David Crowe Vers Pont du Gard, France June, 2018 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

David Crowe Vers Pont du Gard, France June, 2018 David.Crowe@theinfectiousmyth.com

That no viruses exist?

— Wikipedia lists over 3,000 virus species — We can’t consider all — So let’s closely examine two epidemics:

— Milan plague of 1629-1632 — Polio

— The plague might be blamed on a bacteria

(e.g. Yersinia pestis) but it is the logic that’s infectious.

— How do we know that a historical epidemic was

infectious and not caused by environmental conditions or the treatments that were given?

— Oral history — Archaeological evidence — Written reports — A written report is the most reliable, and the Milan

plague of 1629-1632 had this in spades:

— 1640 report in Latin commissioned by city fathers — 1648 report/translation in Italian — 1827 fictionalized (but faithful) account in ‘I promessi

sposi’ (‘The Betrothed Couple’), a famous novel by Manzoni.

Gran Peste

— Report on the origin and timeline of the

grand plague: contagious, poisonous and evil.

— In the city and state of Milan, 1629–1632 — In two parts:

• 1. Beginning of time until the birth of Jesus;
• 2. From then until the present day

— With various antidotes — By Alessandro Tadino, Physician and

members of the Illustrious Health Committee of the state of Milan

— Published in Milan, 1648

In English

— Because Tadino said it was infectious and poisonous? — Could he see the pathogen, whether bacterial or viral?

No.

— Did he have any kinds of scientific tests? No. — If most of his other beliefs and statements were

irrational, why would we believe him when he says the epidemic was infectious? Statements on:

— Recommended antidotes (treatments). — Causes — Preventives

— “Destruction was great in Calvenzano Gera d’Adda, where

the poison came from a single young woman, who had received an apron from an infected house. From this one case 732 people died due to lack of supplies to extinguish the contagion, and it would have proceeded in a cruel manner to destroy everyone in the surrounding area if it wasn’t for the intercession of Saints Sebastian and Rocco. The locals were devoted to these saints, which resulted in the liberation and good health of families. In recognition

• f this, a church was dedicated to the saints. These saints

also interceded to liberate many other houses from contagion and illness.” (Tadino 2.19)

“This is the report of the Doctor & Lawyer Giuseppe Dondeo, a person worthy of faith, in September 1630, while he was responsible for cases in Tortona, which is in Volpedo, the place of the Great Hospital. They killed some delinquents who confessed to having fabricated the ‘unto’ (poisoned

• intment). A wheat mill was poisoned and on a table on a

piece of canvas stretched out before this man who had found the truth and proof of this ointment. He took four loaves and rubbed them with the poison, which was a dark yellow

• color. It was then given to some hens and other animals to

eat at their leisure, and in the space of half an hour they were all dead. The visitors saw that their flesh was all black and their insides were black and rotted.” (2.47)

— Antidotes against the plague:

— Children’s urine — Lye — Hyacinth stone (red Zircon) — Sprinkling of wine — Chicken or pigeon feces — Burning laurel leaves at night — Water from human feces — Two parts ammonia, one part myrrh, mixed with wine — Burning ulcerated legs with a cautery — Antimony — Arsenic — Holy candles and sacrifices to various saints, including the Virgin

Mary.

— …and 10 more

Types and Causes

The report lists epidemics starting with one that happened at the time

• f the creation of the

world (about 6,000 years ago). For many plagues Tadino lists the documented cause (without skepticism).

— Selected causes, from Tadino (1648)

— Eclipses — Winds — Famine and air pollution caused by fog — Eating fish from Lipari — Conjunctions of the planets — Fumes from dead bodies, swamps, sewers and aqueducts — Cold winters and copious snow — Divine anger — Wicked women — Poisoned sewing needles, wine, soap, cream. — Dust manufactured to be poisonous — Jews — Dying locusts, whales and dragons

— Quarantine (quarenta = 40) for 40 days — Removing the poor to a Lazaretto (leper colony) — Burning clothing from homes with disease — Purging (disinfecting?)

— Manufacturers were afraid to work, which drove the

workers into poverty.

— Fear caused hording of food, and an increase in prices,

which harmed the poor.

Symptoms of the plague are only vaguely discussed in the Milan report, but skin disorders are commonly mentioned, and are also characteristic of Pellagra. “pelle agra” means “sour skin” in Italian

Ranked by mentions in report

— (25) Bubo (swelling of lymph nodes) — (17) Pimples, boils — (5) Fever — (4) Salivary gland swelling — (3) Tumor (pustules?) — (2) Blotches on skin — (2) Petechia (small hemorrhage under the skin) — (1) vibici ?

—

(NIH History of Joseph Goldberger) “On April 26, 1916 [Dr. Goldberger] injected five cc of a pellagrin’s blood into the arm of his assistant, Dr. George Wheeler. Wheeler shot six centimeters of such blood into

• Goldberger. Then they swabbed out the secretions of a pellagrin’s nose and throat and rubbed them into

their own noses and throats. They swallowed capsules containing scabs of pellagrins’ rashes. Others joined what Goldberger called his “filth parties,” including Mary Goldberger. None of the volunteers got pellagra. Despite Goldberger’s heroic efforts, a few physicians remained staunch opponents of the dietary theory of pellagra.”

—

“Several commissions, appointed during the first quarter of this century to investigate the cause of pellagra, concluded from their studies that pellagra was an infectious, contagious disease. Harris (1913) was able to inject Berkefeld filtered tissue material from pellagra victims into monkeys to cause a corresponding disease in these animals. He concluded from these experiments that a virus was present in the injected material and that it was the cause of pellagra. If the work of Harris had been followed exclusively, various strains of this “virus” might have been discovered and a vaccine, effective in experimental animals, might have been developed, as in the case of poliomyelitis. Today, as a result of unlimited research, however, we know conclusively that pellagra is not caused by a virus but rather that it is a vitamin deficiency disease. It is

• bvious that if the investigations of pellagra had been restricted to the virus theory, it would still be a

mystery.” Scobey RR. The poison cause of poliomyelitis and obstructions to its investigation. Arch Pediatr. 1952 Apr; 69(4): 172–93.

—

You could never find the cause of a disease by looking for the physical cause, if the cause is the absence of something.

— (1911 Pittsburgh Gazette Times article) “Outward symptoms are

• unmistakable. The characteristic eruption of the skin caused the

disease at one time to be regarded as a species of leprosy–‘Italian Leprosy’. This skin eruption usually first attacks the arms and the backs of the hands. There is a subsequent wasting of the tissues, atrophy of the heart, anaemia, nervous and digestive troubles, intestinal disturbances, insanity, typhoid pellagra and finally death… The rash, or skin eruption, is the characteristic and invariable symptom of the disease…It appears first on the backs of the hands, the forearms, face, back of neck, upper chest and feet…The skin in the beginning of the attack becomes red, with sensations of burning and itching, and usually some puffiness…After some days pimples may appear, and these may fuse into large spots filled with serum. Later the epidermis dries and falls in small, greyish scales. At other times the epidermis, after the initial redness, may take on a dark color, after which it dries and scales off…as repeated attacks occur it gradually undergoes chronic thickening.”

People who played a role in the epidemic

— Charged with moving sick poor people to the

Lazaretto, destroying infected clothing, feeding those in quarantine, and burying the dead.

— They also took bribes and stole people’s goods. — And…they didn’t get sick. — Why? Could it be that they had well paying jobs and

therefore could afford food?

— Evil people who spread poisons (‘unto’) on the walls

• f the city, and caused the epidemic.

— Even doctors believed in this. — When uncovered, they had to be killed in the most

brutal way possible.

— How to know that someone was an ‘untioni’ when the

poison was invisible?

— Representatives of the medical profession had few

treatments that we would recognize.

— They could burn, bleed, order preventive methods,

such as ‘purging’ and burning clothes.

— Oh, and write the report that cast them as heroes for

perpetuity:

“Physicians Tadino [report author], Carcano and Settali didn’t rest day or night, united in their zeal for public health, giving and taking orders and provisions to eradicate their common enemy: the plague.” (2.16)

— “Italian Wars” lasted from 1494 to 1559. Milan was under Spanish rule which

was financially and ideologically oppressive.

— “It seemed that the plagues of the past were not enough punishment for the

State of Milan by the Divine Majesty due to the errors and sins of the people. To them came a famine throughout the whole state, beginning in the year 1627, when D. Gonzale of Cordova ruled. This was caused not only by a mediocre harvest but by the transfer of grain outside the state, permitted by some ministers, and by the lack of loyalty of some state commissioners, who were blinded by inordinate love of money. They allowed the Grigioni, the Swiss [soldiers], the Venetians and Genovese, and many other neighboring princes to take grain. This caused a notable increase in the price. This caused the opposite of what was hoped, with the greedy taking more grain, that would otherwise have gone to the people. The State had less money, and could only find grain at exorbitant prices. The agony of the people caused them to start saying bad things about the ministers, including complaints and agony.” (1.2)

— “Putrid and fetid straw in many rooms [in the Lazaretto for the poor], never

cleaned, drinking dirty water…too many poor people in cramped rooms, deadly heat…caused so many deaths, a massacre among the poor.” (1.4)

— Can we assume that the author is correct that it is

infectious when he is clearly wrong about so much such as by blaming evil poisoners, planets, stars and saints for the epidemic?

— He does provide evidence of environmental problems

driven by poverty, inequality, economic circumstances, bad governance and war.

— The Monatti didn’t get sick. — Belief in the invisible pathogen was so strong, even

then, that this was an assumption that was never questioned.

The virus was identified, decades later a vaccine was developed, polio has virtually disappeared. Case closed, or not?

Early Polio vaccinations

First polio vaccinations in Geraldton, Canada c.1955

0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0 40.0 45.0 1885 1887 1889 1891 1893 1895 1897 1899 1901 1903 1905 1907 1909 1911 1913 1915 1917 1919 1921 1923 1925 1927 1929 1931 1933 1935 1937 1939 1941 1943 1945 1947 1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969

Rate/100,000

Vaccine field trial, 1954 (<0.5M vaccinated) <50% ‘vulnerables’ vaccinated, 1960 Start of vaccination, 1955 Nathanson N et al. The epidemiology of poliomyelitis. Am J Epidemiol. 1979 Dec; 110(6): 672–92. Historical Statistics of the USA: Colonial times to 1970 Epidemics, 1916 and 1952 Landsteiner and Popper claim proof polio is caused by a virus

3 consecutive years, same pattern. Polio peak in August/September with shoulder in July and October. Not the growing season… the harvest season, when people eat the crops.

Francis T. 1954 Polio Vaccine Field Trial Report.

Seasonality, Globally

This graph compares apple growing season (black) with polio season (hatched) with entire growing season (white) in the Northern hemisphere countries (August- October) and Southern hemisphere (January- April).

Toomey JA. Poliomyelitis: Comparison between the epidemic peak and the harvest peak. Am J Dis Child. 1933 Aug; 46: 262–79.

All fruit harvests and polio

This paper shows similar graphs for New York and Utah, illustrating the stunning overlap of fruit harvest and polio. Gebhardt LP et al. Epidemic

• poliomyelitis. J Pediatr.

1946 Jan; 28: 1–13.

— “Most of the multiple [polio] cases in families were found to have developed at

the same time, suggesting means other than contact as the mode of spread.”

—

Scobey RR. The poison cause of poliomyelitis and obstructions to its investigation. Arch

• Pediatr. 1952 Apr; 69(4): 172–93.

— Amish (who do use pesticides) ‘epidemic’ blamed on lack of vaccination and

contact within the small community…but no contact outside the community. How did polio get in?

—

Finn R. Five children in Minnesota test positive for poliovirus. Clinical Psychiatry News. 2006 Feb 1. — Two cases investigated in a 1940’s Utah epidemic clearly had no contact with

another polio case, but both had eaten unwashed fruit.

—

Gebhardt LP et al. Epidemic poliomyelitis. J Pediatr. 1946 Jan; 28(1): 1–13. — “polio at mid [20th] century typically struck only one member of a family”

—

Wilson DJ. Living with polio. University of Chicago Press. 2005. — “One patient stated that her dog had been paralyzed at the same time as her

• nset of polio…One man had chickens with 'range paralysis'…Out of 74 cases
• nly 13 reported familial illness within a five-weeks' period prior”

—

Clark FH et al. A poliomyelitis epidemic. Arch Pediatr. 1948 Sep; 65: 496–507.

Proof that the vaccine prevented polio?

— Thomas Francis was one of the most respected

virologists of the time (post WW II).

— Polio was creating a panic–the AIDS crisis of the

• 1950s. Failure was not an option.

— Trial design had two sections:

— Observed: 221,998 2nd grade students vaccinated

compared with 321,315 1st and 3rd grade students (no intervention).

— Placebo: 200,745 grade 1,2,3 students vaccinated versus

201,229 received placebo (and 330,201 not vaccinated)

— No real difference in ‘non-paralytic’ polio — Only success was paralytic polio rate in vaccinated

atonly 16/100,000 but 55 in placebo.

— But why only 36 in ‘Not Inoculated’?

Vaccina&on Status Study Popula&on Total Study Cases Poliomyeli&s Doub8ul Polio Not Polio Total Paraly&c Nonparaly&c Number Rate Number Rate Number Rate Number Rate Number Rate Number Rate All Areas - Total 1,829,916 1,012 55 858 47 682 37 176 10 66 4 88 5 Placebo Areas - Total 749,236 428 57 355 47 267 36 88 12 24 3 49 7 Vaccinated 200,745 81 40 56 28 33 16 23 11 10 5 15 7 Placebo 201,229 162 81 138 69 110 55 28 14 7 3 17 8 Incomplete Vaccina&ons 8,484 2 24 2 24 2 24 Incomplete Placebo Injec&ons 8,577 6 70 6 70 4 47 2 23 Not Inoculated 330,201 177 54 153 46 118 36 35 11 7 2 17 5 Observed Areas - Total 1,080,680 584 54 503 47 415 38 88 8 42 4 39 4 Vaccinated 221,998 75 34 55 25 38 17 17 8 12 5 8 4 Controls 725,173 440 61 391 54 331 46 60 8 24 3 25 3 Incomplete Vaccina&ons 9,904 4 40 4 40 4 40 Second Grade Not Inoculated 123,605 65 53 53 43 42 34 11 9 6 5 6 5

— In 1954 most children had no ID beyond their name (6% of

SSNs issued in 1947-62 were in under 15s).

— Other information collected was their address, date of birth,

school, grade, registration sheet number and line number.

— Information had to be manually copied from one form to

another (e.g. one form for class list, and then individual records per student).

— Duplicate names, misspellings, changing of address, school, etc.

could make it difficult to assign a case to Vaccinated or Placebo.

— Injections were ‘blinded’ to placebo or vaccine, except that they

weren’t. Vials with codes beginning with 1, 2, 5 or 6 were vaccine, 3 or 7 were placebo.

— What if an ‘executive decision’ was made in difficult cases, with

bias towards assigning paralytic polio cases to Placebo?

Status Vaccinated Not inoculated Placebo Cases Population Rate Cases@36 Erroneous Move New rate 33 118 110 200,745 330,201 201,229 16 36 55 72 38 110-38=72 33+38=71 35 36 36 Data from trial

— If 38 cases were wrongly assigned to placebo because

• f difficulty identifying a child and their vaccination

status…

— Then a trial of 749,236 children could be turned

from…

— A nothing burger to a miracle. — If you had a case you couldn’t figure out, and you

wanted the vaccine trial to work, what would you do?

Are you talking about the virus or the symptoms?

— AFP is paralytic polio, without detection of the virus — “Despite a dramatic reduction in the number of AFP

cases from poliovirus, AFP continues to be a major problem worldwide.”

— Causes of AFP, according to WHO:

— Polio and other viruses — Vaccine adverse reactions — Snake bite — Insecticides — Others…

Acute onset flaccid paralysis. WHO, AIREN. 1993.

20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Wild polio Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP)

https://extranet.who.int/polis/public/CaseCount.aspx

— Seasonality implies an environmental cause. — Correlation with fruit harvest season implicates

pesticide contamination.

— Vaccination cannot have been the major cause of the

decline in cases post-1952.

— Polio symptoms are rapidly increasing around the

world…and nobody cares because AFP is not believed to be infectious.

— Polio is almost certainly not a viral disease.