The fact that Oral Polio Vaccine can create polio in otherwise healthy children is still kept out of public discussion even as GOI went ahead with the programme 11years ago in 1995. Both IMA and the NPSP now acknowledge that Vaccine Associated Paralytic Poliomyelitis (VAPP) is a problem. The complex classification system that NPSP chose to adopt resulted in masking all instances of childhood paralytic diseases in India including VAPP related deaths, cVDPV and non- polio paralysis cases, in favor of confirmed polio cases that never formed more than 3% of the AFP cases chosen by NPSP. In addition it resulted in a large and unknown number of paralyzed children all across the country that were never tested. The paper argues that the GOI should apologize to the nation for hiding truth from public, that all children who developed polio in the post 1995 era are paid compensation, and that the scope of NPSP be expanded to include all children with any paralytic disease including VAPP. While criticizing NPSPs approach to club individual types of instances into monolithic categories, it argues that all children with AFP should be diagnosed fully. It exhorts GOI to make use of the infrastructure created by NPSP to further our national interests, and hopes that alternative medical systems find a genuine solution to the problem of childhood paralysis in India, so as to short-circuit the complications caused by such vaccination drives.
 

Vaccine Virus:

 

In this situation, various problems associated with the vaccine came to light. The Government had to declare that some children whose stools did not yield wild poliovirus, still yielded vaccine virus. Many doctors, who expected such instances of vaccine associated paralysis to be around 180, were alarmed to find that in the last three years alone they totaled to about 4400. Those who expected them to be “too small numbers to be of any consequence” were startled with this information. Also the doctors, who were earlier raising ethical concerns about such issues being limited to academic circles, now became more vocal. Eventually they started writing in popular press, claiming that the Pulse Polio Programme has failed in India, and that it has many associated problems.

During these 12 years that the Pulse Polio programme continued, people, both lay and medical practitioners alike, were misled by the Government’s propaganda: that “polio drops are completely safe”, “Get your children vaccinated again and again”. Media, filmdom, and even the Honorable President of India were made use of in spreading this untruth. The Government of India knew well though -like the WHO did too- that some VAPP cases would surely emerge in the process. Had the Government taken people into confidence, explained the risks involved in this programme truthfully, gone on with it with their consent, examined any VAPP cases that emerged, and paid pre-arranged compensations to such victims honestly, it would have been OK. Instead, by keeping the information on VAPP secret, by spreading untruth, by declaring the numbers of only “confirmed wild polio cases” and putting all other AFPs into “discarded” category- in an apparent effort to cover up the exact numbers of VAPP victims, by not taking into account the deaths following vaccination, and by employing many such devious methods, the Government of India complicated the issue.

During the 80s, every case of sudden childhood paralysis associated with fever was declared polio on clinical grounds, projecting the disease as a “Big menace”. So it is not enough now, to test equal number of children with paralysis and declare only one in a hundred of them “polio’ and simply ‘discard’ others: Causes for paralysis in the remaining 99% children must also be determined and made public. Not only that, the programme has created paralysis in thousands of otherwise healthy children- the Government has to take complete responsibility for this and pay suitable compensations to all such victims.

Let us demand:

1. Polio drops contain live polioviruses. A large number of people may benefit from them; but some children will develop polio like paralysis because of the drops. The State has to own responsibility for them.
2. Tests can be conducted, within 60 days from the onset of paralysis, to determine the type of poliovirus. Yet those tests were (and are) not available to many. So the list of VAPP victims with the Government is definitely incomplete, and also unscientific. Yet their names must be made public, and their present status be verified by independent agencies.
3. Taking all aspects into account, including the governments’ contribution to chaos, all children that developed polio-like paralysis after 1995 be considered for compensations.
4. A High power commission, comprising of experts with known pro-people stance should carefully work out the details of identification of victims and compensation aspects of the programme.
5. Government has to own responsibility for investigating and diagnosing not just polio, but all paralyses of childhood.
6. Children who died after consuming polio drops must be identified and their parents compensated. Government has to publicly apologize to them, to VAPP victims, and to the Nation.
7. Vaccination programmes should exhibit truthful, transparent, and healthy attitude towards people. These programmes should evolve into democratic processes deriving the informed consent of all parties.

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-Dr.Samatha and Narayana