Page 36 - Summer2015

Even In terms of my own background, though I am ing the entire population of the United States,

throughout known to many as a physician offering an inten- with our only hope the dedication and hard work
sive nutritional program for patients diagnosed of our wonderful research scientists who were
the so-called with advanced cancer and other serious diseases, extolled in the press on a near daily basis.
“epidemic” my formal training was in cancer immunology, in Years later as a fledgling research immunol-
years of the a specially designed program created for me by ogist under Dr. Good and somewhat fascinated
my conventional mentor Robert A. Good, MD, by DuBos’s perspective, I began to investigate
late 1940s and PhD, for years president of Sloan-Kettering. Dr. the actual epidemiology and ecology of polio. As
early 1950s, Good, called the “father of modern immunology” I was to learn, it turned out that polio “epidem-
most by the New York Times, was the most published ics,” as they were called, didn’t really emerge
author in the history of medicine and the scientist until the late nineteenth and early twentieth
contracted who first unraveled the immune complexities of centuries. I had been taught in medical school

the virus the thymus in the 1950s. When I joined his group that the epidemic nature of polio showed itself
without any as a fellow, I lived in his house with his wife, because of growing population density in urban
living, breathing, and ingesting immunology, an areas associated with poor sanitation. Though
recognition experience that has served me well in my medical this position seemed logical because polio trans-
that they career however far from the conventional path it mits through a fecal-oral route, the opposite has

had been has veered. in fact proven to be the case.
Studies from the late 1940s, before the
Through Dr. Good I learned of René Du-

infected with bos, PhD, the famed Rockefeller University availability of the Salk vaccine, indicated that in
the “deadly” researcher who started his professional life as low-income urban areas up to 90 percent of the
polio organism. a soil microbiologist, but then in the 1950s and population showed antibodies to polio, though
1960s emerged as the leading voice insisting most who tested positive had no recollection of
we all view infectious disease in an ecological having been infected and had not experienced
context—a lesson that has stayed with me since any residual neuro-muscular problems. For them,
I devoured his many books and papers years the disease seemed no more serious than a brief
ago. Dr. Dubos knew more about the subject upper respiratory infection or gastroenteritis.
than anyone who probably will ever live, and True, the number of deaths from the disease
along the way he first warned in the 1950s that and cases of paralytic polio did increase signifi-
antibiotics came with a down side: the disrup- cantly in the early 1950s, but these numbers were
tion if not the destruction of our normal bacteria hardly at the level of full-blown catastrophe. For
flora, a problem virtually ignored at the time by example, in 1949, considered an epidemic year,
Western research and medicine. 42,173 cases were identified in the U.S., with
2,720 deaths. Anyone unfortunate enough to be
POLIO killed, or struck down and left paralyzed would
I think, in the current debate, it would be a be an individual tragedy, but the numbers just
most useful exercise to go back in time to review were not there for a major epidemic as has often
historical examples of allegedly or presumably been portrayed. Even throughout the so-called
catastrophic infectious disease, and specifically “epidemic” years of the late 1940s and early
two examples, that of polio and Keshan’s disease, 1950s most contracted the virus without any
for which in both cases a vaccine was thought to recognition that they had been infected with the
be the only solution. “deadly” polio organism.
I remember the hysteria generated in the Ironically, the increasing incidence of
media by the spectre of polio and the well-funded paralytic cases and deaths, though still rela-
advertising campaigns by organizations such as tively small, occurred as intensive public health
the March of Dimes, relying, of course, on emo- campaigns to clean up the cities went into full
tional arguments to raise money from “regular” force. As in most instances, Nature doesn’t work
moms and dads and Girl Scout and Boy Scout the way the human mind would like it to work.
troops all over the country. My childhood vision It turns out all these highly funded and well-
of polio was that of a true catastrophe, threaten- intentioned efforts to prevent polio by cleaning
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