The WHOs Global Polio EmergencyDid you hear? The World Health Organization declared that the spread of polio is an international health emergency. You cant possibly have missed this. I dont have a t.v. and somehow I found out about this crisis. Polio is all over the news which I find completely ironic considering it was mumps last week, measles the week before, chicken pox, and whooping cough before that. Theres a theme hereclearly. Next week it will be Hep B, tetanus, or maybe anthrax? Ive read the articles and Ive seen the pictureslike this one from the BBCs website (which may have led to a silent scream inside my head). I know, this might be asking the obvious here, but for the sake of not jumping to any conclusions, is that 417 cases of vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP) or wild polio? You see, the boy in the picture above is getting the oral polio vaccine which we finally stopped using in the United States in 2000 because, for 27 years there were more cases of vaccine-associated paralytic polio in our country than wild-strain polio due to this monstrosity of a vaccine. Apparently its not good enough for our children anymore, but totally okay for the babies in third-world countries. Heres what the CDC says about VAPP from the oral polio vaccine: So let me get this straight: the oral polio vaccine can cause vaccine-associated paralytic polio, sheds and infects others, and has changed over time and behaves more like the wild virus its supposed to protect us against? Is that code formutated vaccine virus? Logic of course would suggest we should all get vaccinated. Its cool, we will just cross our fingers and hope we dont get paralysis or that the virus doesnt mutate and infect other populations. If it does, well just pretend the vaccine has nothing to do with it and push more vaccines since eradicating paralysis with something that causes paralysis makes compete sense. The Case Conundrum Secondly, Im not trying to downplay the numbers here but were up 24 cases world-wide and were freaking out and causing mass hysteria and anger towards the unvaccinated why? According to CNN there were 74 cases of reported polio in 10 different countries including Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Somalia, Syria, and Kenya. Three countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria have never seen polio eradicated and 59 of the 74 cases occurred in Pakistan. So weve got 15 other cases split up between 9 other countries? These epidemics (which according to the WHO, need only comprise of one individual) have nothing to do with the unvaccinated and everything to do with the fact that these countries have contaminated food and water, poor sanitation and hygiene, utilization of the oral polio vaccine, and still spray DDT on everything. Problem here? In case you didnt hear this on the news, we used to spray the highly toxic DDT on everything too and the people who were paralyzed as a resultwere diagnosed with polio. DDT paralyzes mosquitos but it also paralyzes people. If we worked as hard to get other countries to ban DDT as we do shoving vaccines at everyone we might see polio eradicated from these countries too. A Good Polio Freak-Out Im all for a good polio freak-out but lets do this properly. First, lets put things in perspective, we have 74 cases of polio out of a roughly 7 billion, 237 million+ world population and 80% of people infected live in a single country that has never been polio-free. Second, lets figure out if these polio-symptoms or paralysis are actually due to polio, or something else. If it is polio, lets determine whether its vaccine-strain, or wild (though its sad we even have to do that), and lets see if its a polio strain the vaccine actually provides temporary (if any) immunity to. I am not anti-World Health Organization and I too would love to see diseases minimized in our world, but if you really want to eradicate polio, put the OPV drops away. Aint nobody want paralysis and shedding, mutating, viruses. Get these peeps some clean water, some good food, a clean place to poop, and I dont knowmaybe some soap? Megan Heimer has a bachelors in political science, a law degree, and is a naturopath, registered yoga teacher, and certified natural health educator. Shes married to a Physician and blogs about all things alternative medicine, whole foods, healthy living, and attachment parenting atwww.LivingWhole.org Viral polio, like cholera and typhoid are fecal to oral diseases. 