“Poliolike” Childhood Muscle-Weakening Disease Reappears

scientificamerican.com

79 points·extraterra··6 comments

> ”Many people will get the infection and very few will get the neurologic disease”

A line that’s somehow both frightening and comforting. The environment we grow up in increasingly looks like it plays a role in certain neurological disease progression. (See lack of infection playing a role in childhood leukemia [1])

>”Infectious disease tracks with poverty,” he said. “The problem is not infection. The problem is lack of infection.”

> There is a similar story at work in type 1 diabetes, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple sclerosis and allergies, he says.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/21/most-common-...

Is AFM the same as AFP? At least with AFP, it was always believed to have come from a reverted polio virus https://youtu.be/S8ixbGlHTTI?t=2459

It’s a poliolike disease that appears predominantly in areas with low vaccination rates.

So I can’t imagine that this “polio like” disease is not just a small mutation of plain old polio. Made possible by anti-vaxxers.

https://www.cdc.gov/acute-flaccid-myelitis/afm-surveillance....

> All of the AFM cases have tested negative for poliovirus.

I’ll hold my breath, wait for the causative agent to be identified, and dna compared to polio and the like.

Given AFM seems to occur more frequently in places with lower vaccination rates it seems plausible that existing vaccines are impacting it. Which of course implies it is a variation of an existing disease

Where is it documented that it occurs in places with lower vaccination rates? From my reading, in one cluster, 8 out of 9 were up to date with their vaccinations.

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