The theme of the PIC publications continues with minimization of the disease and maximization or obfuscation of vaccine side effects. Duplicate points in this set of two information sheets from PIC are only addressed once.

About 1 in 200 to 1 in 2,000 (0.5%–0.05%) polio infections result in paralysis (paralytic poliomyelitis),³ and more than 84% of those cases recover without disability

This statement comes from studies that are more than 70 years old indicating a correlation between those who rest during polio illness, and not having paralysis after they recover from the acute illness. Note that these studies are very small and not clearly generalizeable. Let me be very clear – in calculating the risk-benefit ratio, most people would prefer not being paralyzed versus being paralyzed when the choice of paralysis depends on if you sleep. In addition, if the reader assesses the study directly, the study is simply an observational study, which carries multiple different possible sources of confounding. I could observe that the number of times I go biking correlates with the number of times I hear the ice cream truck, but clearly these events do not cause each other. Modern research indicates that the subtype of poliovirus is the most relevant factor influencing whether or not the patient is paralyzed, not whether or not there was some rest. I repeat – since the message is so important, if there is actual paralysis on the line, meaning permanent loss of leg use, there is no reason to put that up to a roll of the dice.

71.4% of bulbar (brainstem) paralytic poliomyelitis cases have no tonsils.

This statement while benign on the surface, carries multiple levels of deception. First off, the authors don’t reveal to you that there are multiple different locations that polio can affect the nervous system, and the brainstem is in a minority of those cases. Next up, we need to briefly introduce the tonsils – they are one of the only lymph nodes (part of your immune system) that you can see with your eyes. While it is true that prior tonsil removal carries some increased risk of polio infection, that risk is mitigated by vaccination. It would be incorrect to then criticize the procedure of taking the tonsils out, because that procedure too has legitimate medical indications. A real life analogy to this would be to stop driving because you fear dogs walking in front of the car. The correct response in that scenario is to train your driving skills so that you don’t risk hitting the dog.

Because polio resolves on its own in most cases, usually only supportive treatment is necessary. The most important treatment is rest after feeling sick, as not doing so significantly elevates the risk of infection leading to paralysis.

This statement is completely ignorant of the fact that paralysis currently has no cure.

The polio vaccine was first introduced in the U.S. in 1955. It has significantly reduced the incidence of reported (i.e., noticeable) cases of polio infections; however, the vaccine does not prevent asymptomatic infection or transmission … Long-term studies in animals to evaluate carcinogenic potential or impairment of fertility have not been conducted.

Their complaints about asymptomatic infection/ transmission are addressed in one of my prior blog posts; this requires quite a lot of explanation. No, the polio vaccine does not cause cancer.

A study published in JAMA did not rule out the possibility that an IPV-containing vaccine can cause an adverse event leading to permanent injury 38 times more often than polio can cause permanent injury in U.S. children at normal risk

They make the exact same mistake of study interpretation as I mentioned in part 6/8. There are quite a few studies from quite a few different countries that show the seizure risk of the DTaP/ DTaP+polio+hemophilus combination vaccine is much lower than 1 in 683. VAERS is nice to have to help researchers figure out the presence of safety signals, but the data must be verified. VAERS is a database where anyone can report anything, but medical records reported to the website must be corrected, verified, and cleaned up if necessary (and removed of intentional VAERS falsification encouraged by some antivaxxers). When that is done, as was the case in this study, the actual risk of febrile seizures is very very small and occurs in only limited time periods after the vaccine. These vaccines also definitely do not cause the seizure syndrome known as epilepsy (repeated seizures).