Ethics of Polio Eradication

The Ethics of Polio "Eradication"

"Ethical" – that’s the key word that Rotarians use to describe themselves. For the most part this is likely to be true. But I’d like to know how this describes their involvement in helping to "immunize" the world’s children from polio. In April 2001 I sent the three Rotary Clubs of the Sunshine Coast a letter questioning their contribution to this program, listing references and asking for a reply. By Christmas I had received no reply and talked to one of their members selling calendars in Trail Bay Mall. He told me he would ask at his club about this; still no reply; I sent a polite reminder; no reply.

Their website says Rotary International established its program to "eradicate" polio in 1985 with the advice and support of the developer of oral polio vaccine, Dr. Albert Sabin. Polio vaccine, since its initial use in 1953, has come under close scrutiny due to the discovery in 1960 that it was contaminated with a monkey virus, SV40, that came from its culture medium. Dr. Bernice Eddy found that hampsters injected with this medium developed tumours. Eddy was removed from vaccine research, all news of her findings was suppressed and thirty years later, Dr. Sabin, when asked why this was done, said "I think to release certain information prematurely is not a public service. There’s too much scaring the public unnecessarily. Oh, your children were injected with a cancer virus and all that."

One medical researcher has been studying SV40 and its myriad mutations since 1986. He says "the picture is so horrendous and difficult to explain in terms that the ordinary person would understand….and the implications are so broad reaching that if people really understood the broader issues, the majority of medical people would be lynched in the street."

By the end of 1996 dozens of scientists had reported finding SV40 in bone and brain cancers, whose rate had increased 30% over the previous 20 years. Since it has also been found in semen and blood samples and in 61% of all new cancer patients tested, people who hadn’t received the original polio vaccine, it has apparently spread partner to partner and generation to generation. It may also have spread contact to contact by shedding, just as the polio viruses in the Sabin vaccine were intended to do (ie in order to confer "immunity" on a wider swath of the population than only those vaccinated.)

The genie is out of the vial and according to evidence presented by lawyer Stanley Kops (see www.sv40cancer.com) it is not at all certain that taints of SV40 do not exist in polio vaccines used today. Even the inactivated (killed virus) polio vaccine carries no guarantee that every last foreign virus or viral DNA has been destroyed and cancer can begin with one contaminated cell. Another carcinogenic monkey virus, SV20 has been found in inactivated viral vaccines. One of the theories of the origin of AIDS is that HIV was produced as a hybrid of a similar monkey virus that contaminated polio vaccine given to 320,000 Africans in the late 1950’s.

Contaminants are a huge problem. Culture media for oral polio vaccine include serum from foetal calf blood which may contain bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), polyomavirus, parovirus, herpesvirus-1, parainfluenza-3, enterovirus-4 and leukemia-, visna- and immunodeficiency-retroviruses. Any of these can end up in the vaccine. BVDV has been implicated in human gastroenteritis and microencephaly ( small head at birth) and can also infect vaccines, thus reducing their efficacy. Polyomavirus is strongly associated with cancer. One study has found nanobacteria in 2 out of 3 lots of oral polio vaccine ( NanoNews, July 2001). This causes or is suspected to cause atherosclerosis, coronary artery / heart disease, kidney stones and kidney disease, arthritis, MS, Alzheimer’s, some cancers and many other illnesses. Mycoplasma bacteria can be transferred via air, handling and work surfaces and time and again have been found in cultures and vaccines. They and their variants have long been associated with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, arthritis, Gulf War Syndrome and many other diseases. Compared to contaminants, other risky polio vaccine components like formaldehyde and 2-phenoxyethanol (antifreeze) seem almost benign.

The Rotarian at the mall told me vaccination is more "cost effective" than providing good nutrition; he hadn’t considered the many other illnesses malnutrition can bring, nor illnesses caused by the vaccines themselves. And, as usual, "cost effectiveness" depends on lack of compensation for vaccine casualties.

Dr. Raymond Obomsawin, as an analyst for CIDA, conducted a field evaluation of a major UNICEF immunization project in Thailand in the early 1990’s. His report cited the use of coercion, unreliability and risks of such immunization events. It is arguable that smallpox did not disappear due to vaccinations and it is most likely that polio could also go without using its vaccine. Records show polio disappeared in Europe in the 40’s and 50’s despite there being no "immunizations". WHO’s official position is that malnourished children are at greater risk of infection and therefore should be "immunized" but research conducted for CIDA showed that vaccine should not be given to malnourished children. Dr. Archie Kalokerinos MD, who tended Australian aborigines, said "You cannot immunize sick children, malnourished children, and expect to get away with it. You’ll kill far more children than would have died from natural infection."

Last year, African broadcaster Kihura Nkuba told of Ugandan children, especially those with HIV, being injured, paralyzed and dead following forced oral polio vaccinations. People were fleeing with their children to escape. After Nkuba spoke out against this he was harassed by authorities, called a "child killer" and accused of giving false information, a charge that, in his country, carries a life sentence or death. When this didn’t quiet him, WHO/UNICEF/local government teams went house to house accompanied by armed militia to give vaccine.

People in Kano, Nigeria aired a different problem; they rejected polio vaccine because they believed it was a vehicle for introducing more killer diseases to Africans in order to check population growth. Is this idea far fetched?

In the 1998 edition of his evaluation report, Dr. Obomsawin concludes "…there is a genuine need for world governments to reconsider their policies with respect to universal childhood immunization, ensuring particular focus on….the pressing need to establish far safer and more effective alternatives." So too is there a pressing need for Rotarians, caring humans that they are, to realize and admit their campaign for polio "eradication" is unethical and injurious. May they set their sights instead on alleviating the malnourishment and squalor that makes 3rd world children vulnerable to all diseases, not just polio, and robs them of their right to long healthful lives.