Polio 2

I kept wondering why some sites claimed DDT "caused" Polio. Then I remembered that I read that Dr.s were not required to actually TEST to verify that their patient had Polio. Since the symptoms of Polio mirror those of poisoning and meningitis it is easy to see how thousands of people could have been misdiagnosed as having Polio prior to the introduction of the vaccine.

• Most people just had flu-like symptoms.
• 5-10% developed nonparalytic aseptic meningitis with symptoms like fever, headache, vomitting, neck pain and stiffness, muscle spasms, fatigue, etc. that lasted 2-10 days.
• 1% develop the more severe paralytic polio (source)

Meningitis can be caused by MANY, many, many other things besides Polio. Without a spinal tap it would be impossible to know if it was Polio or not, even with some muscle weakness/stiffness. In the middle of the epidemics of the 1950's there was panic and it seems very plausible that many were misdiagnosed.

more to come......