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Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 75% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe symptoms develop such as headache, neck stiffness, and paresthesia. These symptoms usually pass within one or two weeks. A less common symptom is permanent paralysis, and possible death in extreme cases. Years after recovery, post-polio syndrome may occur, with a slow development of muscle weakness similar to that which the person had during the initial infection.
Various fringe theories have arisen to speculate about purported alternative origins for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with claims ranging from it being due to accidental exposure to supposedly purposeful acts. Several inquiries and investigations have been carried out as a result, and each of these theories has consequently been determined to be based on unfounded and/or false information. HIV has been shown to have evolved from or be closely related to the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in West Central Africa sometime in the early 20th century. HIV was discovered in the 1980s by the French scientist Luc Montagnier. Before the 1980s, HIV was an unknown deadly disease.
Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis (polio). Two types are used: an inactivated poliovirus given by injection (IPV) and a weakened poliovirus given by mouth (OPV). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends all children be fully vaccinated against polio. The two vaccines have eliminated polio from most of the world, and reduced the number of cases reported each year from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to 33 in 2018.
Polyomaviridae is a family of viruses whose natural hosts are primarily mammals and birds. As of 2020, there are six recognized genera and 117 species, five of which are unassigned to a genus. 14 species are known to infect humans, while others, such as Simian Virus 40, have been identified in humans to a lesser extent. Most of these viruses are very common and typically asymptomatic in most human populations studied. BK virus is associated with nephropathy in renal transplant and non-renal solid organ transplant patients, JC virus with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, and Merkel cell virus with Merkel cell cancer.
SV40 is an abbreviation for simian vacuolating virus 40 or simian virus 40, a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans. Like other polyomaviruses, SV40 is a DNA virus that sometimes causes tumors in animals, but most often persists as a latent infection. SV40 has been widely studied as a model eukaryotic virus, leading to many early discoveries in eukaryotic DNA replication and transcription.
The oral polio vaccine (OPV) AIDS hypothesis is a now-discredited hypothesis that the AIDS pandemic originated from live polio vaccines prepared in chimpanzee tissue cultures, accidentally contaminated with simian immunodeficiency virus and then administered to up to one million Africans between 1957 and 1960 in experimental mass vaccination campaigns.
Hilary Koprowski was a Polish virologist and immunologist active in the United States who demonstrated the world's first effective live polio vaccine. He authored or co-authored over 875 scientific papers and co-edited several scientific journals.
Enterovirus is a genus of positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses associated with several human and mammalian diseases. Enteroviruses are named by their transmission-route through the intestine.
An oncovirus or oncogenic virus is a virus that can cause cancer. This term originated from studies of acutely transforming retroviruses in the 1950–60s, when the term "oncornaviruses" was used to denote their RNA virus origin. With the letters "RNA" removed, it now refers to any virus with a DNA or RNA genome causing cancer and is synonymous with "tumor virus" or "cancer virus". The vast majority of human and animal viruses do not cause cancer, probably because of longstanding co-evolution between the virus and its host. Oncoviruses have been important not only in epidemiology, but also in investigations of cell cycle control mechanisms such as the retinoblastoma protein.
Maurice Ralph Hilleman was a leading American microbiologist who specialized in vaccinology and developed over 40 vaccines, an unparalleled record of productivity. According to one estimate, his vaccines save nearly eight million lives each year. He has been described as one of the most influential vaccinologists ever.
Isabel Merrick Morgan was an American virologist at Johns Hopkins University, who prepared an experimental vaccine that protected monkeys against polio in a research team with David Bodian and Howard A. Howe. Their research led to the identification of three distinct serotypes of poliovirus, all of which must be incorporated for a vaccine to provide complete immunity from poliomyelitis. Morgan was the first to successfully use a killed-virus for polio inoculation in monkeys. After she married in 1949, she left the field of polio research in part because she was uncomfortable with trials that tested polio vaccines on the nerve tissue of children. She then worked on epidemiological studies on air pollution. Later in life, she was a consultant for studies of cancer therapies at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute.
Jonas Edward Salk was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine.
Joseph Louis Melnick was an American epidemiologist who performed breakthrough research on the spread of polio. The New York Times called him "a founder of modern virology".
Thomas J. Kelly is an American cancer researcher whose work focuses on the molecular mechanisms of DNA replication. Kelly is director of the Sloan-Kettering Institute, the basic research arm of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He holds the Center's Benno C. Schmidt Chair of Cancer Research.
Herbert Spencer Ratner, was an American physician. He taught and wrote on the philosophy and history of medicine and was a popular lecturer on marriage and the family. Ratner was the director of public health for the community of Oak Park, Illinois, for twenty-five years. An advocate of preventive family medicine based on natural norms, he was also a long-time proponent of informed medical consent, and played a pivotal role in the polio vaccine controversy beginning in 1955. For more than twenty-nine years Ratner was editor of Child and Family Quarterly, a paramedical journal which ran articles on the Hippocratic Oath, infant development, women’s health, and other topics related to family health.
Bernice Eddy was an American virologist and epidemiologist. She and Sarah Elizabeth Stewart are known for their discoveries related to polyomavirus, particularly SV40 polyomavirus.
Dr. Matthias Gromeier is a Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Duke University Medical Center, who has developed a way to re-engineer a poliovirus to inspire the human immune system to kill cancer cells in a specific set of cancers. The re-engineered virus, called PVSRIPO, cannot replicate itself in normal cells, but can replicate itself in cancer cells that have an overabundance of the protein marker that the poliovirus targets.
Janet S Butel is the Chairman and Distinguished Service Professor in the molecular virology and microbiology department at Baylor College of Medicine. Her area of expertise is on polyomavirus pathogenesis of infections and disease. She has more than 120 publications on PubMed. She also has 6 publications in Nature, which is considered one of the most prestigious science journals. She is a member of 9 different organizations and has 13 honors and awards.
Vaccine contamination with Simian vacuolating virus 40, known as SV40 occurred in the United States and other countries between 1955 and 1961.
The announcement of the polio vaccine's safety and effectiveness was on April 12, 1955, by Dr. Thomas Francis, Jr., of the University of Michigan, the monitor of the test results. Within minutes of his announcement to the audience of scientists and reporters, news of the event was carried coast to coast by wire services and radio and television newscasts. When the vaccine was announced as successful, therefore, it led to spontaneous celebrations across the United States. It was the world's first successful polio vaccine, declared “safe, effective, and potent.” It was possibly the most significant biomedical advance of the past century.
References
- ↑ Rogue virus in the vaccine: Early polio vaccine harbored virus now feared to cause cancer in humans, William Carlsen, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, July 15, 2001
- ↑ The Virus and the Vaccine, Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher, St. Martin's Press, 2004, ISBN 0-312-27872-1
- ↑ The Virus and the Vaccine official website
- ↑ "The Virus and the Vaccine", Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher, Atlantic Monthly, February 2000.
- ↑ The Virus and the Vaccine, The Reading Room, WNYC website.
- ↑ Who We Are, SV40 Cancer Foundation official website
- ↑ Demanding a Congressional Investigation into SV40, SV40 Cancer Foundation official website
- ↑ NIH/National Cancer Institute. "Studies Find No Evidence That Simian Virus 40 Is Related To Human Cancer." ScienceDaily, 25 August 2004. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/08/040825092736.htm.