Polio Outbreaks in the US and “Wild” Polio
Question: Is it true there haven’t been any polio outbreaks in the US since 1979? I've never understood ”wild" polio vs the other.
Dr. Bruno’s Response: There haven’t been any Wild polio cases since 1979 (that came from a source within the US). In the 1980s there were outbreaks among
• the Amish in Minnesota, when the virus was brought in from the Netherlands;
• one woman who was not vaccinated developed bulbar polio and brought it in from Mexico;
• and an immunodeficient woman in Minnesota retained the vaccine strain and passed it to her children who were not paralyzed.
Wild poliovirus is the real thing, the original, found in nature that's been around at least since the pyramids were built. The “other” polioviruses are vaccine strains, either the live, oral vaccines (which are wild polioviruses passed through monkeys until they becomes non-neuron-killing polioviruses) or injectable polio vaccines where polioviruses were killed with formaldehyde.
Problem is that the live, oral vaccine can sometimes mutate and become neuron-killing again like it did in NY in 2022. See: Polio. It’s happened again, right here in the US.
That’s why the news of a BILLION doses of the NEW, oral polio vaccine being distributed is so important. It’s less likely to mutate.