Doctors link polio to West Nile virus

Boston Globe ^ | September 24, 2002 | Stephen Smith

[sarcasm]

In case reports released yesterday, stunned neurologists in Mississippi and Georgia describe the conditions of four patients suffering from the hobbled limbs, impaired breathing, and fevers that are the hallmark of polio, a disease essentially eradicated in the United States.

[sarcasm]

ping

[backhoe]

You know what I think... I'll cross-link it:

West Nile Virus- Bring Back DDT?

100 things you should know about DDT

-West Nile Virus- some basic information--

[piasa]

Couldn't a little genetic fiddling put some material from one disease into the guise of another?

I'm no biochemist, but I've run into articles on bioweapons research, and isn't this part of the effort? By inserting material, say polio, from one pathogen into another, say west nile, you make it that much more difficult to identify and treat, because the tests will say one thing while the symptoms say another. This can effectively prevent the target from becoming alerted until the stuff has already been widely spread, and because of the mixed properties it can be harder to diagnose and harder to treat.

[THEUPMAN]

Do you think this will be enough to make some of the "it couldn't be terrorism" crowd to rethink their position?

[backhoe]

DDT isn't coming back.

Don't bet on that...

[krodriguesdc]

yeah - this is definitely par for the course...

I guess we need another great vaccine to solve this as well...

[eno_]

Everyone who minimized West Nile in the media should be hanged with piano wire from the nearest lamppost. It is already far deadlier than Eastern Equine Encephalitis. And the "it's only old people" drumbeat from the minimizers is just grotesque.

[syriacus]

Interesting --- and scary.

These two diseases have a similar relationship to water.

The Polio bug could be found in water that was lying around. (I think I remember kids in the 3rd world could develop immunity to polio because they played in that contaminated water.)

Water also plays a role in West Nile--as the breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry it.

[dawn53]

stunned neurologists

The medications the man had received initially, Leis said, could have killed him

''I thought, `This is extremely unusual - this can't be,''' Leis said. ''How can a virus, in this case West Nile, change its clinical properties to such a marked degree? It had typically not presented this way.''

This information should be disseminated to anyone you know living in a WNV area. You'll notice the guy thinks it "can't be" because it hasn't "typically" presented "this way."

Trust me on this one, if we've got to rely on neurologists to diagnose this, we could be in big trouble. Doctors are going to have to think "outside the box" in order to diagnose this.

Ask anybody with MS about the diagnosis process and you'll know that neurologists can be "fence sitters" when it comes to making a diagnosis.

Should be interesting to watch this develop.

[foolscap]

This is very frightening indeed. I care for a man who has been a quadraapeligic since 1959 due to polio. The fact that he is still alive is amazing. It is rare now days to meet someone who has been through this devastating illness.

I was speaking to my girlfriend in CO over the weekend and she said at her church she met a young woman in her late 30's who had contacted West Nile back east early this summer. She was there for prayer since she in now confined to a wheelchair and doctors have no idea if she will ever walk again. It seems that the medical profession has really been flying blind on this one. One would think that since West Nile is more common in other parts of the world these polio like symptoms would have been reported before now. It makes you wonder if this is really West Nile or a virus that has been altered.

[backhoe]

An old friend of mine ( now deceased ) had polio as a child, long before vaccines existed... the first time I met him, when I was a tiny boy, I thought he was another child, his growth was so stunted. It's an awful disease.

Billy Tucker lived into his 70's, and did manage to support himself by running a telephone answering service- he trained himself to recall verbatim everything he heard. Truly remarkable!

Like you, I think there is reason to suspect a malign human hand behind this stuff...

[blam]

"Trust me on this one, if we've got to rely on neurologists to diagnose this, we could be in big trouble. Doctors are going to have to think "outside the box" in order to diagnose this."

I'm worried about this. I have taken my 85 year old mother to the doctor twice already with muscle and joint pain, she was prescribed Vioxx the first time and had a bad reaction to it. (Same happened with my 74 year old aunt). She has been prescribed Lodine on the second visit. I have been experiencing unusual joint pain myself. I don't like this one bit.

Fox News reported once yesterday that there were six people in Mississippi who were paralyzed from WNV. (Something is going on)

[Tiger28]

I was speaking to my girlfriend in CO over the weekend and she said at her church she met a young woman in her late 30's who had contacted West Nile back east early this summer

a young mother in her 30's died in NJ (bergen county)of west nile (on her death certificate) this summer and i was shocked when this went completely unreported here. they are only reporting the elderly victims...

[porte des morts]

Everyone who minimized West Nile in the media....

It wasn't just the media. There is a large block right here on FR that will tell you it only kills birds and old sick folks. Not to worry, no big deal. If you show the increase in cases and increased severity, and you should never mention bio/chem weapons research by other nations..because then you are of course a tin-foiler.

[xp38]

It has spread to Canada too. Already a death or two and a handful infected. Plenty of minimizers in government, medicine and the media here.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

Any bets on how bad WNV will be next year? Or worse, will we have gone through something to make us forget about the 'good old days' of WNV? (A smallpox attack, for example.)

What I can't figure is why WNV has been so mild in Connecticut -- only seven cases, and no deaths this year. We have plenty of mosquitoes, and plenty of carrier birds. Maybe we don't have a lot of the Culex mosquito.

I still believe my father contracted some form of encephalitis last year, from which he has never recovered. My guess was St. Louis encephalitis (he lived in Houston, about two blocks from one of the locations where a SLE-carrying mosquito was found). But it could well have been WNV. We may never know for sure what caused him to take ill the way he did.

[js1138]

I think you might be confusing symptoms with cause. This article is rather confusing, but I read it to mean that "polio" is a generic term for any disease that causes paralysis by attacking nerve fibers.

Is there a doctor in the house?

[piasa]

There's no telling with journalists these days since few of them took science or math in school. The first part of the article leads you to think the stuff is able to somehow cause polio, and the headline too, but of course that's to be expected since hysteria sells newspapers. The latter part of the article implies more of a polio-like symptom associated with West Nile, which seems more plausible.

But what I was referring to was the possibility of deliberate manipulation of the genes by replacing part of the strand with a section from something else, and wondering if this could be done with WN and polio and if the results would be worth the effort for some scuzzball, or would they produce similar symptoms. Presumably the genome of both would have to be mapped out first, but I simply don't know.

[js1138]

Viruses causes different symptoms in different populations. West Nile is probably more severe in the U.S. because we haven't lived with it.

Now if you suspect the cases are due to deliberate introduction, I'm paranoid enough to listen to that. It wouldn't take much effort.

[piasa]

Polio as far as I know isn't a generic term- last time I heard it was a specific virus, which is why we were all able to be immunized to it. Whether it's used correctly here or is just referring to similar symptoms, is another story.

[okie01]

Food for thought ping.

The Iraqi defector's report had it that Saddam's labs had somehow altered WNV...

[js1138]

Just out of curiosity I did a net search on the word "polio". One interesting link was labeled "Buy polio products." Intrigued, I clicked on and was led to eBay, where I found 24 bits of memorabilia for sale.

[Mitchell]

The Iraqi defector's report had it that Saddam's labs had somehow altered WNV...

Yes, that was what the defector Mikhael Ramadan said. And he said it months before the outbreak in New York. I've read nothing specific, however, about the specific effects of the supposed strain of the various except that it was said to be very virulent. We don't know, for instance, if it produced polio-like symptoms.

Ramadan's book, "In the Shadow of Saddam," seems hard to find, unfortunately.

[goldstategop]

The enviro wackos affection for mosquitoes has brought back polio to the United States. I hope the good nature lovers are happy with the sight of people having to be tethered to an iron lung for the rest of their lives.

[blam]

Evening bump.

[dasboot]

PING
I told you I got it.

[realpatriot71]

Actually the damage associated with both viruses occurs because they replicate and kill cells found in the CNS. No variation to WNV would really be necessary in this case.

[realpatriot71]

Do you think this will be enough to make some of the "it couldn't be terrorism" crowd to rethink their position?

Respectfully - no

[realpatriot71]

Trust me on this one, if we've got to rely on neurologists to diagnose this, we could be in big trouble. Doctors are going to have to think "outside the box" in order to diagnose this.

In defense of the docs, you spend all day long dealing with "horses" so I wouldn't be too hard on them when they don't immediately notice the "zebras" that show up very rarely. The body of knowledge within even a sub-specialty is so great that no one single human being can have cognitive access to it at a single moment. Sometimes a take a while and a bit of work to show alternatives as rational a differential diagnosis.

[RnMomof7]

Will the normal Polio vaccine protect from this strain?..yea I have never had them...:>)

[realpatriot71]

I have been experiencing unusual joint pain myself.

Good - not the pain - but this means, outside of any other described symptoms, you DON'T have any muscle paralysis that would be associated with polio or WNV.

[realpatriot71]

Will the normal Polio vaccine protect from this strain?

No - different families of viruses

[RnMomof7]

Glad I did not waste my time of the Salk or Sabin then

[Vince Ferrer]

How about Bats

[the_doc]

I agree with your interpretation of the article. Salk's polio virus is not necessarily even related to the West Nile virus.

Of course, today's OPV vaccine would not be expected to protect against West Nile virus (nor vice versa when a WN vaccine is distributed).

[the_doc]

I doubt it. See my #38.

[texasbluebell]

bump

[Heartlander2]

You mention Ramadam in your message regarding his report on Saddam's labs -- here is a link to a story titled "West Nile Mystery" that appeared in New Yorker in 1999 by Robert Preston (remember "The Hot Zone"?). The article relays ramadan's story... worth the read. According to the story, Saddam's remake of the West Nile Virus causes a 97% fatality rate.

http://www.newsmakingnews.com/artwestnilenewyorker.htm

[backhoe]

Locator bttt^

[Mitchell]

Thanks very much for the link to the Preston article. I didn't know that that article was on-line; I had only checked the New Yorker web site for it, without success.

[meadsjn]

Water also plays a role in West Nile--as the breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry it.

There have been no less than a half dozen stories since 9/11 of middle-eastern tourists caught on or near reservoirs taking pictures, and then being released.

[Amelia]

I've been wondering for a while if West Nile might be bioterror. Showed up unexpectedly, spreading so rapidly...

[syriacus]

There have been no less than a half dozen stories since 9/11 of middle-eastern tourists caught on or near reservoirs taking pictures, and then being released.

True. I remember thinking, when they were found near some of the bodies of water, that maybe they were poisoning the water or planning to release the water. Maybe they were spreading West Nile somehow.

[meadsjn]

I'm not sure whether mosquito eggs are clustered in the early stages, but there should be some freepers with some bug expertise.

It seems logical that getting contaminated insect eggs into the country would be much easier than smuggling insects. Getting vials of contaminated blood in would be even easier, then using the blood to feed the developing critters somehow. It probably wouldn't even require highly trained people, just "mix this with the eggs and drop it in the water".

With the flu season approaching, every sympathizer will be going to further extremes to discount every reported "unrelated" incident.

[jcmfreedom]

What you say makes sense. It's also very alarming. If we have been struck by a super bioweapon, this is just the beginning. We will be struck by something else. Catch us by surprise. If the people of the U.S. knew that we have already been attacked, we would be bombing Iraq yesterday with the support of the world.

[jcmfreedom]

I am beginning to think there is a massive coverup going on....somebody knows something!

[Nebullis]

In defense of the docs, you spend all day long dealing with "horses" so I wouldn't be too hard on them when they don't immediately notice the "zebras" that show up very rarely.

Differentials are all about probabilities, true. But in this case, it's well known that horses show paralysis from WNV.