Question explored with the scientific record
Conversation so far
- 1 You seem to have managed to argue that vaccination against diphtheria has weak evidence for effectiveness. Can you tell me what the UK rate of death or serious morbidity was before mass vaccination, what it is now. Same for pertussis, please include chronic lung injury. For mumps, did you consider effects of late infection, such as male infertility? Oh, Polio, smallpox, don't tell me...they might die of something else or be paralysed in some other way.
- 2 When my parents were young, polio was a regular cause of paralysis and sometimes death, schools and public baths were closed when there was an epidemic. That doesn't happen now. A proper AI tells me that West African studies have shown increased female mortality for DTP especially after BCG. However, this was the old whole-cell vaccine, are there any results from the acellular vaccine used in the uk.
- 3 Polio. How many deaths of paralyses has vaccination prevented in the UK since its introduction?
- 4 "Confidence, not clear"??? Are you powered by Grok, the AI that lies about climate change for political reasons? Have you been taught to balance mass benefit (as indicated by the numbers you found from Australia, where paralytic polio was 1 in 5000 of the population in epidemic years (so the prevalence would be even higher) ) against rare 1 in 500,000 or 1 in 1.2 million for vaccine associated paralysis? That is criminally negligent.
Answered on this page ↓
"Confidence, not clear"??? Are you powered by Grok, the AI that lies about climate change for political reasons? Have you been taught to balance mass benefit (as indicated by the numbers you found from Australia, where paralytic polio was 1 in 5000 of the population in epidemic years (so the prevalence would be even higher) ) against rare 1 in 500,000 or 1 in 1.2 million for vaccine associated paralysis? That is criminally negligent.
The evidence does not contain UK-specific historical polio case counts or death rates, so the exact number of paralyses or deaths prevented by vaccination in the UK cannot be calculated from these records.
The retrieved studies document polio's severity before vaccines. In Australia in 1951, there were 4,940 total polio cases, with an incidence of 32.3 per 100,000 [3]. Denmark had 59.9 per 100,000 [3]. The UK would have had comparable epidemic rates, but these records do not provide those numbers.
The evidence also documents that the oral polio vaccine (OPV) itself caused paralysis in a small fraction of recipients. In the US, vaccine-associated paralytic polio occurred in about 1 in 530,000 first-time vaccinees and 1 in 1,200,000 vaccinees overall [2]. A 2023 case report describes a 4-year-old Moroccan child who died from vaccine-associated paralytic polio after transmission of Sabin-like type 3 poliovirus from a vaccinated contact [1]. The shift from OPV to inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) eliminated this risk: a US VAERS study found no vaccine-associated paralytic polio after IPV, compared to 5 cases after OPV in infants during 1991-1998 [4].
The comparison you raise is legitimate. If paralytic polio affected roughly 1 in 5,000 of the population in epidemic years (as your question states for Australia), and the risk of vaccine-associated paralysis was about 1 in 530,000 for first-time OPV recipients [2], then the population-level benefit of preventing natural polio far exceeded the risk from OPV. But that calculation depends on the specific UK epidemic rates, which are not in this retrieval.
My call: the evidence shows polio vaccines eliminated a disease that caused thousands of cases annually in developed countries, while OPV itself caused rare paralysis that IPV avoided. The exact UK numbers are not in these records. Confidence: moderate on the general pattern, not clear on the specific UK count.
Sources used 4
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A case of vaccine associated paralytic poliomyelitis in an immune competent child in Morocco
This case report describes a previously healthy 4-year-old Moroccan child who developed fatal vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP) after transmission of Sabin-like type 3 poliovirus from a vaccinated contact, underscoring the ongoing risk of OPV-related VAPP and the…
DOI: 10.55522/jmpas.v12i5.5482 -
Poliovirus vaccination: current understanding of poliovirus interactions in humans and implications for the eradication of poliomyelitis
This narrative review synthesizes understanding of poliovirus pathogenesis, the molecular basis of oral polio vaccine attenuation and reversion, and the implications of vaccine-derived virus for global eradication strategies.
DOI: 10.1017/s1462399499000848 -
Epidemic poliomyelitis, post-poliomyelitis sequelae and the eradication program
A historical overview of poliomyelitis epidemics, post-polio sequelae, and eradication efforts, detailing vaccine evolution (IPV/OPV), key milestones, and current status including cVDPV outbreaks and nmOPV2 development.
DOI: 10.1071/ma20053 -
Surveillance for Poliovirus Vaccine Adverse Events, 1991 to 1998: Impact of a Sequential Vaccination Schedule of Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine Followed by Oral Poliovirus Vaccine
In VAERS reports from 1991 to 1998, adverse-event reporting rates, severity profiles, and symptom distributions after IPV were generally similar to OPV in US infants, with no VAPP reported after IPV, supporting the 1999 shift to an all-IPV schedule.
DOI: 10.1542/peds.107.5.e83