- Hello Jeff: Do you remember July 11, 2002? There were
some news articles on the creation of a synthetic virus (a made from scretch
receipe) that took place at a New York Lab, at (guess where?) Answer: Rockefeller
University
-
- Can you guess what virus was created? Yep, Polio.
-
- I have a sneaking suspicion that the cases of flaccid
paralysis clustered in one area of the country, such as Mississippi and
Louisiana, is not just WNV.
-
- IF flaccid paralysis was a NORMAL WNV progression of
symptoms, why are they all clustered in one area?? Normally, we would expect
to see a case here and a case there. Not in grouped in one area.
-
- Guess where WNV was being studied before it showed up
in NY? Rockefeller University.
- Something is not normal about this entire outbreak.
-
- Patricia
-
-
- Doctors Link Polio To West Nile Virus
-
- By Stephen Smith
- Boston Globe Staff
- 9-25-2
-
- Mosquito-borne West Nile virus is causing a medical condition
rarely seen by US physicians since the 1950s: polio.
-
- In case reports released yesterday, stunned neurologists
in Mississippi and Georgia describe the conditions of four patients suffering
from the hobbled limbs, impaired breathing, and fevers that are the hallmark
of polio, a disease essentially eradicated in the United States.
-
- Just like the polio patients of the first half of the
20th century, the West Nile victims seen this summer by the Southern doctors
are also enduring prolonged muscle weakness and respiratory ailments that
will require months of treatment and probably will disable some of the
patients permanently.
-
- ''I teach this as a historical thing to the residents,''
said Dr. Jonathan D. Glass, director of the neuromuscular program at Emory
University in Atlanta and one of the physicians who treated the polio patients.
''We simply don't see it today. That's why I didn't believe it at first.''
-
- The strain of polio that was so widely feared in the
20th century, and now prevented by vaccines, is caused by a different virus
than West Nile. In fact, West Nile comes from a different family than viruses
known to cause the disease. However, the devastating effects are the same.
-
- In polio, the virus attacks the gray matter of the patients'
spinal cord, which contains the neurons responsible for carrying information
to the muscles. As the attack frays the neuron fibers, muscles turn limp,
often producing uneven results - a leg gone weak on the right side, an
arm on the left. It also results in bladder and bowel dysfunction, along
with respiratory complications that can leave patients tethered to breathing
machines.
-
- According to the Centers for Disease Control, the West
Nile virus has killed 94 people nationwide this year, including two in
Massachusetts, and sickened 1,963, by far the largest outbreak since it
was first reported in the United States three years ago. Although other
viral illnesses kill vastly more people - the flu is blamed for 20,000
deaths annually - public-health authorities are concerned about West Nile
because it has spread from coast to coast so quickly and produced unexpected
symptoms, with polio being the most recent example.
-
- ''We obviously have to learn a lot more about this virus,''
said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, director of communicable disease control for the
Massachusetts Department of Public Health. ''This is another aspect that's
worrisome about West Nile.''
-
- The New England Journal of Medicine released the articles
on the polio link nearly a month before their scheduled publication, an
unusual step reserved for reports of urgent medical importance. The doctors
who wrote the articles said yesterday they believe it is vital that their
findings circulate among physicians because some of the patients they treated
had been misdiagnosed and prescribed treatments that could have been life-threatening.
-
- And they suspect - strongly - that other cases of West
Nile-induced polio have gone untreated and unreported. After discovering
polio in their own West Nile patients, the physicians in Mississippi and
Georgia decided to review previous outbreaks. In examining autopsy results
from New York City in 1999, the first time West Nile was identified in
the nation, the doctors uncovered symptoms that struck them as remarkably
similar to the cases they had seen this summer.
-
- Dr. A. Arturo Leis, a neurologist at Methodist Rehabilitation
Center in Jackson, Miss., saw such a patient in late July or early August.
He recalled walking into an exam room and witnessing a 56-year-old man
who had been referred to him because of muscle weakness. In reviewing the
patient's medical chart, Leis discovered that the man had been diagnosed
weeks earlier with early signs of a stroke and prescribed blood-thinning
medication. The same man also was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome,
a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous
system.
-
- Only after running blood tests, observing symptoms similar
to polio, and performing a battery of electrically activated tests that
record activity in nerves and in spinal cord cells, did the Mississippi
physicians reach their diagnosis: polio, caused by West Nile virus.
-
- Previously, severe cases of West Nile had been characterized
by meningitis and encephalitis, the brain swelling that is regarded as
the most serious consequence of the virus. But the muscle weakness and
other problems associated with polio were not evident.
-
- ''I thought, `This is extremely unusual - this can't
be,''' Leis said. ''How can a virus, in this case West Nile, change its
clinical properties to such a marked degree? It had typically not presented
this way.''
-
- The medications the man had received initially, Leis
said, could have killed him. The stroke drug could have caused a hemorrhage,
and the medicine initially given to treat his misdiagnosed case of Guillain-Barre
had the potential to result in a stroke. That's why the Mississippi and
Georgia researchers became so determined to share their findings on the
link between polio and West Nile.
-
- Leis has now seen four cases of West Nile-related polio,
one additional since he wrote his journal article. In Atlanta, Glass received
a call from a suburban physician one Saturday night in July. That doctor
was confounded by the symptoms of a patient he was seeing. She had muscle
weakness, along with fever and meningitis. The kind of muscle fatigue she
was experiencing was consistent with Guillain-Barre, but that disease does
not typically produce fever and meningitis.
-
- ''The guy called me and said, `Help. I don't know what
I'm looking at,''' Glass said. ''And I said, `I don't know what you're
looking at either.'''
-
- The 50-year-old woman, who lives in Louisiana, which
was hard hit by West Nile and was in Georgia visiting grandchildren, was
transferred to the university hospital in Atlanta. There, a neurology resident,
Dr. William Hewitt, examined her and confirmed the presence of an unusual
constellation of symptoms.
-
- Glass spent the night poring over old medical textbooks
and epidemiology reports on the New York cases. All evidence began pointing
toward polio.
-
- The woman treated by Glass is expected to survive but
remains in a rehabilitation hospital. The four patients in Mississippi
also will live, their doctor said, although three will probably have permanent
disabilities.
-
- Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.
-
- This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 9/24/2002.
- © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
-
-
-
- MORE MASSIVE FEAR FOR THE BATTERED SHEEPLE...
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Mary
- 9-25-2
-
- Like others, I am stunned, deeply saddened and outraged
to hear of the new cases of polio. You might already be aware of the following,
Jeff...
-
- According to a publication issued in 1999 and reviewed
in 2001, the CDC itself has stated, "Since 1979, the only polio disease
in the United States has been caused by the oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV)
vaccine, which had been used routinely for childhood vaccination since
1965. "
-
- and,
-
- "In 1998, one case of VAPP [vaccine-associated paralytic
poliomyelitis ] was confirmed. Prior to the change to a sequential schedule,
there were 8-10 cases of paralytic polio caused by OPV each year."
-
- I found both statements here: http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r990617.htm
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Patricia
- 9-25-2
-
- This brings up the topic of VACCINE-CAUSED diseases.
There MUST be a discussion of the smallpox vaccine strategies and how this
will lead to vaccinia virus infection in NON-vaccinated patients. They
intend to give the smallpox vaccine to hospital workers who will be in
close contact to immune-surpressed patients. The patients (non-vaccinated)
will be at risk to contract vaccinia. This is the problem with many attenuated
virus vaccines.
-
- Now, for POLIO: Yes, Mary is so correct.
-
- There were cases of polio caused by the oral vaccine
in Pakistan, Dominican Republic, and other parts of the world. The Pakistan
and Dominican Republic cases come to mind because they happened with a
year or so.
-
- Close contacts, i.e. non-vaccinated schoolmates, family,
friends, etc. of polio-vaccinated (oral vaccine) CAN contract polio from
the vaccinated.
-
- There was also push to vaccinate in Madagascar. Not too
long ago, in Bulgaria, Roma children come down with Polio. This came after
a trip to India where polio vaccination was ongoing. Of course, the Roma
people - aka gypsies - are not given much care and concern by their Eastern
European neighbors. I believe the children took ill after Roma day festivities
and a pilgramige to Northern India where the rom/gypsies originated from.
- Guess you know about the plight of the Domari (rom/gypsies)
of northern Indian origin who have been living in Israel for well over
1500 years. They are not allowed citizenship or schooling etc. Great for
a democracy, no? The US does not understand Israel. It is really a theocracy,
i.e. right of citizenship and vote by religon, i.e. Jewish religion and/or
ethnicity. Other groups, such as the Domari (which is now an endangered
group of people) and arabs, i.e. Christian and Muslim are not full citizens.
-
- Now back to the vaccines. The US has just about put
the finishing touches on the vaccine policy for smallpox. Bush intends
to vaccinate well over 500,000. I want to know how they will explain outbreaks
of vaccinia, especially in hospital patients. It would be mandatory to
give each newly-vaccinated med worker at least 21 days off AFTER vaccination.
Do you think hospitals will do that? Nope.
-
- I am also skeptical about the diluted vaccine and wonder
if people will develope vaccinia. In other words, enough vaccine to cause
vaccinia but not enough vaccine to protect against it.
-
- I think that there will also be deaths from these, especially
with unknown autoimmune condtions and HCV/HIV, etc., who will die from
the vaccine or become seriously ill.
-
- This is a BAD, BAD, BAD, extremely BAD idea.
-
- Patty
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