Did the introduction of the polio vaccine cause the massive rise in ME/CFS incidence in the 1980s?

[Hip]

Very interesting @halcyon.

In a similar vein, I came across this study, which examines the link between coxsackievirus B and beta-cell autoimmunity (a first step to type 1 diabetes). Testing positive for coxsackievirus B1 was found to be associated with an increased risk of beta-cell autoimmunity.

But interestingly, testing positive for coxsackieviruses B3 or B6 was associated with a reduced risk of beta-cell autoimmunity, which the authors suggested was the result of CVB3 and CVB6 providing immunological cross-protection against the ill effects of CVB1.

I found that paper very interesting, because it occurred to me that this might help explain why some people develop ME/CFS after catching a coxsackievirus B infection, but others who catch the same virus do not get ME/CFS. One reason might be because some people have prior coxsackievirus B infections in their body which provide cross-protection against the ME/CFS-triggering coxsackievirus.



I am also wondering whether in cases of virally-triggered ME/CFS spontaneously going into remission after several years, could that remission in fact be caused by the patient catching another virus which provides cross-immunity that targets the both the first and second virus?

So let's say for example that someone's ME/CFS is caused by a chronic smoldering coxsackievirus B3 infection, which their immune system cannot clear. But then by chance, several years later, that ME/CFS patient catches coxsackievirus B6, and this new virus induces a cross-protective immune response, which serves to fight off both the new CVB6 virus and the original CVB3, thereby curing their ME/CFS.

It's always something of a mystery how ME/CFS can sometimes spontaneously clear up, but I wonder if a scenario like this might potentially explain it.

 

[barbc56]

Would you have any links to that? I read about the possible beneficial effect of natural polio infection on an archived page of Dr Myhill's website; but presumably this idea has an older history, and someone must have originated it

You have got to be kidding! She should lose her license over saying such unscientific speculation. Oh wait......

Is this still on her website? If I lived in England, I would definitely report this.

Tell this to all the kids who died or ended up paralyzed, I barely remember this era but people were scared and a lot of people had their lives ruined by polio.

I vaguely remember that time. I remember my sister and I had to rest every day. We weren't allowed to go to the community swimming pool. I remember all the pictures of kids in iron lungs. Actually, that may have been later.

Look at the countries where polio has been eradicated.

ME has been around for centuries. They didn't know what me/cfs was. Therefore it wasn't diagnosed as such.

In my opinion, I see nothing herr but spurious correlations, misuse of statistics and conspiracy theories. Certainly not critical thinking.

I am going to have to leave this thread beforeI I say something I regret. Or start crying . I don't even know why I started reading it.

Edit. I see this was seen on an archive page. I wonder if Myhill took it down herself or was ordered to by the court.

 

[Hip]

@barbc56, your post is incoherent and a non sequitur. "Tell this to all the kids who died or ended up paralyzed" you say? Tell me what has that got to do with the speculation that poliovirus infection may confer cross-protection to other enteroviruses?

 

[Chrisb]

Given the often reported hypothesis from the Iceland cases that, as I recall, the area in which the ME epidemic occurred avoided the effects of a later polio epidemic, the question raised by the thread is entirely valid.

I think it might help to change the language of "the possible beneficial effect of natural polio infection". It is possible to misinterpret it in its current form.

 

[SamanthaJ]

I think it might help to change the language of "the possible beneficial effect of natural polio infection". It is possible to misinterpret it in its current form.

As a relative of a disabled polio survivor, I heartily agree. I mean, I do understand the theories being discussed, and I'm hoping no one intends to trivialise polio.

 

[Hip]

As a relative of a disabled polio survivor, I heartily agree. I mean, I do understand the theories being discussed, and I'm hoping no one intends to trivialise polio.

That is certainly not the intention, and that's why the very first sentence of this thread details how many children were killed by polio before widespread polio vaccination — to make it clear what a menace poliomyelitis used to be.

The introduction of the poliovirus vaccine was undoubtedly a good move, as it has pretty much eliminated poliomyelitis as a disease in countries where this vaccination is given.

However, if there is this inadvertent adverse effect from the polio vaccination program, that in the absence of wild poliovirus allows other enteroviruses greater scope to cause disease (diseases such as ME/CFS and type 1 diabetes), then this adverse effect should be investigated.

If this adverse effect does exist, the solution would be not to discontinue poliovirus immunization, but rather to introduce new immunizations that cover a wider range of disease-causing enteroviruses, enteroviruses like coxsackievirus B and echovirus.

 

[Chrisb]

There is an interesting statistic in the paper to which @halcyon provided a link that the ratio of symptomless carriers to clinical cases is 140 to 1 for Polio 1 and higher for Polio 3.

This might indicate the extent of the protection possibly afforded by the virus.

If the rates were similar and it took 140 cases of virus x to produce one case of ME it is not surprising that there might be difficulty in identifying it.

 

[msf]

Prior to the introduction of the polio vaccine in the late 1950s, most children caught poliovirus, with 70% of infections being asymptomatic (but with 0.5% of infections resulting in paralysis, and out of that 0.5%, around 1 in 30 cases were fatal). Ref: 1

It has been suggested that natural infection from wild poliovirus conferred some cross-immunity against the ill effects of other enteroviruses such as coxsackievirus B and echovirus — two viruses linked to ME/CFS.

However, polio vaccine may not confer the same cross-immunity as natural poliovirus infection, and so individuals who were vaccinated and never had a natural poliovirus infection as a child may have reduced immunity to coxsackievirus B and echovirus.

Decades later in life, when those vaccinated individuals catch coxsackievirus B or echovirus, their immune system may thus have more trouble fending off this infection, and this conceivably could increase the chances of developing ME/CFS from the infection.

So the introduction of the poliovirus vaccine in the late 1950s might potentially be the cause of the explosive international increase in the incidence of ME/CFS that appeared to occur some two decades later, in the 1980s.

Surely to make this theory sound credible you would need to show that the incidence of enterovirus infection is much higher for people in their thirties/forties? Do you know of any such evidence? Why wouldn´t it have affected the population straightaway?

 

[msf]

Also, isn´t the increased incidence of ME in the 80s likely to be an artifact of the increased awareness of ME after the outbreaks of that decade (it´s difficult to see how these could be put down to polio vaccines twenty years earlier)?

 

[Hip]

Surely to make this theory sound credible you would need to show that the incidence of enterovirus infection is much higher for people in their thirties/forties? Do you know of any such evidence? Why wouldn´t it have affected the population straightaway?

I have never been able to find any data about the typical age that coxsackievirus B and echovirus are contracted, although for other viruses, data is available. For example, we know that 80% of people pick up HHV-6 before the age of 2 years old; whereas Epstein-Barr virus is typically picked up in childhood or the teenage years (most people will have caught it by 20); and cytomegalovirus tends to be contracted at any stage in life (but the older you are, the more likely you are to have it).

But I am not sure about when enterovirus is typically contracted.

However, the "two age peaks" study on ME/CFS incidence is very informative in this instance, as this study gives a graph of the number of people who develop ME/CFS at each particular age. This graph is shown below:

Number of people who develop ME/CFS at each particular age

Source: here.​

As you can see from that graph, there are two peaks in the incidence of ME/CFS, the first peak at around 15 years old, and the second peak at around 35 years old. Note also that there are few ME/CFS cases before 10 years old, so ME/CFS is not really a disease of childhood.

Although the study does not indicate which viruses were involved, my hunch is that the first peak at 15 years old might involve relatively more cases of Epstein-Barr virus-triggered ME/CFS, as EBV is typically picked up in childhood or the teenage years; and the second peak might involve relatively more cases of enterovirus-triggered ME/CFS.

So we can deduce from that graph that if the newly introduced polio vaccine given in infancy were increasing the risk of ME/CFS, the increased numbers of patients with ME/CFS would not appear until at least around 15 years later, which is the first peak on the graph.

 

[Hip]

Also, isn´t the increased incidence of ME in the 80s likely to be an artifact of the increased awareness of ME after the outbreaks of that decade (it´s difficult to see how these could be put down to polio vaccines twenty years earlier)?

That is almost making ME/CFS seem psychogenic, as if reading a few articles in the newspapers about ME/CFS could suddenly create a whole wave of people bedbound with this illness.

In any case, the 1984 Incline Village ME/CFS outbreak was in the US, and would not really have featured in the UK media, but the data shows a simultaneous 5- to 8-fold increases in ME/CFS incidence in the UK, Canada and the US in the 1980s.

Also, if this idea of media influence were correct, then the famous 1955 outbreak at the Royal Free Hospital in London would have also led to a big increase in ME/CFS incidence in the UK, but there were no such increases in the 1950s or 1960s.

 

[msf]

Hmm, I guess I should have explained what I meant by that. I meant that the outbreaks probably contributed towards doctors diagnosing people with ME more often, when before they might have been just as ill but not have received any diagnosis.

Re: your second point, that presumes that the media covered all outbreaks in the same way, and that doctors would have reacted to the media coverage in the same way - somehow I think epidemics are covered in a somewhat different way today than they were, say, 50 years ago.

Anyway, as I said, the real stumbling block with your theory is that we do not know when people are usually infected by enterovirus. Given it is similar to polio, why wouldn´t people get it early on? I looked at a couple of reports of Enterovirus 71 infection in Asia and it seemed to mainly be affecting children.

 

[Jan]

Betty (Elizabeth) Dowsett (microbiologist) wrote on this subject, her theory was that 'nature abhors a vacuum', the vacuum left after introduction of the polio vaccine.

I've had a quick search, but I can't find anything online regarding this. I have a typed copy somewhere where Betty discusses this I will try to find it when I have the energy.

 

[Chrisb]

@Jan Is this what you had in mind?http://www.poliosurvivorsnetwork.org.uk/archive/lincolnshire/library/dowsett/lateeffectsme.html
THE LATE EFFECTS OF ME
Can they be distinguished from the Post-polio syndrome?
Dr. E.G. Dowsett MBChB, Dip Bact.
Honorary Consultant Microbiologist
Basildon and Thurrock Hospitals NHS Trust.
Originally a Presentation to the All Party Group of MPs on ME/PPS on 31st January 2001.
This Lincolnshire Post-Polio Library Publication February 2001.

EDIT It probably isn't. Have looked through it again and cannot see the reference. It does however give much useful background information for the topic under discussion.

 

[Hip]

Anyway, as I said, the real stumbling block with your theory is that we do not know when people are usually infected by enterovirus. Given it is similar to polio, why wouldn´t people get it early on? I looked at a couple of reports of Enterovirus 71 infection in Asia and it seemed to mainly be affecting children.

I don't myself see this as a stumbling block in the theory. The above ME/CFS incidence by age graph sidesteps this issue, because it tells you the ages that people typically get ME/CFS (and ME/CFS is usually triggered by viral infection).

The enteroviruses coxsackievirus B and echovirus have been linked to ME/CFS in numerous studies, and researchers like Dr John Chia believe that these enteroviruses are the major cause of ME/CFS (Dr Chia's letter suggests that enterovirus may be the cause of ME/CFS in around 55% of cases). So one might expect that the bulk of ME/CFS cases in that incidence by age graph are triggered by enterovirus. Thus following Chia's views, that graph indirectly tells you the ages that people typically catch the ME/CFS-associated enterovirus.



We can also approach this from another angle, this consideration of the age when ME/CFS-associated enteroviruses are typically caught:

Although I don't know any published data about the age coxsackievirus B or echovirus are picked up, we can deduce just from the enteroviral test results of patients on this forum that these enteroviruses are in general not picked up early in life, and may be typically be picked up in adulthood.

The test results of patients on this forum typically show that out of the six coxsackievirus B serotypes and the five echovirus serotypes that are detected by the neutralization tests at ARUP lab (one of the only labs in the US capable of detecting chronic enterovirus infections), most ME/CFS adult patients on this forum are usually only seropositive for perhaps one or two, maybe three of these 14 enterovirus infections detected by ARUP lab.

Thus most adults (even adults with ME/CFS) have never caught the majority of this group of enteroviruses. Therefore we know that most of these viruses are not caught early in life, because if they were caught early in life (like HHV-6 and EBV are), then most adults would be seropositive for most of these enteroviruses, which is not the case.

 

[JohnCB]

Betty (Elizabeth) Dowsett (microbiologist) wrote on this subject, her theory was that 'nature abhors a vacuum', the vacuum left after introduction of the polio vaccine.

I've had a quick search, but I can't find anything online regarding this. I have a typed copy somewhere where Betty discusses this I will try to find it when I have the energy.

I attended a talk by Dr Dowsett in 2002 and I recall her presenting this idea. I hope you can find the written version.

 

[cporro]

More info about the rationale for introducing a coxsackievirus B vaccine here: Coxsackievirus B vaccine appears feasible, and might conceivably abolish ME/CFS in future

interesting idea. it's well established that natural immunity is the best immunity. at least it was until 2021. 😂 a vaccine is basically a crude simulation for the real thing. generally something like a virus enters your body alive and not via injection but respiratory track, digestive track.

i think there is a lot of hubris in medicine at times. we have amazing diversity in the population. yet we have one vaccine product that everyone gets AND the only modification it makes for all these people is a very specific one for a certain disease. if i gave a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to 1 million kids some would die of peanut allergies, some would have major wheat/celiac issues, and lot more would have non life threatening reactions. one question every doctor asks is about reactions to medications. but never to vaccines. yet there are over 1 million reported injuries on the VAERS system from covid vaxes.

i think your opening is dead right on polio. many people don't realize it was non paralytic for 99% of people or that many had no symptoms. they also don't realize that polio was on it way out by the time the vaccines showed up. about a 50% decline from 1920 until either vaccine was around. that's the part they leave out.

my alternative view would be that a vaccine ushered in the CFS. to me that seems more likely. the study i would love to find is CFS rates in an unvaccinated population vs fully vaxxed. like many other studies of that nature it won't be done.

a search of CHD brings up these interesting reads on vaccines and CFS

adjuvants and CFS
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1568997219301090

long covid vaccine injury and CFS comparison:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/adults-long-vax-symptoms-covid-shots-cola/

hpv and CFS:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30324425/

i think Judy Mikovits and XMRV are interesting. especially interesting the way they came after her. i believe this has been largely dismissed on these forums? yes? but the idea is it was introduced via vaccine that used animal tissue. certainly other harmful virus have been injected into humans via vaccine. SV40 for example via polio vaccine.

 

[Hip]

interesting idea. it's well established that natural immunity is the best immunity.

Yes that may be true; but unfortunately the price of natural immunity is often high.

For example, most of us catch Epstein-Barr virus in our teens or 20s; and once we catch this virus, we develop immunity to catching it again.

But once it is caught, like many viruses, EBV takes up permanent residence in our body. EBV actually makes its home in the B-cells of our immune system (the cells which make antibodies). There are many researchers who believe that EBV living in our B-cells triggers the terrible autoimmune disease of multiple sclerosis in some people.

Not to mention the fact that EBV often triggers ME/CFS, and has been linked to other autoimmune diseases.

Wouldn't it be better to have immunity to EBV from a vaccine, so that you are protected from catching this virus, but you don't have the virus living in your cells?

That is the price you pay for natural immunity: you end up with the virus living in your body, which may trigger all sorts of diseases years down the line.

Developing an EBV vaccine has been a technical challenge, which is why don't have one yet. But when we do, it may forever banish MS, and maybe also banish ME/CFS triggered by EBV, and lower the incidence of autoimmune diseases.


We also need a good vaccine for coxsackievirus B, as this is another nightmare virus that destroys your health once it starts living in your body tissues. This virus has been linked to lots of chronic diseases. And because we no longer get natural partial vaccination against coxsackievirus B from catching poliovirus, this may make the diseases linked to coxsackievirus B more prevalent.

i think your opening is dead right on polio. many people don't realize it was non paralytic for 99% of people or that many had no symptoms. they also don't realize that polio was on it way out by the time the vaccines showed up. about a 50% decline from 1920 until either vaccine was around. that's the part they leave out.

It would be great if we could develop a polio vaccine that simulated a natural polio infection, without the risks of such an infection.

My understanding is that vaccines tend to stimulate mostly B-cell immunity (ie, stimulate B-cells to make antibodies against the specific pathogen), but they do not stimulate T-cell immunity much (which is better at protecting you from different variants of the pathogen).

But we can hope that in future, new vaccines may be developed which can stimulate both B-cell and T-cell immunity.

Live attenuated vaccines are generally better at stimulating both B-cell and T-cell immunity than dead inactivated pathogens. Live attenuated vaccines don't require an adjuvant either, which potentially might make them safer.


Some interesting research by Professor Christine Stabell-Benn in Denmark indicates that the off-target effects of vaccines depend on whether the vaccine is live or inactivated. Off target effects mean the beneficial or adverse effects a vaccine may have that are not related to the pathogenic microbe the vaccine targets.

She found that live attenuated vaccines not only protect from the pathogen they target, but also have substantial off-target benefits, where they dramatically reduce all-cause mortality not related to the target pathogen. Whereas inactivated (dead pathogen) vaccines actually increase all-cause mortality, even though they protect you from the target pathogen.

This was noted when the measles vaccines were introduced: they found not only did this lower the number of deaths from measles, but also greatly lowered deaths from non-measles causes.

This makes sense, as live attenuated vaccines are more like real viral infections. In fact they are real viral infections, except with a virus which has been weakened.

Prof Stabell-Benn has some good YouTube videos (like this one) about live versus dead vaccines.

She says that the World Health Organisation (WHO) have been aware of the non-specific off-target effects of vaccines for 20 years, but have shown little interest in pursuing this research. Neither have the pharmaceutical companies shown much interest in investigating non-specific effects.

Interestingly, her preliminary research suggests that these new mRNA vaccines unfortunately behave more like dead vaccine than live ones.

 

[cporro]

Interestingly, her preliminary research suggests that these new mRNA vaccines unfortunately behave more like dead vaccine than live ones.

i think you are a lot more optimistic about what vaccines can do than i am. i see the failures of respiratory virus vaccines. RSV. colds. failures of the AIDs vaccine. failure of covid vax. in general there is a lot of medicine that just doens't work. 😂

i also think we should consider what causes disease.
malnutrition. you don't hear much about beri beri or scurvy or rickets or goiter anymore. why? malnutrition is less common. and those are just diseases of malnutrition. imagine the immune systems of these people. then there is clean public water. decent waste disposal. antibiotics. refrigeration. this is the unsexy story of how vaccines did not save the day. they were a secondary player in 20th century health. this is evident if you look at the infectious disease decline before vaccines were being used. the CDC used to have these charts avaible 10 years ago. along with the accurate polio info you gave. and the number a breakthrough covid infections at the beginning of the pandemic. all gone now.

virus taking up residence in my body permanently. hmmm.... i mean there are probably millions or billions doing that and have been in humans forever. add to that parasites, bacteria, and a whole micro jungle. most are beneficial or not that harmful.

i feel like it's the terain mostly. not the pathogen.

and then you have these populations of unvaccinated that are doing just fine. i understand the official line is that we the vaccinated are protecting them with herd immunity. however, i've read of vaccinated (>95%) communities (measles) having outbreaks. but i see no outbreaks in the Amish.

still i do think vaccines might be handy in certain instances. i evaluate them one at a time.

for people with CFS we sure do respond a lot. i'll prolly crash tomorrow.

 

[Hip]

virus taking up residence in my body permanently. hmmm.... i mean there are probably millions or billions doing that and have been in humans forever. add to that parasites, bacteria, and a whole micro jungle. most are beneficial or not that harmful.

Most of the general public are not aware that for almost every chronic disease you can mention, when you test the diseased organs, you find an infection living in there, slowly smouldering away.

For example, in type 1 diabetes, the insulin producing cells of the pancreas are infected with coxsackievirus B4, and this virus damages and kills the cells.

One theory is that whole swathes of disease are causes by the pathogens living in our tissues, and damaging or killing our cells. This is not proven, but it is a theory.

At present, it is not known what causes the vast majority of the diseases that afflict humanity. So I find this pathogen hypothesis of disease interesting, as it could be the explanation we have been looking for. Moreover, it would mean that in future, if we develop better antivirals, etc, we may be able to cure chronic disease at its root cause.


Even plants catch viruses, bacterial and fungal infections, and become diseased. Disease causes by pathogens is widespread in nature.