Mutated Polio From Vaccine Is Spreading in Africa

by Heidi Stevenson

15 August 2009

Photo of child being given live attenuated polio vaccine—from WHO, by Svenn Torfinn.

A mutation from a live polio vaccine is stalking Nigeria. In a strange twist of logic, experts are claiming that it mutated as it passed through non-immunized children.

The claim is that children given the live attenuated oral vaccine are properly immunized, but the live virus passes through them and enters local water supplies through their urine or feces. Then, children who have not been immunized pick up the supposedly safe virus by drinking or playing in the water. The weakened virus mutates in them, becoming a new virulent strain.

Why the virus would choose to mutate in non-vaccinated, rather than vaccinated, children is unexplained. Even odder is why the weakened virus would pass through the vaccinated children. If the purpose of a live attenuated vaccination is to force the body to develop antibodies to the virus, then why would live viruses be excreted? Shouldn't they be killed by the newly-developed antibodies?

Are we being lied to?

This sounds much like the argument that blames nonvaccinated people for disease in those who've submitted to innoculations. If the vaccines are effective, then why would the vaccinated be at risk from the unvaccinated?

Are we being lied to?

Nigerians have feared the polio vaccine, believing that it is an attempt to sterilize them or spread AIDS. They have, therefore, resisted it. Over the last few years, resistance has decreased and vaccination rates have increased. As they have, the new mutated virus has developed. In 2007, 69 Nigerian children were paralyzed by it.

The WHO believed that, since it was related to the attenuated vaccine, the outbreak would be easy to contain. In their hubris, they continued to vaccinate. This year, 127 children have already been paralyzed, more than double the number in 2008.

The hubris of those who operate polio vaccination programs presumed that a mutated virus from a vaccine would be weaker than a wild virus. This was, of course, based on nothing more than their belief system. A virologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Olen Kew, says that there's no difference in virulence between wild polio viruses and the mutated form. "The only difference is that this virus was originally in a vaccine vial."

Official concern is that the new virus will spread beyond Nigeria's borders into surrounding vaccinated countries, and that it will spread from there to people outside the African continent. At this point, no one actually knows. At least, no one who knows is saying anything.

The reasons for using a live attenuated virus in the African vaccines are cost and ease of application. It's known that about one in a million vaccines given will result in a case of active polio that may lead to paralysis. Anyone who has been vaccinated within three days is contagious. These risks, though, were considered acceptable in vaccinating Africans, though they have long been deemed unacceptable for Americans and other first-world nations.

Now, that lack of regard for Africans may come back to haunt us. Are we facing a new polio epidemic, caused by the vaccines sold as a panacea to prevent it?

A detail not being covered by the reports of the new polio outbreak is who is affected. Are the immunized or non-immunized stricken, or is the new polio indiscrimate? It's interesting—and frightening—that we don't know.

The anomalies and missing information lead me to wonder...Are we being lied to?

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