Published in 2600 Magazine, Autumn 2018
[ 2600 Magazine is known as "The Hacker Quarterly", and appeals to readers who are interested in understanding telecom, computer, physical and other types of systems, especially their exploitable flaws. It is named after the 2600 Hz tone that, once upon a time, allowed 'hackers' or 'phreakers' to make free phone calls in North America]
Dear editors;
I have to respond to the article “Free Flow of Information” by Daelphinux, because his choice of Ebola and Polio as examples of the “essential function” of researchers in our society inadvertently makes the case for the opposite.
Where to start? Well, with Ebola, three articles [1] [2] [3] in the March 12, 1977 issue of Lancet are the obvious place, because this is where Ebola was created. The science was terrible. One, for example, used one poorly preserved liver sample to draw the unwarranted conclusion that not only the woman from which it came had died from this new virus, but everyone else in this outbreak of hemorrhagic fever. Since then the definition of Ebola has morphed, so that all that is needed for a definitive diagnosis is (A) one symptom that is most likely not bleeding, (B) contact with an Ebola patient and (C) a positive Ebola test. Bleeding is now a rare symptom. In a study of 44 patients from Sierra Leone, only 1 had this symptom.[4] And the tests are shockingly unreliable. In one study of healthy Africans, in places where there was no current Ebola outbreak (and in some places where there never had been) scientists found that over 15% of people tested positive. In a paper that I recently had published, I showed that the symptoms of Ebola are so vague that they mostly overlap with the adverse reactions to an Ebola vaccine being tested in another really shoddy piece of research.[5]
Polio, by comparison, seems like a slam dunk, but it isn’t. The last great US epidemic was in 1952 when America suffered 37 cases per 100,000. The vaccine was tested on almost 2 million American children in 1954 [6], of which less than one quarter were actually vaccinated. By then the rate was down to 24 per 100,000, without the vaccine possibly being the cause of the decline. By the time vaccination started, in 1955, the rate was down to 18, less than half the epidemic peak. Complaints were made that even by 1960 less than half the target population had been vaccinated[7], but by now the rate of polio was down to 1.8, less than 5% of the epidemic peak.
But I known you’re going to say that, at least polio was eliminated, except in some ‘shithole’ countries as a certain President might say. Unfortunately that’s not true. Consider that another name for what we know of as polio is Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP), which is only known as polio when the virus is detected, and otherwise just called AFP. But to a paralyzed child, it doesn’t make any difference what type of AFP caused their life to be destroyed. The World Health Organization collects statistics on both polio and AFP. And while they proudly note that the number of cases of polio have sunk to very close to zero, the number of cases of AFP have rocketed from 13,857 in 1996 (the first year they started counting) to over 100,000 in 2011, and has stayed above 100,000 ever since.[8] And nobody seems to care, including almost all scientific researchers. Probably because other causes of AFP are things like pesticide poisoning that are not likely to jump on an airplane and paralyze us westerners.
Scientific researchers do perform some important functions, and have radically changed our society, in some ways for the better (communications technology, for example) and in some ways for the worse (nuclear bombs and other weapons of war). But Ebola and Polio are certainly not good examples of the former.
- David Crowe
References
[1] Johnson KM et al. Isolation and partial characterisation of a new virus causing acute haemorrhagic fever in Zaire. Lancet. 1977 Mar 12; 1(8011): 569–71.
[2] Bowen ET et al. Viral haemorrhagic fever in southern Sudan and northern Zaire. Preliminary studies on the aetiological agent. Lancet. 1977 Mar 12; 1(8011): 571–3.
[3] Pattyn S et al. Isolation of Marburg-like virus from a case of haemorrhagic fever in Zaire. Lancet. 1977 Mar 12; 1(8011): 573–4.
[4] Schieffelin JS et al. Clinical Illness and Outcomes in Patients with Ebola in Sierra Leone. N Engl J Med. 2014 Oct 29.
[5] Crowe D. “Ebola Ça Suffit!” is not enough to Prove Efficacy of an Ebola Vaccine. American Journal of Immunology. 2017 Jul 4; 13(3): 165–72. http://thescipub.com/abstract/10.3844/ofsp.11329
[6] Francis Jr T et al. Evaluation of the 1954 Field Trial of Poliomyelitis Vaccine. Final Report. University of Michigan. 1957 Apr.
[7] Alexander ER. The extent of the poliomyelitis problem. JAMA. 1961 Mar 11; 175(10): 837–40.
[8] AFP (Acute Flaccid Paralysis)/Polio case count. WHO. https://extranet.who.int/polis/public/CaseCount.aspx
Note added by editors:
It's great to see our readers lend their fields of expertise to ongoing discussions. This may also be the first letter in our pages ever to have used footnotes!
