When I take Willow to the Pediatrician and she gets any kind of shots, the doctor gives us a pamphlet with information on the shots (Likely from the CDC). So, since everyone is all up in arms about the links between vaccinations and things like autism, I thought I'd take an in-depth look at the vaccinations. Next in line is the Polio Vaccination.
The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Vaccinations and Immunizations section has a recommended immunization schedule that you can download. They also have a lot of great information for each and every vaccination so this is where I will start in my search for information. Here is their pamphlet on the Polio Vaccination.
The Polio Vaccination is given in four doses. The first is at 2 months of age, the second at 4 months of age, the third at 6-18 months of age, and the fourth at 4-6 years of age. This vaccination is may be given at the same time as other vaccinations.
First, what exactly is Polio? Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route. The term derives from the Greek polio (πολίός), meaning "grey", myelon (µυελός), referring to the "spinal cord", and -itis, which denotes inflammation. Although around 90% of polio infections cause no symptoms at all, affected individuals can exhibit a range of symptoms if the virus enters the blood stream. In fewer than 1% of cases the virus enters the central nervous system, preferentially infecting and destroying motor neurons, leading to muscle weakness and acute flaccid paralysis. Different types of paralysis may occur, depending on the nerves involved. Spinal polio is the most common form, characterized by asymmetric paralysis that most often involves the legs. Bulbar polio leads to weakness of muscles innervated by cranial nerves. Bulbospinal polio is a combination of bulbar and spinal paralysis.
How about a brief History of Polio? The effects of polio have been known since prehistory; Egyptian paintings and carvings depict otherwise healthy people with withered limbs, and children walking with canes at a young age. The first clinical description was provided by the English physician Michael Underwood in 1789, where he refers to polio as "a debility of the lower extremities". The work of physicians Jakob Heine in 1840 and Karl Oskar Medin in 1890 led to it being known as Heine-Medin disease. The disease was later called infantile paralysis, based on its propensity to affect children.
Before the 20th century, polio infections were rarely seen in infants before six months of age, most cases occurring in children six months to four years of age. Poorer sanitation of the time resulted in a constant exposure to the virus, which enhanced a natural immunity within the population. In developed countries during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, improvements were made in community sanitation, including better sewage disposal and clean water supplies. These changes drastically increased the proportion of children and adults at risk of paralytic polio infection, by reducing childhood exposure and immunity to the disease.
Small localized paralytic polio epidemics began to appear in Europe and the United States around 1900. Outbreaks reached pandemic proportions in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand during the first half of the 20th century. By 1950 the peak age incidence of paralytic poliomyelitis in the United States had shifted from infants to children aged five to nine years, when the risk of paralysis is greater; about one-third of the cases were reported in persons over 15 years of age. Accordingly, the rate of paralysis and death due to polio infection also increased during this time. In the United States, the 1952 polio epidemic became the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.
The polio epidemics changed not only the lives of those who survived them, but also affected profound cultural changes; spurring grassroots fund-raising campaigns that would revolutionize medical philanthropy, and giving rise to the modern field of rehabilitation therapy. As one of the largest disabled groups in the world polio survivors also helped to advance the modern disability rights movement through campaigns for the social and civil rights of the disabled. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 10 to 20 million polio survivors worldwide. In 1977 there were 254,000 persons living in the United States who had been paralyzed by polio. According to doctors and local polio support groups, some 40,000 polio survivors with varying degrees of paralysis live in Germany, 30,000 in Japan, 24,000 in France, 16,000 in Australia, 12,000 in Canada and 12,000 in the United Kingdom. Many notable individuals have survived polio and often credit the prolonged immobility and residual paralysis associated with polio as a driving force in their lives and careers.
The disease was very well publicized during the polio epidemics of the 1950s, with extensive media coverage of any scientific advancements that might lead to a cure. Thus, the scientists working on polio became some of the most famous of the century. Fifteen scientists and two laymen who made important contributions to the knowledge and treatment of poliomyelitis are honored by the Polio Hall of Fame at the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation in Warm Springs, Georgia, USA. (Although it was long thought that polio had caused President Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralysis, which led to the creation of the Institute and hence the Hall of Fame, in 2003, a peer-reviewed study found it was actually more likely that he suffered from Guillain-Barré syndrome.)
Now that we know about Polio, how was the vaccination Developed?
In 1936, Maurice Brodie, a research assistant at New York University, attempted to produce a formaldehyde-killed polio vaccine from ground-up monkey spinal cords. His initial attempts were hampered by the difficulty of obtaining enough virus. Brodie first tested the vaccine on himself and several of his assistants. He then gave the vaccine to three thousand children, many of whom developed allergic reactions, but none developed immunity to polio. Philadelphia pathologist John Kollmer also claimed to have developed a vaccine that same year, but it too produced no immunity and was blamed for causing a number of cases, some of them fatal.
A breakthrough came in 1948 when a research group headed by John Enders at the Children's Hospital Boston successfully cultivated the poliovirus in human tissue in the laboratory. This development greatly facilitated vaccine research and ultimately allowed for the development of vaccines against polio. Enders and his colleagues, Thomas H. Weller and Frederick C. Robbins, were recognized in 1954 for their labors with a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Other important advances that led to the development of polio vaccines were: the identification of three poliovirus serotypes (Poliovirus type 1 — PV1, or Mahoney; PV2, Lansing; and PV3, Leon); the finding that prior to paralysis, the virus must be present in the blood; and the demonstration that administration of antibodies in the form of gamma-globulin protects against paralytic polio.
In 1952 and 1953, the U.S. experienced an outbreak of 58,000 and 35,000 polio cases, respectively, up from a typical number of some 20,000 a year. Amid this U.S. polio epidemic, millions of dollars were invested in finding and marketing a polio vaccine by commercial interests, including Lederle Laboratories in New York under the direction of H. R. Cox. Also working at Lederle was Polish-born virologist and immunologist Hilary Koprowski, who claims to have created the first successful polio vaccine, in 1950. His vaccine, however, a live attenuated virus taken orally, was still in the research stage and would not be ready for use until five years after Jonas Salk's polio vaccine (a dead injectable vaccine) had reached the market.
The development of two polio vaccines led to the first modern mass inoculations.
No wild polio has been reported in the United States for over 20 years (due to vaccination). But the disease is still common in some parts of the world. It would only take one case of polio from another country to bring the disease back if we were not protected by vaccine. If the effort to eliminate the disease from the world is successful, some day we won’t need polio vaccine. Until then, we need to keep getting our children vaccinated.
Symptoms of Polio include fever, nausea and vomiting, malaise, headache, excruciating muscle pain and stiffness of the neck and back. The incubation of Polio is anywhere from 3-21 days. It is spread through the fecal-oral route (feces in the mouth).
The virus can be spread once it is found in the throat for 1 week and in the feces for 3-6 weeks or longer. Cases are most infectious 7-10 days before and after the onset of symptoms.
THERE IS NO TREATMENT FOR POLIO.
So, now that we know about Polio and the development of the vaccination, let's take a look at the CDC information on the vaccination.
NOTE: The CDC warns that the ORAL Polio Vaccination is NO LONGER RECOMMENDED. There are two kinds of polio vaccine: IPV, which is the shot recommended in the United States today, and a live, oral polio vaccine (OPV), which is drops that are swallowed. Until recently OPV was recommended for most children in the United States. OPV helped us rid the country of polio, and it is still used in many parts of the world.
Both vaccines give immunity to polio, but OPV is better at keeping the disease from spreading to other people. However, for a few people (about one in 2.4 million), OPV actually causes polio. Since the risk of getting polio in the United States is now extremely low, experts believe that using oral polio vaccine is no longer worth the slight risk, except in limited circumstances which your doctor can describe. The polio shot (IPV) does not cause polio. If you or your child will be getting OPV, ask for a copy of the OPV supplemental Vaccine Information Statement.
Risks of Polio vaccination - Some people who get IPV get a sore spot where the shot was given. The vaccine used today has never been
known to cause any serious problems, and most people don’t have any problems at all with it. However, a vaccine, like any medicine, could cause serious problems, such as a severe allergic reaction. The risk of a polio shot causing serious harm, or death, is extremely small.
Some people should not get the Polio vaccine or should wait.
These people should not get the Polio vaccination:
These people should wait:
If you are an adult and have not been vaccinated, should you be?
According to the CDC, Most adults do not need polio vaccine because they were already vaccinated as children. But three groups of adults are at higher risk and should consider polio vaccination:
Adults in these three groups who have never been vaccinated against polio should get 3 doses of IPV:
Adults in these three groups who have had 1 or 2 doses of polio vaccine in the past should get the remaining 1 or 2 doses. It doesn’t matter how long it has been since the earlier dose(s). Adults in these three groups who have had 3 or more doses of polio vaccine (either IPV or OPV) in the past may get a booster dose of IPV.
I found an awesome website that lists the package inserts and ingredients for all available vaccinations (e.g. provided by MERK or GlaxoSmithKline). It's called the World Association for Vaccine Education. You can find their page on the Polio Vaccine here.
Since we always hear about the link between getting vaccinated and some other disease or condition, I did a search to see if there were links between the Polio vaccination and any kind of disease or neurological disorder and I couldn't find anything.
More Information:
And since there are those people that are concerned about links of vaccinations to neurological disorders and the like I thought I'd include some of their links as well:
Generation Rescue is an international movement of scientists, physicians and parent-volunteers researching the causes and treatments for autism and mentoring thousands of families in recovering their children from autism.
The Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute was established in 1996 to provide parents and other concerned people with educational resources enabling them to make more informed vaccine decisions. Thinktwice encourages an uncensored exchange of vaccine information, and supports every family's right to accept or reject vaccines. Thinktwice's Polio page.
I asked my pediatrician if she had a lot of parents who were choosing to NOT vaccinate their children. She said she could count on one hand the total number and that she, of course, recommends AGAINST not vaccinating your children.
Previously:
Hepatitis B Vaccination Information
Rotavirus Vaccination Information
Diphtheria Vaccination Information
Tetanus Vaccination Information
Pertussis (Whooping Cough) Vaccination
Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) Vaccination Information
Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccination Information
Next week: Influenza
November 19, 2008
About Vaccination - Polio
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