Some of this article discusses the other two types of polio or is general to all poilio and duplicates coverage on the Poliomyelitis article.--JBellis 19:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
- So it would better be merged, or alternatively stripped down considerably. Polio (historic) seems like a more useful departure if one is going to slice and dice Polio —Preceding unsigned comment added by Midgley (talk • contribs)
- The merge tag was mysteriously removed by Radagast83 (talk · contribs) here, with no comment. I have been working on the main Polio article. This article, if it is going to remain separate, needs to discuss bulbar polio in depth, which it does not. There is pretty much the same info, with refs, in the main article. For now I will be bold and move the non-redundant parts of this article into the main article, leaving a redirect here.--DO11.10 23:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Cause of Roosevelt's paralysis
editI'd like to change the paragraph under "History and Outbreak" to the following (just the text is shown below, I will fix up the references):
"Polio is a highly contagious illness caused by a virus that has three distinct strains, called types I, II and III. It is noteworthy to recognize that exposure and a resulting immunity to one type doesn't confer immunity to the other two. Type I causes the most paralysis and is the frequent cause of most of the polio epidemics of the first half of the 20th century. The poliovirus enters the body through the mouth, either by contaminated hands or contaminated food or water after coming into contact with expelled feces, which contains the poliovirus. Polio epidemics occurred usually in the summer and early fall because the poliovirus flourishes in warm weather. Children were more often affected than adults were which is why the disease carried the moniker infantile paralysis. Franklin D. Roosevelt may have contracted polio in 1921. Yet his age (39 years) and many features of his illness are more consistent with a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome (an autoimmune peripheral neuropathy). A peer-reviewed study published in 2003, using Bayesian analysis, found that six of eight posterior probabilities favored a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome over poliomyelitis. Roosevelt recovered enough to lead a semi-normal life, but never gained full use of his legs. Evangelist Jack Coe contracted bulbar polio in 1956 and died due to complications. Before the 20th century, there were cases of polio, but they were few and no major outbreaks occurred. The question then is how did polio emerge from centuries of obscurity to becoming a killer just a few decades? The answer lies in a major change sanitation practices. Before the advent of modern indoor plumbing and sewage systems, many cities had open sewers that were no more than gutters and outhouses stood in the backyard. Almost everyone had, at one time or another, been exposed to polio, and with open sewers and outhouses the norm--there was ample opportunity to contract polio. Polioviruses infected generation of babies, who were protected in part by antibodies passed on to them by their mothers. When a child became infected with the poliovirus the results were flu-like or cold-like symptoms. The diagnosis of polio was rare because the symptoms were often indistinguishable from other childhood diseases."
Since this is a major change, and since the new information casts doubt on the previously countlessly repeated and unquestioned assertion that Roosevelt's paralysis was caused by polio, I thought it would be good idea to start a discussion thread to give a chance for others to disagree.
Big change is factual information initially described in a peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Medical Biography [1], of which I was a co-author and which I can add as a reference in the article. Also, corrected several minor problems I saw ("fasces", incomplete first sentence). I have tried to retain as much of the original as possible.
I would ask anyone who objects to the changes to please read the published article [2] first.