Thread by @akoz33

So here is the promised translation of a part of Latynina’s latest talk, whi h concerns the amazing story of the creation of the two versions of the polio vaccine by two American Jews, sons of immigrants from Russia who were also bitter rivals. One vaccine was adopted in the USA

and the other, almost miraculously, in the USSR. And it’s all now relevant to the current epidemic.

I will tell you now about what is, in my opinion, a terrific idea. Because, how would you react if you were told that a coronavirus vaccine already exists, and that it is over 60 years old, and that it costs 10 cents, that you just a drop in your mouth,

that is, you don’t need any syringes, and that it has practically no side effects, and that billions of people all over the world have already been vaccinated with it?

The strangest thing is that this is probably true and that we are talking about the oral live polio vaccine with one significant caveat, of course, this vaccine does not give 100 percent immunity against COVID and, unfortunately, does not give it forever.

It simply increases the body’s natural immunity, like all live vaccines, for several weeks, thereby drastically reducing the likelihood of infection.

It’s easy to imagine how important it is when doctors get sick right now, hospitals become breeding grounds for infections, and that’s just what can prevent it. And I don’t even want to mention that our state can get the bright idea :”Let’s inoculate the cops & the Rosgvardia so

they don’t become sick in these important times.”

So I’ll say right away that these live vaccines stimulate the innate immune system and it is well known that they protect not only from the disease against which they are directed,

but they put the whole body into a protective mode for some time and make it produce proteins that inhibit the reproduction of any virus.
That is, in fact, there is a partially understandable, partially incomprehensible mechanism, which, of course,

is not for me to describe here, but, in principle, it consists in the fact that interferon begins to be produced in the body, it spreads throughout the body, it launches cascades that activate the work genes, they direct the work of antiviral proteins.

And, of course, in general, processes in the cell are simply turned off, without which the virus cannot multiply. For example, a cell stops protein synthesis for some time, or a cell for some time begins to destroy RNA, including its own, because it will restore its own RNA,

but the virus will die in that time.

I think it’s easier to explain what the cell does at a moment, when it either a virus or a live vaccine gets inside it. And it seems to me that this can be compared to a bank robbery.

Here the cell signals that someone has penetrated into it, like into a bank. The alarm goes off, the grilles fall, armed riot police come running. It is clear that in this state the bank cannot function for a long time, because it actually has a different task.

Its task is to issue money, loans and so on. At this extreme moment, the bank becomes self-isolating. That’s is a cell, when a live vaccine gets into it, it also becomes self-isolating for a while.

Instead of sending the whole body, a person to self-isolation, you can send the person’s cells intoto self-isolation for a while.
And at the very beginning of the epidemic, people remembered BCG - this is a live vaccine for tuberculosis, which, incidentally, is

not the best vaccine, because it does not protect against tuberculosis very well and also creates complications. And now the oral polio vaccine, which was used around the world for a long time, until poliomyelitis practically disappeared,

and when it was used, especially in developing countries, it was clear that it reduced the infant mortality rate from other infections by 30%. But when it was used in Europe, naturally, infant mortality did not decrease, because there was nothing to decrease.

But the frequency of visits to a doctor decreased.

And there was a terrific experiment in the 70s in the Soviet Union, when another flu epidemic was coming. And at GAZ, they inoculated workers on several conveyors. One control group was left unvaccinated.

And the inoculated conveyors continued to work and the other control group had to be stopped, because everyone got sick. That is, it turned out that the decrease in incidence was 75%. And the vaccine, therefore, helped against the flu better than, in fact, the influenza

vaccine. The story of this vaccine is very interesting. It was created by an American. His name was Albert Seybin. But it was applied for the first time massively in the Soviet Union. Seibin’s partner and colleague was a man named Mikhail Chumakov - he was the most prominent

Soviet virologist. That is, given that the case took place in the 50s, it was just an amazing case of cooperation between the two superpowers at the height of the Cold War, a kind of Soyuz Apollo in virology.

Remember that polio was a very dangerous disease. It, in fact, is eliminated now in Russia and in the USA. But at the beginning of the 20th century, of course, it caused panic among all parents, because the poliovirus that multiplies in the stomach, is excreted in large

quantities with feces, and usually gets into the mouth through contaminated water. For the most part, it is asymptomatic, but in about half a percent of cases, the virus enters the central nervous system and then it causes a partial or complete paralysis, or even death.

Treatments still do not exist.

And when 2 thousand children died in New York in the 16th year or when the future American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt fell ill with polio, and later - at 39 years old, as a result he was paralyzed and moved in a wheelchair, then this,

of course, caused an absolute panic. And, in fact, Roosevelt's disease played a rather large role in the fight against polio, because, in particular, under the influence of the president, they mzde a great effort to develop a vaccine.

And finally, in 1955, the American virologist Jonos Salk of the University of Pittsburgh received FDA approval for the production and use of the first vaccine in human history. It was a dead vaccine, that is, they took the virus, killed it with formalin

and administered it to the child. The results were excellent. Salk immediately turned into a savior of the nation, and became incredibly rich.

But Salk had a rival Albert Seybin, who I just spoke about, who, unlike Salk, tried to create a live vaccine, and he understood that a live vaccine gives a more reliable, lifelong immunity.

And it is clear that these two people did not like each other very much, because Seibin, of course, was envious of how Salk instantly blossomed, and Salk ... how to tell you ... Virologists said that Salk's scientific achievements were rather modest and boiled down to getting a

lot of money for work that any medical student could do. And, accordingly, Seibin name was often mentioned an example, calling of a real scientist, and, of course, this drove Salk to fury.

And by 1955, Seibin was making a live vaccine. And, by the way, it’s very funny, because both Salk’s and Seybin’s parents were Jewish immigrants from Tsarist Russia, that is, they from the same environment.

And now, in 1955, Seibin makes his vaccine. It is clear that it is practically impossible to test it in the USA en masse, because - how? Salk does not like Seibin, he is the number one virologist hero. And, naturally, Seibin inculcated himself, volunteers and his family.

But he needed tests for millions.

And then he remembered that he had once come from the city of Bialystok, Grodno province of the Russian Empire. He was the son of Jacob Saperstein and Tsili Krugman. Came to America when he was 15 years old.

And Seibin turns to the Soviet Union, which also suffers from polio. And the Soviet Union in a centralized a totalitarian power - so it can inoculate millions of people. And he finds an ally - Mikhail Chumakov.

Actually, he brings the first batch of his vaccine in a suitcase and vaccinates people from a suitcase, including Chumakov’s children.
And it is clear that the Soviet Ministry of Health is suspicious of this at first, because - eell, the Americans are using another vaccine

for themselves and they brought some suspicious other vaccine, live, here and want to vaccinate all Russian children. Sounds like clear enemy sabotage. Remember, this is 1955.

And then Mikhail Chumakov, the Soviet Union’s top virologists, sneaks into a government office, picks up a phone, and calls Anastas Mikoyan. He knew Mikoyan. Ss the result the party and the government gave a chumakov the task of saving the people from the poliovirus.

Here is the dialogue between them. Mikoyan asks: “But do you believe, do you vouch for it?” Chumakov says, “Yes.” So Mikoyan gave the order.
And the unprecedented total vaccination campaign begins. By 1959 10 million Soviet children are vaccinated, and a few months later the

entire population of the Soviet Union. The Babaev factory makes a sweet dragee with a vaccine. Children swallow this dragee. The vaccine costs almost nothing compared to the Salk vaccine. No sterile syringes are needed. Vaccination stations are everywhere:

in hospitals, schools, kindergartens. Actually, this cheapness for the Soviet Union was one of the main advantages.

And polio in the USSR was eradicated. Then this vaccine was used very widely in developing countries.

A curious thing is that later it was used in America. It returned to America because Salk had a great setback, for which he was not responsible. One batch of vaccines that was prepared dead was not killed. Some viruses remained there, out of a thousand particles, one remained

alive. And 250 children were infecte and were paralyzed. And everyone began to point fingers. And here the Seibin vaccine triumphantly returned to America. And Seybin received the Order of Friendship of Peoples.

But with Mikhail Chumakov and with his ideas, everything went much worse, because the system did not forgive his call to Mikoyan. After that a lot of his projects were rejected.

And there was even the incredible but true story of what happened when he developed a live measles vaccine, which was used throughout Ukraine. The authorities did not like it. The vaccine was perfectly good but

millions of doses of the developed vaccine were destroyed in an autoclave.
And especially the system did not like the tests that I'm talking about - the possibility of using a live vaccine against seasonal epidemics by temporarily increasing innate immunity.

The wife of Mikhail Chumakov, Marina Voroshilova, was engaged in this. Many of her works have not even been published. But in the West, too, this was not considered particularly interesting, because, listen, who needs to have a flu vaccine for 10 cents,

if you can spend billions on its creation?

Actually, why am I saying this because now this story has also surfaced actively in America. It surfaced with the filings by two people. One is the famous American virologist Dr. Robert Gallo,

who is better known as the discoverer of HIV. And the other is the son of Mikhail Chumakov, Konstantin Chumakov, who now holds the post of deputy director of vaccine science at the FDA. He is one of our compatriots who has made one of the greatest careers in American virology.

The Chumakovs had four sons. Two are now abroad, two in Russia. So if our bosses need advice, it’s not necessary to contact America. The Chumakovs are also in Russia. They have now propagated throughout the world.