Polio: An American Story

[kiara7]

will be airing tonight on PBS at 8 central.

I haven't researched polio too much myself, so it will be interesting what they have to say, especially in re: vaccines.

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[In Exile]

Oh, I am definitely going to watch. From the clips I gleaned it sounds they will at take a brief look into the whole "is it safe?", sounds like they will definitely talk about the polio campaign-but I am veeeeery cautious about their "conclusion".

[Gitti]

They'll show you the few pictures they have of iron lungs. I wonder how many there actually were? And how many hospitals all across the country had iron lungs. Bet they won't tell.

[Marnica]

Can't watch it, but can't wait to hear what you guys report!

[Jazzmin]

Okay, I am watching it now and they just said something that confused me.

So, I always thought that polio was on the decline due to better sanitation, but Oftit said that it was actually on the rise because of improved sanitation. I guess when children would be exposed in infancy and gain antibodies. With improved sanitation, kids were exposed later on, and having no antibodies against it made polio worse?

Did I understand that right? I always thought it was the opposite.

[amnesiac]

Since this is about a tv show I'm moving to that forum.

[FernG]

Originally Posted by Jazzmin

Okay, I am watching it now and they just said something that confused me.

So, I always thought that polio was on the decline due to better sanitation, but Oftit said that it was actually on the rise because of improved sanitation. I guess when children would be exposed in infancy and gain antibodies. With improved sanitation, kids were exposed later on, and having no antibodies against it made polio worse?

Did I understand that right? I always thought it was the opposite.

My understanding is that both are true. Increased sanitation decreased the viruses in the water. This theoretically caused an increase in paralytic polio (however, the paralytic symptoms could have also been poisoning). Before the vaccine was introduced, diagnosed cases had been on the decline for years.

[KristyDi]

Originally Posted by FernG

My understanding is that both are true. Increased sanitation decreased the viruses in the water. This theoretically caused an increase in paralytic polio (however, the paralytic symptoms could have also been poisoning). Before the vaccine was introduced, diagnosed cases had been on the decline for years.

Originally Posted by Jazzmin

Okay, I am watching it now and they just said something that confused me.

So, I always thought that polio was on the decline due to better sanitation, but Oftit said that it was actually on the rise because of improved sanitation. I guess when children would be exposed in infancy and gain antibodies. With improved sanitation, kids were exposed later on, and having no antibodies against it made polio worse?

Did I understand that right? I always thought it was the opposite.

There was also an off hand allusion to anti-bodies gotten from mother. That made me wonder if the decline of breastfeeding that was beginning also contributed to the rise.

[mamakah]

I thought that they did a great job at showing the greed and business behind vaccination (or at least in this case). I was really turned off by the fact that they had Offit on, and also turned off because there weren't any stats. They made it seem that paralysis was the common reaction to the disease. I was pretty dissappointed in the ending.

[richella]

Originally Posted by FernG

My understanding is that both are true. Increased sanitation decreased the viruses in the water. This theoretically caused an increase in paralytic polio (however, the paralytic symptoms could have also been poisoning). Before the vaccine was introduced, diagnosed cases had been on the decline for years.

I didn't get numbers, but there were pics of headlines about how cases were on the rise. That confused me.
Are you saying here that cases in which it caused paralysis increased, as in the disease becoming more severe while there were same or fewer cases overall? I think there was a similar statement made at some point in the show . . . about more adults getting it relative to children, and more likely to get paralysis. Very misleading without numbers. No numbers on iron lungs, though they spent plenty of time talking about how horrible they were.

Honestly, though, it made me feel I need to be more educated on this subject, and polio in particular.

[applejuice]

About Iron Lungs. Supposedly the person who lived the longest in an iron lung was near me in La Crescenta or La Canada.

I have the book, Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky. I heard him interviewed on the radio about it. I understand that he had polio himself. The book is about the propaganda in America about that time.

That is my understanding. It is propaganda, so you would have to be careful of the numbers that are being presented.

[In Exile]

Well, it took exactly 13 minutes into the program for Offit's face to show up.

What they DID show was the march of dimes campaign-and how they used propaganda to scare people into thinking "polio equals iron lung or death". They did something to the degree of "not every case of polio leads to lifelong paralysis or death-that's just something in the mind of the american people" or so. But then of course they only showed the worst of the worse.

The program did mention greed and approval of the vaccine when the reast of the "scientific community was very sceptic and warned that's it's jsut not ready". The "disaproval" and scepticism by the scientific community got mentioned twice- they didn't mention doctors being mobbed or harassed that dared to question.

The program also mention the experimantal use of Orphans for vaccinet trials and the ethical ramifications of using people without their or their paretns explicit consent.
"Cutter" got about 5 or 10 minutes of mention-insert Offit's face. They kept going on about "a bad batch" of vaccine. Aforementioned greed was of pharmaceutical campanies was mentioned realizing how they could cash in on this.

They did mention "side effects" but labeled it as "early" vaccine side effects-polio infection through vaccination and death. But it was kind of limited to "Cutter" and "early vaccines"-no mention of any side effects of today's polio vaccine.

They ended the show saying 60 years later Polio was declared eradicated in the US-they did NOT explicitely say "THROUGH" the vaccine, but I guess that's the conclusion was supposed to be.

Overall I am only half as steaming walking away from the program- I expected "worse than that" and at least they mentioned some of the huge surrounding ethical trouble around that campaign. Could have been a much more naive program-but could have dug a bit deeper as well-even for PBS.

In either case you got to see your iron lungs-while they say "the majority of cases never got that bad"- they did talk about painted the epidemic of that day as the propaganda it was.

But they completely failed to did deeper and came up with the same "and despite paying a high price we'e polio free"-so in that aspect it was kind of what you expected.

[serenbat]

one might wonder how much returning WWII vets had to do with the 50's rise

www.post-polio.org/edu/aboutpol/hist.html

[FernG]

Originally Posted by richella

I didn't get numbers, but there were pics of headlines about how cases were on the rise. That confused me.
Are you saying here that cases in which it caused paralysis increased, as in the disease becoming more severe while there were same or fewer cases overall? I think there was a similar statement made at some point in the show . . . about more adults getting it relative to children, and more likely to get paralysis. Very misleading without numbers. No numbers on iron lungs, though they spent plenty of time talking about how horrible they were.

Honestly, though, it made me feel I need to be more educated on this subject, and polio in particular.

I'm not saying that this is absolutely true.... From what I have read, the total number of either diagnosed or estimated polio cases decreased. At the same time, the number of paralytic cases increased. However, I've seen studies where "they" gave blood tests to those diagnosed with paralytic polio symptoms and found that many of the patients did not actually have the polio virus. The polio statistics mean almost nothing because the diagnostic criteria was changed after the vaccine was introduced.

[umsami]

I thought it was very interesting.

I find it rather sad that many Americans can name Jonas Salk, but few can name Albert Sabin or Hilary Koprowski... who actually invented more effective polio vaccines.

My Mom had polio as a child. A mild case.... like most... but still, amazingly scary for both her and her family.

I found it really interesting how they linked the outbreaks to our being more sanitized... and losing the natural immunity from dirt/germs. I guess the virus must have evolved because today, when polio does occur, it seems to be in more rural, developing nations...which may not have the germ-phobia that we have.

[mom0810]

Did anyone catch the last sentence of the film, where they said that in 1994 the government declared polio eradicated in the US? Then why are we still vaccinating for it 15 years later?

[In Exile]

Originally Posted by mom0810

Did anyone catch the last sentence of the film, where they said that in 1994 the government declared polio eradicated in the US? Then why are we still vaccinating for it 15 years later?

Well, you know, because you have to keep up the legend that we're polio free BECAUSE "everone" is vaccinated. You have to brand the non-vaxers somehow, and villainization will keep us vaxing and the economy humming.

Nobody really wants to know why the Plague is not letting us drop like flies anymore- and all that WITHOUT a vaccine.

Plus, I always wonder how heck that is supposed to work- eradicate a virus or a bacteria?? Have you turned every stone? Because that idea alone is utterly laughable.