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From what I know of history, I know that Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not like to be photgraphed sitting in his wheelchair. So when I saw this photo of Bill Clinton unveiling a statue of FDR at the San Juan, Puerto Rico Capitol Building on 4/7/08, I went to work. I contacted the FDR Library, and asked them the following qeustion: "On Monday, April 7, 2008, Bill Clinton unveiled a statue of FDR at the Capitol Building in San Juan, Puerto Rico. From what I recall, FDR went through great lengths and was always trying his hardest not to...

Ok, this is the first I've heard of this---maybe I just don't read "Scientific American" enough---but Sundance Channel had a "documentary" called "The Origin of AIDs." Before you flame, I know all about Sundance, which is why I'm asking for evidence and sources! The program, researching a book by Michael Hooper (a journalist, not a doctor), claims that AIDs was an accidental human creation that resulted from using chimpanzee tissue as a culture in African labs by a U.S. researcher named Koprowski who was trying to beat Sabin to an oral polio vaccing. There was a conference on Hooper's book,...

LONDON - A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed. It is a frightening paradox in a part of the world that already distrusts western vaccines, making it even tougher to stamp out age-old diseases. The outbreak was caused by the live polio virus that is used in vaccines given orally — the preferred method in developing countries because it is cheaper and doesn't require medical training to dispense.

A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed. It is a frightening paradox in a part of the world that already distrusts western vaccines, making it even tougher to stamp out age-old diseases. The outbreak was caused by the live polio virus that is used in vaccines given orally — the preferred method in developing countries because it is cheaper and doesn't require medical training to dispense. "This vaccine is the most effective tool we have against the virus, but it's like fighting fire...

In Pakistan, thousands of parents refused to allow health workers to administer polio vaccinations to their children last month, mostly due to rumors that the harmless vaccine was an American plot to sterilize innocent Muslim children. The disinformation -- spread by clerics using mosque loudspeakers -- has caused a sharp jump in polio cases in Pakistan. The scaremongering and appeals to Islam echoed a similar campaign in the Nigerian state of Kano in 2003, where the disease then spread to 12 polio-free countries over the following 18 months. Pakistan is one of just four countries where polio remains endemic. The...

Islamist militants claim vaccines are US plot By Isambard Wilkinson in Peshawar Last Updated: 2:10am GMT 17/02/2007 A doctor was killed by a roadside bomb in Pakistan today as Islamist militants tried to halt a polio immunisation campaign which, they say, is an American plot to sterilise Muslims. Dr. Abdul Ghani was killed and three guards wounded after he visited a mullah, or religious leader, in Salarzai, a village in Bajaur tribal region in the borderlands with Afghanistan. "It was a remote-controlled bomb," said an intelligence official in Khar, Bajaur's main town. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. Dr...

(CP) - The new head of the World Health Organization took office Thursday, urging the world to remain vigilant against the threat of H5N1 avian influenza and warning that complacency endangers efforts to prepare for the next influenza pandemic. Dr. Margaret Chan also said WHO will review its polio eradication strategy with scientists, financial donors and affected countries in coming months to try to determine how to finally complete the 18-year-old campaign to drive the polio virus out of humankind worldwide. "We need to have a balanced view," Chan said of the threat that H5N1 might trigger a flu pandemic....

By studying chimpanzee droppings in remote African jungles, scientists reported yesterday, they have found direct evidence of a missing link between a chimpanzee virus and the one that causes human AIDS. Scientists have long suspected that chimpanzees are the source of the human AIDS pandemic because at least one subspecies carries a simian immune deficiency virus closely related to H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. But because the simian virus, known as S.I.V.cpz, was identified in chimpanzees in captivity, researchers could not be sure that the same simian virus existed among these apes in the wild. It does, the team...

Almost two centuries ago, a small band of national patriots joined Texans to launch a battle for freedom and sent a unifying rallying cry through out our nation "Remember The Alamo!" Our nation is being threatened by a new Alamo, and the army is between 12 million and 20 million strong. The army is one that is creeping, walking, swimming and being driven in shadowy caravans across our nation's state borders. Instead of being armed with weapons of violence, this army is simply overwhelming American health care, education, and justice systems by refusing to enter our country legally. But the...

When dinosaurs roam the earth, these days, they often do it in wheelchairs. Just ask self-styled poliomyelitis-saurs Sherry Flansburg and Joan Bruhn, polio survivors whose increasingly weakened muscles, symptoms of Post Polio Syndrome, have forced them into wheelchairs recently, decades after contracting polio. Flansburg first heard she was a dinosaur about 20 years ago, around the time PPS began to be recognized in the medical community. "I had a very good doctor tell me that if you need something, Sherry, you let me know and we'll talk about it because you're a dinosaur, and they don't teach us how to...

A fast-moving and deadly outbreak of polio has erupted in Namibia, in southern Africa. The country had been free of polio for a decade. The outbreak is unrelated to the one that began spreading from Nigeria in 2004 through several countries in central Africa and the Arabian peninsula, and is unusual in that it is striking mostly adults, according to the World Health Organization. Most children in Namibia have been vaccinated, but most adults have not. The disease has killed 7 Namibians and paralyzed 33 more, driving panicked citizens to swarm hospitals seeking immunization. But because there was very little...

New outbreak as polio refuses to go quietly 17:44 07 June 2006 NewScientist.com news service Linda Geddes Namibia is suffering its first polio outbreak in more than a decade, setting back hopes that the disease might be eradicated from the world by the end of 2006. Three human cases of wild polio virus have been confirmed in Namibia so far, while a further 33 cases - including six deaths - are currently being investigated, say officials from the World Health Organization. The last recorded case of the disease in the country was in 1996. The Namibian outbreak is the latest...

Polio Vaccine Declared Safe and Effective (1955) Jonas Salk was the American physician who developed the polio vaccine. It was first tested on monkeys and then on patients at the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children. In 1952, Salk tested the vaccine on volunteering parties, including himself, his laboratory staff, his wife, and his children. In 1954, national testing began on one million children, aged 6 to 9, who became known as the Polio Pioneers. On April 12, 1955, the vaccine was declared safe and effective. How does the vaccine work?

BAREILLY, India — The cry went up the moment the polio vaccination team was spotted — "Hide your children!" Some families slammed doors on the two volunteers going house to house with polio drops in this teeming city's decrepit maze of lanes, saying that they feared the vaccine would sicken or sterilize their children, or simply that they were fed up with the long drive to eradicate polio. "We have a lot of other problems, and you don't care about those," shouted one woman from behind a locked door. "All you have is drops. My children get other diseases, and...

There was a post I saw yesterday concerning a man married to someone with polio for over 50 years. How he stayed with her constantly. Does anyone know the title or have a thread to the post? It would be most appreciated. I tried searching using polio and iron lung but could not find it. I thank you in advance for any assistance.

LONG PRAIRIE, Minn. - Polio was pronounced dead in the Western Hemisphere years ago, after one of the most successful public health campaigns in history. But now it is stealing through a tiny Amish community here in central Minnesota, spreading from an 8-month-old girl to four children on two neighboring farms. So far, no one has been crippled by the disease; only 1 in 200 cases of polio results in paralysis. But worried public health officials say it may be only a matter of time. The story of how polio came to this dairy farming community of 24 families, with...

Associated Press ST. PAUL, Minn. — Four children in an Amish community in Minnesota have contracted the polio virus — the first known infections in the U.S. in five years, state health officials said yesterday. Dr. Harry Hull, the state epidemiologist, said the cases do not pose a threat to the general public because most people have been vaccinated against polio and are unlikely to have contact with Amish people. But he said he expects to find more infections within the Amish community because some of its members refuse immunizations on religious grounds. None of the children have shown any...

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Dr. Harry Hull, the state epidemiologist, said the cases do not pose a threat to the general public because most people have been vaccinated against polio (search) and are unlikely to have contact with Amish people. But he said he expects to find more infections within the Amish community because some of its members refuse immunizations on religious grounds. None of the children have shown any symptoms of the paralyzing disease. About one in 200 people who contract the polio virus suffer paralysis because of it; others typically rid themselves the virus after weeks or months....

Two Democratic Governors, Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Janet Napolitano of Arizona, have declared a state of emergency and asked for federal help to deal with the costs of the violence and property damage caused by illegal aliens coming over their southern borders. If President Bush lets these partisan Democrats get to the right of him on the immigration issue, all Republicans will suffer in the next election. Dr. Madeleine Cosman, Esq. is a national authority on the diseases brought into our country by illegal aliens, who of course are not given health examinations required of all legal immigrants....

A decade ago, polio had been virtually eradicated in most developing nations, including Muslim countries. In 2001, it reached an all-time low, with only 483 cases reported worldwide.In the past two years, the virus has begun to spread again. So far this year, 1,004 new cases have been reported globally...Troubling aspects of the resurgence are its concentration in the Muslim world and the poor response by wealthy Islamic governments to help. Of the $4 billion spent to eradicate polio since 1988, only $3.5 million -- less than 1 percent -- has come from members of the Organization of the Islamic...