Myalgic Encephalomyelitis & Polio
Post hoc, ergo prompter hoc reasoning states that “A” happened, then “B” happened, thus “A” caused “B.” So if we gave children polio shots and the polio epidemic ceases, then it is “obvious” that the vaccine halted the epidemic. But this faith in the polio vaccines will not even stand up to this faulty reasoning because…
The Salk vaccine failed completely (we’ll issue a special report on that at a later date). And the Sabin vaccine was a disaster. It caused many cases of polio and showed no relationship to the disease except for an increase in polio during the early ’60s, caused by the vaccine itself. And now we have the sensational findings from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, which strongly indicate that polio did not go away at all, but now manifests itself as chronic fatigue syndrome. The public press is strangely silent on this sensational report.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), in the literature also referred to as epidemic neuromyasthenia and non-paralytic or “atypical” poliomyelitis, is a neuromuscular disease which was identified as a distinct clinical entity for the first time in 1956. At that time it was evident that muscular symptoms (e.g., paresis and myalgia) and neurological dysfunction were the hallmark features of ME. ME has been classified as a neurological disease by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1969.
British infectious disease specialist Elizabeth Dowsett plotted the cases of ME she and ME pioneer Melvin Ramsay had seen in their practice since 1919 against reported cases of polio in England. When the Salk and then Sabin vaccines brought the yearly number of British polio cases below 25 in the early 1960s, the number of ME patients took off. In Ramsay's and Dowsett's practice alone, between 1960 and 1980 the number of ME patients increased by fifty times. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of patients with ME increased yet again by a factor of fifty!
The post-polio syndrome, which includes progressive fatigue, pain, and weakness, is present late in life in a majority of survivors of paralytic poliomyelitis. Although it is a common diagnosis, the epidemiological studies suggest that the rate of decline is modest in the majority of patients and carries a benign prognosis in most. The pathophysiology of the post-polio syndrome remains debated, but leading theories include dying-back of axonal sprouts in massively reinnervated motor units, attritional loss of affected anterior horn cells and physiological aging on a fixed neurological deficit. Treatment of the post-polio syndrome is limited to symptomatic care. Fatigue has been unresponsive to multiple medication trials and responds best to energy conservation. Pain requires a thorough evaluation with treatment directed at specific etiologies.
Although the illness we now know as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis has existed for centuries, for much of that time it was a relatively uncommon disease. Following the mass polio vaccination programs of the 1960’s cases of polio were greatly reduced and outbreaks of M.E. seemed to be similarly affected. It wasn’t until the late 1970’s that M.E. began (for reasons as yet not fully understood) its dramatic increase in incidence worldwide. Over 20 years later, M.E. is a worldwide epidemic of devastating proportions. Many people have died from M.E. and there are now millions of people severely disabled by this epidemic.
Byron Hyde, M.D. , Nightingale Research Foundation, Ottawa, Canada
‘It is a fact that the majority of M.E. patients are not in high-stress occupations as the popular press frequently suggests, but are teachers, nurses, physicians, and other health care workers. This group represents those most closely related to infectious illness, frequent immunizations and those most frequently immunized.’
‘Up to 1955, recognized M.E. was clearly previously associated with poliomyelitis. The viruses that cause paralytic poliomyelitis are some of the same viruses that cause M.E. But these enteroviruses that are capable of causing paralysis attach to more than one set of tissue receptors. These other receptors are found on different cells in the brain and spine as well as in other body areas. The symptoms described by M.E. sufferers are due to injury to these other cells.’
Note: This book contains an enormous amount of information on the epidemics of M.E. (and many other aspects of M.E.) that is simply not available anywhere else. Each epidemic is listed and many are gone into in great detail, information is given on transmissibility, onset and on the historical facts of each outbreak (for example; the links with Polio and how sufferers of one early outbreak were actually paid to keep silent about what had happened to them!). This book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in M.E.