Is polio really coming back?

Short answer: yes and no. 

Israeli media have been clamoring excitedly over a reported case of poliomyelitis (polio) discovered in the country yesterday. Israel's Health Ministry and mainstream media immediately counselled vaccinations, using the fact that the four-year-old patient was not inoculated against polio. 

The child is so far not exhibiting any signs of paralysis, polio’s signature symptom. Less than 1% of polio infections actually spread to the motor neurons. 

However, given that polio was declared eradicated in 1979, discovering a case of polio now is still surprising. 

Unless this isn't poliomyelitis at all, but rather its close sister: acute flaccid myelitis (AFM). 

AFM is a virus nearly indistinguishable from polio – including the dreaded paralysis – and is part of the same family of enteroviruses. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines polio in AFM terms: 

“Poliomyelitis is the term used to describe the syndrome of acute flaccid limb weakness and lesions in the grey matter of the spinal cord." 

An article by Harvard virologist Joseph Cabral refers to AFM as “The Replacement Polio” and suggests that AFM is extremely similar. 

“This specific form of myelitis is usually the calling card of poliovirus infection,” writes Cabral. 

Cabral also says that the real difference between polio and AFM is simply that polio was already declared eradicated. 

“With no suspect to blame for the sudden spike in polio-like paralysis, the term acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) was coined to encompass all AFP (acute flaccid paralysis) conditions that display polio-like myelitis,” Cabral continued. 

Both viruses occur primarily in children. 

At this point, polio would actually be a more welcome discovery than AFM, because we know much more about polio. 

For example, we know that polio is spread through fecal particles entering the mouth. And while we don’t yet have a cure for polio, we do have a vaccine. 

But despite the fact that there have been 679 confirmed cases of AFM since 2014, not much is really known for sure. 

Except for one thing: while AFM does not yet have a vaccine, it can be caused by one. 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a huge batch of documents last week related to its approval process for the COVID-19 vaccine. The documents were released under court order after Federal Judge Mark Pittman ordered the FDA in January to release 55,000 pages per month.  

The batch of documents released on March 1st contain some disturbing revelations, such as the FDA and Pfizer having prior knowledge of thousands of adverse side effects resulting from the vaccine. 

One of those adverse effects is acute flaccid myelitis. 

In that case, it would certainly be in the best interests of the mainstream media and health ministries around the world to avoid talking about AFM. This is especially true in Israel, whose health ministry was the first to test out the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on its population, and the first to enforce vaccine passports. 

It would be so much easier to say that polio is coming back.