Polio fear mongering

Just over a week ago, the New York Times ran a piece about polio in London. The headline of “Virus found in sewage” is alarming, and there’s even an attempt to blame anti-vaxers. That’s likely what most people who skim the article would walk away with.

But let’s look at the contents more closely:

Normally, routine surveillance of sewage in Britain picks up the virus once or twice a year, the U.K. Health Security Agency said in a statement, but between February and July, 116 samples of type 2 poliovirus were detected in samples from eight London boroughs in the north and east of the city.

So there’s nothing unusual about this. And there are still zero reported cases.

In fact, one wonder whether the call for boosters has any bearing in medical science is more intended to assuage the fears of the upper-middle classes. This sort of fear theater, instead of actual medical practice and public health, drove the covid debacle.

Also of interest is where the virus comes from:

The traces found in London’s sewage, like the case in New York State, involved poliovirus derived from the oral polio vaccine, which uses a weakened live form of the virus that immunized people excrete for a short time.

From what I can tell, there’s zero need to worry. Polio should obviously remain a routine childhood vaccination, which I don’t think anyone seriously disputes. This is a non-story.

Then the NYT wrote this today: “Earlier this year, polio seemed almost eradicated. But cases have popped up around the world: first in Malawi, then in Pakistan, Israel and Britain. The virus was located last week in New York City’s wastewater.”

That would be fake news. The article it linked to (here) clarifies that there are no cases in Britain and New York. There was a grand total of one in Israel.

What is under assault is the ideology of eradication. When covid popped up, I remember how odd it was that TV doctors kept talking about eradicating it via lockdowns and vaccines. To date, smallpox (not an easily spread respiratory virus) is the only major virus eradicated. Corona viruses have vast animal reservoirs and aren’t easily vaccinated against. To date, there isn’t a single effective vaccine against covid that. None of them stop the transmission.

This might mean polio will never be eradicated. Thankfully we have a great vaccine that’s been proven safe and effective over half a century.

Let’s stop the fear mongering and get on with life.