which, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, drove people to cities where they were packed into poor living situations, a lack of nutrition led to disease and sewage quickly carried the virus into homes.

Does that sound familiar? Is wastewater carrying the virus throughout apartment buildings and into homes? Yes, it can last up to one week in those situations. Infection is as close as your sewer system. Other viruses can still live on surfaces, including clothing and towels.

What other virus is being discovered anew in the sewage systems of the US and abroad? Yes, it’s Covid-19, and just like polio, the human waste in the sewage systems carries the virus to distant areas from its origin in someone’s home. As I write, New York state has to combat both polio and Covid-19 in its wastewater.

Up to 30 percent of those infected have no symptoms, and therein lies the main problem. If someone isn’t sick, they don’t think they need to be vaccinated or take steps to protect others by keeping a safe distance or wearing a mask.

The Covid-19 virus has mutated as all viruses do, and the new iterations present new challenges. These mutations have managed to either disguise themselves or, in other ways, avoid the body’s immune system protection and the vaccines that depend on this for our safety.

To ward off the iterations, new innoculations will continue to be needed and, conceivably, into the future. Each fall will bring a new-and-improved vaccine for the still mutating viruses. Viruses don’t stop mutating.

Those who have received misinformation about vaccines and refuse to be vaccinated will continue to present agreeable hosts for the viruses while endangering others.

Politics and business have failed to adequately address this enduring danger in a wish to reassure the general public and get all of us back to business. In my opinion, the CDC’s efforts have been poor, and a shuffling of management has already begun.

The post Polio/Covid Planning, the Poor, Life and Mobility appeared first on Medika Life.

I rarely write articles if I am pissed off for the simple reason logic tends to fall by the wayside, but in this instance, I forgo that rule as I am roundly and soundly pissed off. To be absolutely clear, in case you’ve been under a rock for the last two years, Pfizer, Moderna, J&J and every company capable of producing treatments have been developing and manufacturing Covid therapies classified by government regulatory agencies as vaccines.

They are not! Full stop, end of sentence, end of debate. These medicines they have developed are a million miles away from a vaccine. They mitigate symptoms, a significant contribution to public health and an amazing response to SARS-COV2. In other words, if you have been immunized, you are far less likely to die from developing Covid after being infected with the SARS-COV2 virus. Vaccines, as best accepted by the public, prevent you from contracting or developing a disease like, for instance, polio. These “so-called” – as a popularized term Covid “vaccines” don’t do that. You still get sick.

Vaccinate, inoculate and immunize are three words that describe the “jab” people get to guard them against serious infectious illnesses. Harmonious – yes – but each offers a different consumer expectation. Did we select the right word to describe these breakthrough medicines? We did not.

Two years into the pandemic, the fallacy continues and has a foreseen side effect, an effect that anyone with sufficient intelligence could easily have and did foresee. By incorrectly calling and labeling these treatments vaccines, people have now associated everything attached to the Covid treatments with other vaccines. In the short span of two years, we may have undone a level of trust in vaccines that took generations to establish.

The public was led to believe by a cascade of voices that the vaccine would likely prevent infection and contagion. When people “fully vaccinated” fell ill, tested Covid positive, and passed the virus along, the belief bar in vaccines as preventive approaches to other deadly and debilitating viral illnesses began to fall. What was lost as the power public health message was that far fewer people who received a “shot” became seriously ill and hospitalized.

Fewer People Trust Vaccines Thanks to Mislabeled Covid Vaccines

In the UK, doctors are encouraging polio boosters as polio makes a reemergence for the first time in two generations. Measles and mumps are on the upsurge as parents shy away from basic, trusted vaccines with a long-established safety history. Thanks to the misconception that Covid treatments as designed to fully prevent viral contagion and fall short of that mark, too many parents have put a knee down on all vaccines. I cannot blame them as I have empathy for their rationale – but not for their action.

World’s Largest Clinical Trial Still Underway

We are engaged in the largest clinical trial the world has ever seen! There are problems with the Covid treatments, not the least of which is the fact that we are still generating long-term data for their safety. These were an urgent effort by governments, economists, public health officials and drug developers to answer the call to action and the needs of a population willing to lower the bar on longer-term standard safety protocols in favor of a quick-fix “I don’t want to die” solution. Billions of people have been jabbed, millions experienced side effects, and we continue with the madness while positioning and selling these incredible disease mitigators – treatments – as vaccines.

Risk versus risk has to be returned to medicine. There are risks associated with drugs and risks associated with not taking a medication. Make no mistake, these treatments have a place in the Covid world, for instance, for those at risk of death from comorbidities. But, we must come to terms that the risk may outweigh treatment benefits for some – PARTICULARLY IN CHILDREN.

And now, ironically, it is the children paying the price. As they again fall prey to diseases once eradicated, we have no one else to blame by abandoning good scientific processes – that includes taking sufficient time to study the data. Hopefully, this will work out for the best. If it doesn’t, let’s remember, we did this to ourselves.

The post Real-World Repercussions of Mislabeling Treatments as Vaccines appeared first on Medika Life.

How worried should we all be? In New York City, the polio vaccination rate among children five and under is 86 percent. Most of us adults had vaccinations as children.

However, the New York Times offers this concerning statistic: In some city ZIP codes, fewer than two-thirds of children five and under have received at least three doses, a figure that worries health officials.

The story takes a concerning turn. The announcement of poliovirus in New York City sewage water comes three weeks after a man just north of the city presented with polio that left him paralyzed.

And this punctuation: Officials observe that polio has been circulating in the county’s wastewater since May.

Polio History

Polio was historically one of the most feared diseases, with annual outbreaks resulting in thousands of paralysis cases in the United States alone.

A man with a smaller right leg due to poliomyelitis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio

By the late 1940s, polio outbreaks in the United States progressively increased in size and frequency. More than 35,000 individuals experienced disability annually as a result of the virus. Parents kept their children indoors, especially in the summer when the poliovirus seemed most prevalent.

Public health officials sometimes imposed quarantines on homes and towns experiencing outbreaks.

Following the widespread adoption of the polio vaccine, US officials declared the eradication of polio in 1979 one of public health’s greatest triumphs. Still, polio cases occasionally appear, often in individuals who have traveled abroad.

Since 1979, we in the United States have had no cases of polio caused by wild poliovirus originating here. However, polio has been brought into the USA by travelers with the virus. The last reported case of imported polio occurred in 1993.

Polio transmission

The poliovirus is quite contagious, spreading through person-to-person contact. Polio can contaminate water and food in unsanitary conditions. The virus lives in an infected individual’s throat and intestines. Poliovirus enters humans’ bodies through the mouth.

Spread occurs via contact with an infected portion’s poop (feces). Less commonly, the spread can occur by droplets from the cough or sneeze of an infected person.

Infection can occur if you put infected objects (such as toys contaminated with feces) in your mouth. Alternatively, transmission can occur if you pick up tiny pieces of feces on your hands and touch your mouth.

The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) explains that:

An infected individual can spread the virus to others immediately before and up to two weeks after symptoms emerge. The virus can reside in an infected subject’s intestines for many weeks. Moreover, infected people without symptoms can still pass the virus to others.

Polio symptoms

Nerve cells (neurons). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron#:~:text=A%20neuron%20or%20nerve%20cell,do%20not%20have%20nerve%20cells

While most infected persons with polio do not get sick (or know that they are infected), an infection can lead to paralysis or even death. Here are symptoms by polio type:

• Non-paralytic polio. Those with this form of polio don’t develop paralysis but can experience mild, flu-like symptoms lasting up to ten days. Symptoms may include fever, headache, sore throat, vomiting, or generalized fatigue. Some report back, neck, or extremity discomfort or stiffness. Others suffer from muscle tenderness or weakness.
• Paralytic syndrome. Fortunately, this most serious form of polio is rare. Initial symptoms may include severe muscle aches or weakness, reflex loss, or loose and floppy limbs (flaccid paralysis). “Poliomyelitis” (or “polio” for short) is defined as a paralytic disease. Only those with the paralytic infection have the disease.
• Post-polio syndrome. Post-polio syndrome is a cluster of disabling symptoms affecting some people years after a polio infection. Selected symptoms may include fatigue, muscle wasting (atrophy), progressive muscle or joint weakness, and pain. Some experience challenges with breathing or swallowing, while others report sleep problems (for example, sleep apnea). Others report decreases in cold temperature tolerances.

Here are the incidences for these categories: Most people with a polio infection have no visible symptoms. Approximately one in four will have flu-like symptoms that typically last two to five days before resolving.

A smaller number develop more serious symptoms. For example, about one to five out of 100 will experience an infection of the brain or spinal cord covering (meningitis). Paralysis — an inability to move body parts) — or arm or leg weakness happens to about one in 200 to one in 2,000 people, depending on the virus type.

Between two and 10 out of 100 with polio-related paralysis die secondary to the virus affecting the muscles regulating breathing.

An electron microscope image of the polio virus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio

Polio prevention

The most effective means to prevent polio is vaccination. There are two forms of vaccine, including inactivated poliovirus vaccine. This form is given as an infection in a leg or arm, depending on the person’s age. Inactivated poliovirus vaccine is the only type that has been used in the United States since 2000. Some places in the world still use an oral poliovirus vaccine.

The polio vaccine is remarkably protective: Over 99 percent of those who get all the recommended doses of the inactivated vaccine have protection from polio.

In addition, please practice good hand hygiene and wash your hands with soap and water often; alcohol-based hand sanitizers do not kill poliovirus.

Adult vaccination

Adults do not routinely receive vaccines against polio in the USA, given most are already immune. Still, selected high-risk individuals should have a single booster shop of inactivated polio vaccine.

A single booster dose of inactivated vaccine reduces polio risk for a lifetime. Adults at risk include those who are traveling to parts of the world where polio still occurs or those who care for people who have polio.

If you have never had a vaccine or your vaccination status is undocumented, please get a series of primary polio vaccination shots — two doses of inactivated polio vaccine at four- to eight-week intervals and a third dose six to 12 months after the second dose.

Prevention is essential; there is no cure for poliomyelitis. If you think you or someone in your family has symptoms of polio, please call your healthcare provider immediately or go to an emergency room.

Who shouldn’t get the vaccine?

The US Centers for Disease Control asks that you tell the person who is giving the vaccine:

• If the person getting the vaccine has any severe, life-threatening allergies. Suppose the person receiving the vaccine had a life-threatening allergic reaction after a dose of an inactivated polio vaccine or had a severe allergy to any part of it. In that case, caregivers may advise that they not receive a vaccine. Ask your doctor for information about vaccine components.
• If the person getting the vaccine does not feel well. If the individual getting the vaccine has a mild illness (for example, a cold), they can probably get it today. The moderately or severely ill should probably wait until they recover. Your doctor can advise you.

For more information (including potential side effects of the vaccine), please go here:Polio Vaccination: What Everyone Should KnowUpdated August 11, 2022: In July 2022, CDC was notified of a case of polio in an unvaccinated individual from Rockland…www.cdc.gov

Polio risk is well, but vaccination is stunningly effective at preventing paralysis, even if it is not great at limiting transmission.

The virus is now endemic in only two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Vaccines have kept the virus at bay everywhere, even though we will see sporadic cases in non-endemic regions.

In July 2022, an adult from north of New York City tested positive for polio. This finding raised alarms from residents and local officials, some of whom could not recall if they had a vaccine as a child. Health officials believe hundreds of people in the area could be infected.

How might the polio virus in wastewater affect you? According to the New York State Department of Health,

“Wastewater is not a concern in terms of having the ability to infect the general public as the general public does not interact with wastewater, which is based on samples from our sewage system via feces excreted.

“In areas where the wastewater is thoroughly treated before being released back into the environment, and there are good water purification practices, there is very, very, very little risk to the general population, but could be a risk for personnel working in wastewater facilities,” Dr. Marny Eulberg offers.

Fortunately, I had the polio vaccine as a child. We are blessed to have good water purification in the United States. I am not particularly worried about myself, but I wanted to provide information to you. Wastewater personnel may have some risks.

Thank you for joining me today.

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