How Polio Fails Koch’s Postulates
Lack of association, isolation and causation.
In the late 1800s, German bacteriologist Robert Koch developed four postulates, which outline a set of logical criteria necessary to establish that a microbe causes a specific disease.
They emphasize association, isolation, causation, and re-isolation. While phrased slightly differently in various sources, the postulates are most commonly stated as follows:
The microorganism must be found in abundance in all cases of those suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy subjects.
The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased subject and grown in pure culture.
The cultured microorganism should cause the same disease when introduced into a healthy subject.
The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.
Even though these logical principles were popularized by Robert Koch in the late 1800s, they remain timeless. The four postulates are rooted in pure logic, providing a framework for falsifiability and aligning seamlessly with the scientific method.
Postulate 1: The microorganism must be found in abundance in all cases of those suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy subjects.
During 1958, the state of Michigan experienced its largest epidemic of poliomyelitis in many years, with more than 1,200 cases reported to the state department of health.
The greatest percentage of victims of a large polio epidemic subjected to laboratory investigation was carried out.
“Virological laboratory tests were carried out on 1,060 persons, probably the greatest percentage of victims of a large epidemic of poliomyelitis ever to be subjected to laboratory investigation.”
An in-depth analysis of the diagnosed cases revealed no polio “virus” could be detected in the majority of cases.
“During an epidemic of poliomyelitis in Michigan in 1958, virological and serologic studies were carried out with specimens from 1,060 patients. Fecal specimens from 869 patients yielded no virus in 401 cases, poliovirus in 292, ECHO (enteric cytopathogenic human orphan) virus in 100, Coxsackie virus in 73, and unidentified virus in 3 cases. Serums from 191 patients from whom no fecal specimens were obtainable showed no antibody changes in 123 cases but did show changes diagnostic for poliovirus in 48, ECHO viruses in 14, and Coxsackie virus in 6. In a large number of paralytic as well as nonparalytic patients poliovirus was not the cause. Frequency studies showed that there were no obvious clinical differences among infections with Coxsackie, ECHO, and poliomyelitis viruses. Coxsackie and ECHO viruses were responsible for more cases of “nonparalytic poliomyelitis” and “aseptic meningitis” than was poliovirus itself.”
“Antibody” changes were also absent in the majority of polio victims.
“There is no correlation between the presence of antibodies in an individual and the occurrence of poliomyelitis.”
In a 1953 publication, Dr. Ralph Scobey describes how “virus” recovery was often negative in cases diagnosed with certainty, including fatal cases.
“Inconclusive evidence of a virus etiology in all cases of poliomyelitis is demonstrated by other facts. For example, in many cases where the diagnosis is made with certainty, virus recovery tests have proved to be negative. Even in fatal cases, it has not been possible in some cases to demonstrate a virus in the feces or in the spinal cord.”
Such was also reported by Dr. J. F. Edwards in 1956.
“Postmortem material derived from the C.N.S. of polio victims frequently fails to produce polio virus.”
The vast majority of patients claimed to have been infected with the polio virus are asymptomatic, as described by a 2015 publication.
“More than 99% of poliomyelitis cases are asymptomatic”
The medical authorities diagnostic procedure does admittedly not have a statistical relationship to the disease for which it is employed. Their test clearly does not establish an association between the claimed causative agent and the disease.
Robert Korns, N. Y. State Public Health Officer, acknowledged that the alleged detection of a polio virus did not have any real practical value, given that the claimed etiologic agent supposedly only causes the disease in a small fraction of people.
“Korns (1953), N. Y. State Public Health Officer, states that the isolation of the poliomyelitis virus for diagnostic purposes is almost never done and is of little practical value … He points out further that isolation of the poliomyelitis virus from the patient by no means establishes the diagnosis since the virus is widely prevalent in the population during epidemic periods without producing disease.”
2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased subject and grown in pure culture.
“How is any thinking person to believe that there is a virus that in some way causes inflammation in the gray matter of the spinal cord of infants when this supposed to be virus has never been isolated?”
“We are still baffled by the simple question, “What is the disease agent in infantile paralysis?” … We do not know whether it is a living germ or something else growing in the cells of the brain. We cannot isolate it like a germ in a test tube.”
In 1949, a man named John Enders developed a technique for allegedly cultivating the polio “virus” in vitro. He observed some chemical reactions in a cell culture, and proclaimed that a virus was present.
However, such a procedure does not represent the isolation of a pathogen in a pure culture, as acknowledged by virologist Joseph L. Melnick in 1951.
“There is as yet no clear evidence that the [polio] virus has been obtained in pure form”
Ender’s later admitted that these lab-created effects could not be “considered as necessarily the result of viral activity.”
The cell culture method has long been used as the gold standard for polio “virus” cultivation, and the WHO still rely upon it for “virus” detection.
“The World Health Organization’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative continues to rely upon cell culture to isolate poliovirus”
No published scientific paper has ever shown that particles fulfilling the definition of polio viruses have been directly isolated and purified from any tissues or bodily fluids of any sick human or animal.
In her 1993 article published in Nature, biophysicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos describes how the detection of an indirect phenomena can not be considered virus isolation.
“Isolation, however, is defined as separating the virus from everything else and not detection of some phenomena attributed to, or similar to it. Such phenomena can only be used for viral detection, and even then, if and only if, they have been proved to be specific for the virus.”
3. The cultured microorganism should cause the same disease when introduced into a healthy subject.
4. The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.
“There is little doubt that Koch would have denied the causal relationship between poliovirus and poliomyelitis and even, probably, the pathogenicity of this virus.”
“Although poliomyelitis is legally a contagious disease, which implies that it is caused by a germ or virus, every attempt has failed conclusively to prove this mandatory requirement of the public health law.”
The fact that scientists could induce paralytic disease in experimental animals by inoculating sterile biological material raises serious concerns about the uncontrolled nature of virologists transmission attempts.
Despite decades of artificial inoculations in monkeys, virologists were unable to demonstrate the phenomenon they hypothesized to occur: host-to-host transmission—suggesting that the artificially induced disease was not caused by a pathogenic agent.
• S. Flexner, 1910 - “No instance of the spontaneous transfer of the virus from a paralyzed to a normal monkey arose, although many opportunities for contagion in the course of our many experiments occurred.”
• I. Strauss, 1911 - “No observer has ever seen a monkey acquire poliomyelitis spontaneously … Leiner and v. Wiesner kept a monkey in the cage with paralyzed monkeys for fifty-two days without his acquiring the disease.”
• R. W. Lowett & M. W Richardson, 1911 - “No instances as yet have been reported in which one monkey has taken the disease [polio] from another, although long continued and intimate contact has been maintained.”
• Scientific American Supplement, 1912 - “Poliomyelitis artificially induced in monkeys has never been spontaneously transmitted to animals confined in the same cage or room.”
• J. J. Moren, 1912 - “Monkeys suffering from polio in the same cage with healthy monkeys, do not infect others.
• E. M. Mason, 1912 - “Healthy monkeys have been kept in cages with others in various stages of the disease, yet no infection has been reported.”
• R. Farrar, 1912 - “Attempts to convey the disease [polio] to non-infected monkeys by exposure to contagion from infected monkeys in the same cage have hitherto failed.”
• H. W. Frauenthal & J. VV. Manning, 1914 - “Advocates of the contagion theory were at a loss to account for the fact that spontaneous [polio] transmission among laboratory monkeys was never known to occur.”
• M. J. Rosenau, 1918 - “Monkeys have so far never been known to contract the disease [polio] spontaneously, even though they are kept in intimate association with infected monkeys.”
• International Committee for the Study of Infantile Paralysis, 1932 - “The natural insusceptibility of monkeys is also evidenced by the fact that [polio] contagion from one animal to another has never been demonstrated … Natural contagion from monkey to monkey has never been noted, although well monkeys have been caged with poliomyelitic monkeys at all stages of the disease.”
• K. F. Meyer, 1934 - “Well monkeys caged with poliomyelitic animals, or laboratory workers exposed to these apes, do not contract the disease.”
• K. F. Meyer, 1939 - “There is no record of one monkey catching the infection [polio] from another monkey by exposure.”
• J. A. Toomey, 1941 - “No animal gets the disease [polio] from another, no matter how intimately exposed.”
• R. R. Scobey, 1952 - “It is extremely difficult to understand how a human can contract poliomyelitis from another individual through dissemination of a virus by contact, carriers, excrement, unclean hands, unwashed fruits and vegetables, flies, etc. when a healthy animal in the same cage with an ‘infected’ animal, exposed to all of these natural factors, remains unaffected.”
Furthermore, epidemiological evidence demonstrates that the “virus” and the disease are not transmitted from the sick to the healthy in the hypothesized manner.
“The epidemiological facts are strongly against the theory that infantile paralysis is spread from person to person by direct or indirect contact.”
— Dr. Mark Richardsson, 1918
Looks like the Mighty Aldhissla wakes up, surveys his collection of virus myth scalps, and says, "Hmm, which viroliegy tall tale needs a little... correction today?" Then, after a sip of coffee, a twinkle in his eye and a flint-edged scalping knife in hand, he carves through the fairytale like it’s just another limp excuse in the grand parade of phantom plagues. Bravo!
Also worth mentioning that Enders was a member of the Yale secret society Scroll and Key.