Polio didn’t “rip” across the globe. It mainly affected first world countries that promoted heavy pesticide use. In fact, the main two countries that experienced infantile paralysis epidemics in the 1800s were the U.S. & Sweden—the two countries that invented their own pesticide.
Iron lungs were incredibly rare. At their peak, there were around 1,100 available in the entire United States (and not many more in other countries). Most people had never even seen one in the 1950s other than newsreels or a field trip to a single iron lung at the local hospital.
Compared to other illnesses, polio epidemics were never that bad. In 1952, the worst year for polio on record (besides a contested 1916 outbreak), polio killed 3,145. Many more died from syphilis (5,719), asthma (6,943), and tuberculosis (21,060).
People “dutifully” lined up to get polio shots because of massive government/corporate funding of propaganda films and marketing efforts designed to frighten. Without this, most parents wouldn’t have given much thought about polio compared to other illnesses.
The first Salk polio vaccine to be officially rolled out was plagued with manufacturing problems and ended up exposing tens of thousands of children to the live polio virus, paralyzing nearly 200 and killing at least 10.
Look up the Cutter Incident.
The program was shut down and it didn’t take the howling of governors or anti-vaxxers. It took common sense from scientists and public health officials who didn’t worship vaccines as the savior of humanity.
When the vaccine began being used again years later, it became clear it wasn’t working. A sample of 869 polio patients in Detroit revealed only 292 actually had a poliovirus infection. The rest had been diagnosed with polio incorrectly. Something else had paralyzed them.
The second polio vaccine came in the 1960s, well after polio had peaked. The Sabin oral polio actually worked but had a nasty side effect—paralysis. Even death.
The oral polio vaccine is currently the single biggest source of paralytic polio in the world.
Polio has never been eradicated. There are many viruses which cause paralysis in people, typically children, whose guts are made susceptible to catastrophic infections through aggressive pesticide use. The poliovirus is one of many microbes capable of causing paralysis.
“Saving lives” has become political because forced medical procedures, particularly with unknown side effect profiles, is the single most egregious act of violence a government can perpetrate against its people.
There is nothing more despicable.
Here's a longer, more thorough thread about all the stuff most people get wrong about polio. It's a fascinating example of things history got wrong:
Why do we kiss?
Is memory contagious?
Is instinct transmitted by something other than genetics?
Can we dream other people's memories? Other animals’ memories?
I researched the answer to these things & what I found changed everything I thought about science & life itself…
🧵👇
I’d always wondered what the evolutionary explanation for affection was. It serves no reproductive purpose. We kiss our children. Dogs lick our faces. Even animals who are supposedly enemies “kiss” each other.
The question is why?
There is apparently no evolutionary explanation for affection.
In the scientific context, it doesn’t make any sense. Many animals kiss, lick, preen, groom, and nuzzle for hours each day—time that could be spent hunting, eating, mating, or many other crucial functions.
One of the first things that changed 200 years ago that made milk dangerous? Silos. Yes, silos.
Before I started researching "The Germ in the Dairy Pail," I had no idea silos played a part in the downfall of milk. But they did.
Wanna know how? It's a crazy story...
Raw/unpasteurized was the only way humans drank milk from other animals for all of Creation. Every mammal drinks milk that way. Until the last 150 years, there wasn't a single mammal on the planet that made it past infancy without drinking raw, unpasteurized milk.
What changed?
The first big change came in the form of silos. Silos began appearing in the early 1800s & allowed farmers to store food to be eaten later by their cows. Summer has plenty of grass. Winter? Not so much.
So farmers stored up food for their animals in silos.
1. If you are a Christian, what you were taught about the Trinity is probably wrong. It’s one of the most commonly misunderstood things about the Christian faith. I want to share a few things about the Trinity to help clear some things up.
2. The Trinity is kind of like “vaccines” of the science world. No one can really explain it. You’re not allowed to question it. And if you ask for evidence of it, no one can seem to find anything definitive.
3. A few years ago, I started asking questions about the Trinity at church. The answers I got—and the way they were given to me—started to feel real familiar.
Exactly 5 years ago I published a book I hoped might change the world in a tiny way. It wasn't my first book, but it felt like it might be my most important.
I'd always wondered where polio came from. It was nearly unheard of until the 1890s. Then, seemingly out of nowhere...
In the 1890s, polio began to appear in the US. What would've caused this dreaded disease, once unknown, to become so much more prevalent than before?
For years, I’d heard about a supposed connection with DDT, the pesticide that began being used shortly after World War 2.
Some of the DDT/polio connections made sense, while others seemed farfetched. The biggest problem with DDT? It wasn’t used in the US until after World War 2.
If you’re a mother, or are thinking of having children, I want to share 9 tiny stories from history about doctors, medicine, mothers, and their children.
Please read this before you trust a single thing they say.
Throughout the 1800s, doctors believed “dentition,” or teething, was an extremely dangerous time for infants. All sorts of horrible diseases could enter their body. Their remedy? Mercury teething powders. Given to hundreds of thousands of infants—the original source of “polio.”
Around the same time, women giving birth in hospitals would have their babies delivered by doctors who refused to wash their hands—doctors who’d just performed autopsies & other gruesome procedures. The result? Thousands of women died while doctors insisted it wasn’t their fault.
My top 22 epiphanies, realizations, reluctant admissions, and random thoughts for 2022.
Let me know if I've left something important out!
Here they are (plus a few extras perhaps), in no particular order:
1. Hypocrisy isn’t a sign of mental weakness. It’s a sign of strength—a sign someone thinks they’re winning & can get their way on anything, no matter the irrationality.
Pointing out hypocrisy is just highlighting the side that’s winning.
Find some hypocrisy in your life today!
2. Email is still the best project management tool there is. It has search. It works as file storage. You can sort and organize. Everyone knows how to use it.
There are a bunch of other project management tools out there, but nothing beats email for flexibility and ease of use.