Oral Polio Vaccine Causes Nearly All Cases of Paralytic Polio

• by Marco Cáceres

• Published March 24, 2024
• Opinion

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Despite the introduction in March 2021 of a reportedly more stable and safer oral polio vaccine (OPV) called the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2), cases of circulating vaccine-derived polio (cVDPV) paralysis continue to be reported around the world, Ironically, continuing OPV vaccine campaigns in underdeveloped countries appears to be the main reason the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) repeatedly keeps failing to meet its goal of polio eradication.^{1 2 3}

Vaccine-Derived Polioviruses Paralyze Many More Children Than Wild Polioviruses

In fact, a GPEI report published last year found that “vaccine-derived polioviruses are paralyzing nearly 50 times more children than wild polioviruses.” Of the 674 confirmed cases of paralytic polio reported from 28 countries during the 12 months up leading up to July 31, 2023, only 16 were caused by type 1 wild poliovirus. The remaining 658 confirmed cases were caused by polioviruses (type 1 and type 2) derived from the oral polio vaccines themselves. Most of these cases occurred in African and Asian countries, although there was one case of vaccine derived polio (VDP) case reported in New York and traces of VDPV2 were discovered in a sewage plant in London.^{4 5 6}

In a study published in the journal Nature last year, the authors confirmed:

There is an increasing burden of circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) due to the continued use of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV).⁷

“These circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses, or cVDPVs, as they are known, now paralyze many more children than wild polio viruses do,” wrote Helen Branswell in an article for STAT.⁸

“In impoverished communities with substandard sanitation and living conditions, vaccine strain poliovirus can contaminate water sources used for bathing and drinking, which can lead to more cases of vaccine strain polio paralysis,” notes Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).⁹ [NVIC and parents of children paralyzed by OPV lobbied to get the live OPV replaced with the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in 1999 in the U.S.]¹⁰

There were additional cases of vaccine-derived paralytic polio reported during the second half of 2023, including four cases in Chad, three in Guinea, three in Nigeria, three in Somalia, two in Indonesia, one in Afghanistan, one in Mauritania, one in Mozambique and one in Yemen. During the first three months of 2024, at least six cases of cVDPV2 have been reported, including three cases in Yemen, one in Mali, one in Nigeria and one in Zimbabwe. Additionally, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Sudan have reported positive environmental samples of cVDPV2.^{2 11 12 13 14 15}

“Until polio eradication campaigns stop using live oral polio vaccine, the vaccine strain polio virus will continue to cripple children and adults,” Fisher says.⁹

Polio Eradication Has Become a Big Business

This raises the question, “Why don’t the sponsors of the GPEI appreciate the consequences of their efforts?” And if they do, then why don’t they stop? Clearly, the GPEI’s strategy for eradicating polio has failed. Repeatedly. It’s the same misguided strategy that was supposed to eradicate polio from the world by the year 2000. It didn’t happen. Then the goal was to be met by 2005. Didn’t happen. The goal was set for 2012. Nope, didn’t happen. Then it was set for 2018. Didn’t happen.^{16 17 18 19}

The latest goal for eradicating polio was supposed to be met by 2023. Still didn’t happen. Now, the new goal for polio eradication is envisioned to occur by 2026.^{20 21}

During 1998-2020, the GPEI received more than $18 billion to eradicate polio. On Oct. 18, 2022, governments and organizations around the world pledged $2.6 billion to fund a 2022-2026 strategy to eradicate polio. The strategy is the same as all the other past strategies that have failed. The only difference is in the number of children GPEI aims to vaccinate—370 million children annually.^{22 23}

Polio eradication has essentially become a lucrative big business driven by the pharmaceutical industry, and it is likely to remain one for the foreseeable future… so long as the GPEI’s polio eradication strategy remains unchanged. It is almost as if there is an innate desire on the part of those running the GPEI to preserve industry’s polio eradication business by continuing to rely on the failed approach of giving hundreds of millions of people vaccines that can infect them with the very virus against which the shots are meant to protect.

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