Alan Alda's polio

In Message 3 kuresu happened to mention that Alan Alda died. I may be wrong, kuresu, but I don't think so. At least I hope not. I have enjoyed him a lot. We are genrational cohorts”he was born in 1936 and I in '39. This all brings me to my proposal for a new thread (but I'm not sure where). I will call it "Alan Alda's polio" because I heard him explain how Sister Elizabeth Kinney came to his house once and cured him of it.I believe it was on NPR where I hear Alda talk about his life and how he was struck down by polio as a kid and then cured of it by an Australian bush nurse named Sister Elizabeth Kinney. He spoke of the controversy surrounding her credentials and her methods of treatment of polio. When Alda’s desperate mother appealed to Sister Kinney, who happened to be traveling through their town at the time, Kinney came over to their house, examined him and performed her treatment on him. He described it as very “uncomfortable and lasted and long time.” He went on the explain how his mother helped Kinney apply woolen blankets soaked in very hot water on his inflicted hips and legs. His family continued this treatment over a period of weeks. Before she left Sister Kinney also instructed his family on a regime of physical-therapy treatments to use after the inflammation and partial paralysis from his polio had subsided. He eventually recovered.Now, the medical establishment in Sister Kinney's own country hated and vilified her. Wiki says:

quote:

---

Between 1935 and 1940 she traveled extensively throughout Australia helping to set up clinics. She also made two trips to England where she set up a treatment clinic in St. Mary's hospital near Carshalton where there is a rehabilitation facility to this day. In 1938 the Health Department of New South Wales subjected her work to a medical Royal Commission whose findings condemned her unorthodox procedures as 'dangerous', 'damaging', 'costly', and 'cruel'.

---

The medical establishment in the United States also hated her, sniping at her credentials and discouraging her approach to treating polio. Instead the US medical establishment joined up with the US pharmaceutical establishment to lead the fight against polio and find a drug to cure it or develop a vaccine. Of course this was an epic milestone in sainthood of American medicine.And yet, as a biologist, I have to ask a simple question: Why isn’t it entirely possible that the polio virus could have been attacked timely with heat? Obviously, the virus could not withstand Sister Kinney's timely heat treatment, and this was tested over and over in different countries. (Yeah, but who's going to make any money on heat?) Why wasn’t Sister Elizabeth Kinney exalted instead of scorned? Why wasn’t her treatment encouraged at that critical time of our history. (btw: I also I grew up in that frightening shadow of polio.)And more to the heart of the matter: Has the medical/pharmaceutical complex (not to be confused with the military/industrial complex) truly served the cause of relieving human suffering? Or has it served the treasuries of capitalism, thus becoming a commodity rather of a service?”HM

Yes, you're right. It was Alex the parrot who died, of course, not Alan the actor. Thanks for correcting me.”HM

When I heard Alda tell his story over the radio I started to recall more of the fear and loathing attending that polio epidemic. I knew kids back then who caught polio and it was scary. My mother was an RN and worked in a doctor's office during that time. She sometimes talked about the Sister Kinney controversy. The doctor she worked for didn't like Kinney's approach to polio. Instead he used sulfa drugs and later penicillin to treat almost everything from polio to pink eye. So my mother sided with the medical establishment against Sister Kinney. I can remember, even at that early age, the controversy about her "bush medicine" and her alleged "cruel and unorthodox tactics." And, as I mentioned in the OP, the New South Wales medical Royal Commission labeled her procedures as 'dangerous', 'damaging', 'costly', and 'cruel'.Now, I may have had an isolated experience up there in Lambertville, MI, contradicting your observations, which I greatly appreciate. It has been quite a few years since then, and over that period I have had both good and bad experiences with the medical esstablsihment. Recently, however, they have been more bad than good. This past year I watch one of my closest friends get his cancerous prostate radiated with pellets...and then have his bladder removed because the radiation treatment was too strong and cause 26 cancerous polyps in his bladder tissue. Before that, I watch my first wife die of central nervous system lymphoma, which was aggravated and maybe even accelerated by the medical treatments prescribed. These cases are only a few of the ones that have turned against the American medical establishment. And when I watch those ads on TV that tell you to go ask your doctor if the little purple pill is right for you, I can be pretty sure that pill pushing is a large part of what doctors do today instead of real doctoring.At age 68 I've chosen not to got to doctors anymore, unless I'm sure they won't screw me up (resetting broken bones and stuff like that). The saddest truth about this whole medical mess is that most doctors are just trying to do the right thing. But the force of capitalism gets in their way when medical insurers, lawyers, and drug companies put themselves ahead of the patients.That's my opinion, of course, and you are entitled to yours too.”HM

jar, you're right about what Wiki says about Sister Elizabeth Kinney. But I have my own recollection on the matter, with which I am trying to make a case against the American medical establishment on somewhat diiferent grounds and with a different POV, using polio as a launching pad.I've watched with interest the entire polio drama play out within my lifetime. It was a weird, dark time: The Great Degression, Hitler, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and that indiscriminate terrorist called "Polio." There was strong opinion voiced at that time against Sister Kinney's therapeutic approaches. I rememeber it quite well. And there was also "The March of Dimes" and "The Mother's March On Polio." My mother, along with all the others across the country went out into their neighborhoods on a designated night and collected donations door-to-door to "fund the reasearch for a polio vaccine." First Salk was a saint for developing it; then he was villified for his methods. And perhaps rightly so. An interesting account of this appears in American Scientist, The puzzling origin of AIDS. Sorry, but I can only link you to an abstract unless you are a member/subscriber. What is easily avaiable, though, is this link summarizing Polio vaccines and the origin of AIDS: some key writings.So, did "The Mother's March On Polio" ultimately contribute to the AIDS pandemic. Did the sloppy and dangerous vaccine trials in Africa set HIV into motion? Did modern medicine, with its well-intentioned but blundering attempts to hurry up and make a polio vaccine, unwittingly produce another disaster? Would we all have been better off restricting our counter-polio procedures to Sister Kinney's therapy, and to avoid vaccines in the frist place?Who would have guesssed that the polio epidemic was set off by the advent of indoor plumbing? It was more sanitary than the old outhouse, of course; indeed it was sanitary enough to prevent many infants from contacting the polio virus when they were young enough to quickly build their own natural immunity against it. Thus the ecology of polio, as well as the immunology against it, must be understood in combination to get a meaning view of those dire risks to public health.”HM

...errr, I thought I did: The puzzling origin of AIDS and Polio vaccines and the origin of AIDS: some key writings.btw: "Just more nonsense"? Nah! I think you need to "supply some support" for your rude accusation.”HM

Oh, come on! I never said "...personal 'hate'". So you are misquoting me and your credibility goes down with that. I was writing to a street audience in street vernacular, not to an audience of linguistic psychologists. Furthermore, whoever said she had a "black bag." Wiki doesn't say anything about her "black bag." "Black bag" is as much a metaphor applied to medicine as "hate" is metaphor used in common speech. Get over it! Sure it's possible. Just as it was possible for medical professionals to reserach the origin of the polio vaccine and discover that AIDS may have been one of its disasterous byproducts. Is it possible--just possible--that you are an appologist for the medical-pharmaceutucal complex?I'm making only a simple point here about modern medicine: It ain't that far beyond blood letting, IMHO.”HM

I didn't know this. You must be a student of polio. Do you think it is fair to say that before indoor plumbing (and before the polio epidemic) most of the infants were naturally innoculated with the polio virus as a result of those contaminated conditions associated with outhouses? Maybe polio is naturally asymptomatic in babies. Would you happen to know?Returning to my grind against the medical establishment in America, I should say that most doctors I know of are doing their level best to help people inspite of all the obstacles set up against them. Some doctors I know of, however, are entrepreneurs first and physicians second. And some like to perform more biopsies than necessary, in my opinion, just to keep their labs busy. It's really a shame that America cannot provide free or affordable health care to her citizens by way of a regulated, single-payer program. And I think we should free our doctors of frivolous law suits, too, reducing their costs of insurance. The capitalistic element might then fall off a little bit, and doctors might actually be able to help more people in a less badgered and expensive way.Personally, I think drugs have screwed up America, and not the kind you buy on the street. I think pharmaceutal companies are sending the message that drugs are the answer to everything. Just look at the ads on TV. Today, even, during NFL football, you have to get a full dose of Viagra and how manly it will make you feel. Ah, yes, and he dramatically disappears up the elevator to show her his drug-erected penis. But they warn him to be careful if his hard-on lasts too long. Don't want to whack it on the door jam, you know.What's the message here? 'Hey, stud, take this pill and you're good to go 'til she can't take it anymore. Score! Score! You horny animal!'Doctors hand out Viagra prescriptions like love candy. What has become of our medical establishment, pandering to patients who see on TV how some special pill makes people walk blishfully on the beach holding hands at sunset? I object to that. It's drug orientation for a better life. Happiness by prescription. Nah, it's not what our drug companies should be doing to make America better.Returning to the central question: Has capitalism corrupted the medical-pharmaceutal complex? I think it has, but probably by necessity, given the fact that we are a capitalistic democracy. OK, let it be that. But give more people affordable health care of high quality that is not burdened by pressures from drug companies and ambulance chasers.”HM

But is there no other road back to The Garden than the one paved with drugs? I suppose it's possible that Huxley's Doors of Perception are now open like cans of worms. Is there any hope of herding back into the can? Will all real men someday take Viagra to pork their honies up the wall?”HM

Do you have an alternative theory for how the polio epidemic got started?”HM

When I asked jar for an alternative cause of said polio epidemic, besides the advent of indoor plumbing, he replied: His alternative is simplistic and not very convincing. Here are two sites that support my contention about how the twentieth-century polio epidemic got started:1. From the Howard Highes Medical Center on Indoor plumbing and the polio epidemic:

quote:

---

Ironically, the advanced state of public hygiene in most industrialized countries contributed to the century's epidemics. Infants or very young children became infected when open sewers were rampant, but their disease was so mild that many parents did not realize their children had polio. This "silent" infection provided lasting immunity. With the advent of indoor plumbing and other modern sanitary conditions, children were not exposed to the poliovirus in infancy and did not develop immunity. As a result, they were vulnerable to disease in late childhood and adulthood, when it posed a much more serious threat.
  —HHMC

---

2. From the World Travel Center:

quote:

---

Spread in ways similar to the common cold or flu, polio was more rare when sanitation was poor. Improvements in waste disposal and the widespread use of indoor plumbing made epidemics of polio appear with regularity in the developed world, primarily in cities during the summer.

---

Indeed the growth of cities may have been associated with that polio epidemic, but probably not until they began to improve their sanitary conditions with indoor plumbing.”HM

I don't follow your etiologically reasoning. Are you saying that Alda would not have had any polio symptoms at all if Sister Kinney had not stoppped by? Alda was not part of the 90% you mentioned. He already had polio symptoms by the time Sister Kinney was recruited.”HM

Amen! And yet America is the self-appointed Champion of Democracy for building a New World Order out of its own splendid image.”HM

Well, you're right about that. But I was not really as interested in the relative value of sanitation”of course it makes things better. I am interested in looking back at what we didn't know then and trying to find out how to put that learning to good use. And, being an ecologist, I am interested in how such a simple thing as indoor plumbing can be a hidden monster in a etiological context. I lived through that at a vulnerable age. A friend and basketball star at my school got polio and it shriveled up his left leg. It was pretty scary. (Where was Sister Kinney when he needed her? Alas, there were still many doctors who looked down their noses at her methods.) Our parents were freaked out because they remembered all too well the so-called Spanish Flu epidemic following WWI. The polio epidemic was the next big public health scare.”HM

Probably not. But what's your point? Can you make a case that polio is more prevalent in those countries without widespread indoor plumbing and sanitation?”HM

Good question. It's an argument against the common notion in America that drugs are the best way to attain good health and success. Yes, sometimes pills and shots are necessary. But if pills are deemed too necessary to make you slimmer, bigger, smaller, tighter, faster, sexier, more beautiful, or more healthy, then I have to ask if that is good thing for our society. I don't believe it is. I think our society is teaching our children that drugs will get them where they want to go. There's a "Drug War" here against recreational street drugs. And they will take your home away and sell if for cash if you happen to grow pot in it. But if you're a member of the medical-pharmaceutical complex you can make and use recreational drugs 'til the cows come home”hallucinogens, euphoriants, steroids, anti-depressants, Viagra, you name it”and nobody will bother you. Sure, and just as those drugs circulate expensively through our local pharmacies, homes, bathrooms, and bedrooms, they go right down the street to our schools.I have chosen an Austrlian bush nurse to illustrate my point: There are other roads to good health and sound minds than the ones that go down your throat with a class of water and a contribution to the drug industry. Commercial medicine in America”what else would you expect from capitalism? I'm watching biological evolution happen in a human population...”>Homo pharmaceuticus americus. We have turned to chemistry for our social values. Along with that, personal responisbilty goes right out the window, because you don't have to do anything except take a goddamn pill...and, boy, will she'll be glad you did!Yes! Call it "holoistic medicine" if you like. But vitamin supplements, a staple of holistic medicine, are part of the pill problem too. Most of those "supplements" do absolutely nothing for you...just sh!t through a goose. But that's all part of consumer-driven capitalism, isn't it? Beware of "holistic medicine" too. Better to quit eating organic pizza and take up yoga. I guarantee your love bunny will get excited over that.Sister Kinney did eventually gain respect for her therapeutic methods. So did Moshé Feldenkrais for treating stroke and cerebral palsy. And yoga is also taught and respected in America, but not enough. Yoga can relieve many symptoms that otherwise require drugs. But who's going to make any money on breathing air in and out? The air is free in most places. I don't yet see a thriving yoga industry in America to rival that of drugs. Yet yoga actually can relief stress and a host of other health problems. Odd, isn't it, that yoga is not taught routinely in K-12 public schools? (Maybe this Buddha stuff is threatening to a "Christian society," or maybe it is threatening to the drug industry.)”HM