ema adama

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

This is a pdf below called:


Tiberio A. Swartz, MD MPH
The Epidemiology of Polio in Israel
An Historical Perspective

This is the URL for it: In case you want to point other people to it. http://abush.health.gov.il/Download/pages/Polio_inIsrae251109l.pdf

Obviously it won't tell you everything, but it will tell you the official government position. :D

[ema-adama]

Thanks for that. I have been meaning to look into the parallel's between Israel and the USA more closely, specifically with regard to the Salk vaccine and the statistics around that

I'll keep that bookmarked - and hopefully find the time to read through it myself more thoroughly.
I'm still on page one of the primate study.

[ema-adama]

I have been skimming along and it is great stuff. The reasons put forward for the different epidemics are interesting. Gonna have to talk to people who were living here at the time (I've only been here 5 years). Great find. Again, thank you

ETA: I continue to ponder on the role of DDT. I read that the attack rate in the Yemenite population was 271.0 per 100,000 instead of 122.0 per 100,000 in the established population. The Yemenite population immigrated in a huge wave at the end of 1949, and were dusted/sprayed with DDT on arrival. I haven't read it quite so clearly that this population was more at risk than other populations when it came to polio.

Another interesting part of the puzzle for me. Religious Jews wash their hands on rising, before eating bread amounst other times. Hands are washed regularly throughout the day. (not scrubbed with soap, but rinsed). This got me thinking. I wonder if improvements in sanitation that are said to explain th sudden increase in polio numbers, holds in a population that has maintained sanitation through regular hand washing? Granted, not all Jews are religious. And perhaps rinsing with water is not enough to remove the virus. I don't know.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

In my opinion, improved sanitation has nothing to do with it. In this country, polio often started in rural areas where sanitation was long drops or a bucket, and water was tank water, which now, of course, is considered hotbed of salmonella and other insanitary seriously dangerous germs!!

Anyone who collects rainwater in this country, is advised only to use it for toilet and washing machines. Seriously. Yet out roof water tests far better than the tap water!!!

If lousy sanitation protected populations from polio, then Nigeria and other African and asia/ middle eastern countries where sanitation is crap would have no polio.

Look at India, and any ideas that no sanitation protects against polio, go right out of the window.

[MinorityView]

Doubt if increased sanitation played a role with polio, but I did come across a mention of Jews in New York City in the early 1900s having a much lower infant mortality rate than a comparable Hispanic population. The Jewish population differences that were mentioned: more breastfeeding, mothers staying home with baby instead of working. I wonder if a higher standard of cleanliness also played a role?

[ema-adama]

At the moment the idea of sanitation resulting in epidemics of polio does not make sense to me (intuitively I will admit). In some instances there does seem to be a correlation, but there are many instances where there is not, as MT and MV pointed out.

I wouldn't expect to see no polio in populations with lousy sanitation, but I would not expect to see epidemics. It should be fairly stable if it is endemic.

I haven't gone through it carefully yet, but there seems to be outbreaks associated with the wars in Israel. Which is interesting. This has been explained by movement of the population and contact with different populations.... which might make sense if the enemy populations had raging epidemics of polio, which I do not know.

In the 1950's the fact that the children in immigration camps and kibbutzim were both heavily affected looks interesting. Of course the official understanding is that the children in both were living in group situations, with the unsanitary conditions only being in the immigrant camps.

Which is weird, as the immigrants from North Africa and Yemen came from 'unsanitary' countries (hence the DDT) and were living in unsanitary conditions, but they were the hardest hit when it comes to polio.

Anyway, I'm gonna keep reading as the opportunities present themselves.

ETA: In Israel they also only starting counting paralytic cases in 1957. And were completely baffled by the outbreak in 1958, the year after they started vaccinating.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Were the kibbutzim also using a lot of DDT on their crops etc?

when was DDT licensed in Israel?

[ema-adama]

I know they were using DDT indoors to control flies and mosquitoes (I am guessing also spraying outdoors for mosquitoes, but I don't know). I do not know about the use of DDT on crops in the 1940's. There is an interesting debate on whether DDT sprayed food is kosher or not, although I have not followed the intricacies on that. The kibbutzim were definitely using DDT. I read a paper describing a study on which surfaces flies frequent the most in an attempt to be more cost effective with DDT and the labour of spraying it. :o

It was used from some time in the 1940's - I don't have a specific date.

I still have not understood just how DDT could have resulted in paralysis. Did it make people more susceptible to the virus? Or did it damage the nervous system by some other mechanism? It doesn't seem to have been affecting everyone in the same way, so who was more vulnerable and why?

Not expecting answers, as no one knows. Or I am guessing no one knows.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

"Conspicuous histological degeneration was, however, often found in the central nervous system. The most striking ones were found in the cerebellum, mainly in the nucleus dentatus and the cortex cells. Among other things an increase of the neuroglia and a necrotic degeneration and resorption of ganglionic cells was found. The Purkinje cells were less seriously affected than the other neurons. Also in the spinal cord abnormalities of a degenerative nature were found. . . . such changes were not found invariably. . . there is neither an obvious relation between the size and spreading of the lesion and the quantity of DDT applied. . . . information of adequate precision about the nature of the anomalies is lacking."

Daniel Dresden, Physiological Investigations Into The Action Of DDT, G.W. Van Der Wiel & Co., Arnhem, 1949

see also the attached and note the paragraph on Israel in page 334.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Notice that Nigeria has been a big user of DDT of late, to get rid of mosquitos....

http://www.nigeriahealthwatch.com/2008/03/ddt-and-malaria-back-to-basics-ii.html

11 March 2008

Now, however, some African governments are beginning to judge that the ecological risks posed by DDT do not compare with the danger of malaria getting a deadlier grip (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1677073.stm). The bottom-line is in the last 50 years of intense study no causal relationship between DDT and harm to human health has been documented. Now the pendulum has swung again…DDT is back in fashion! Some have called it a renaissance.
Maybe sometime in the future we will come to understand the forces that led to its http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CTQcCvavEVg/R9b8w0FCIOI/AAAAAAAAAO0/ctyrQDt7nug/s400/DDT%5B1%5D.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CTQcCvavEVg/R9b8w0FCIOI/AAAAAAAAAO0/ctyrQDt7nug/s1600-h/DDT[1].jpg)ban in the first place and share with them the burden of death inflicted.
WHO has recently changed its policy governing malaria control (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=19855&Cr=malaria&Cr1) and now endorses use of indoor residual spraying of insecticides (IRS) as a primary means of malaria control, to include use of DDT. Additionally the US Agency for International Development (http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/id/malaria/techareas/irs.html) has changed its policy on use of IRS and DDT funding countries to use DDT. Presently DDT use in the South African Malaria control program (http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/health/malaria-190906.htm)is showing amazing results. Dramatic reductions in their malaria cases are being recorded and maintained. Many countries in Africa have reinstated the use of indoor spraying with DDT as the mainstay of their anti-malaria programs (http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/african-nations-lift-ddt-ban-to-fight-malaria/2006/05/30/1148956344979.html). These enormous changes in policy should not be ignored by the Nigerian Health Ministry. We expect our country to show leadership in the use of DDT in responding to malaria

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

http://www.scienceclarified.com/Co-Di/DDT-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.html

Kenneth Alau

Feb 4, 2009 @ 11:11 am
I am from Nigeria. A lot of DDT is used here to protect yam from the yam beetle (rhinoceros beetle).This is a staple crop in Nigeria; could there be a possible link between this and cancer? A lot of people from these yam producing areas also have HIV/AIDS and tend to be violent.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

http://www.mm.helsinki.fi/~tammisol/MalariaIPPA011205.pdf (http://www.mm.helsinki.fi/~tammisol/MalariaIPPA011205.pdf)

http://www.journals.elsevierhealth.com/periodicals/trstmh/article/PII0035920364900720/abstract

The behaviour of malaria vectors in huts sprayed with DDT and with a mixture of DDT and malathion in Northern Nigeria

Volume 58 (http://www.tropicalmedandhygienejrnl.net/issues?Vol=58), Issue 1 (http://www.tropicalmedandhygienejrnl.net/issues/contents?issue_key=S0035-9203(00)X0202-7), Pages 72-79 (January 1964)
[/URL]



The behaviour of malaria vectors in huts sprayed with DDT and with a mixture of DDT and malathion in Northern Nigeria



M.W. Service (http://beyondvaccination.com/periodicals/trstmh/article/0035-9203(64)90073-2/abstract)

Abstract


1.1) Because of the failure to interrupt malaria transmission in Northern Nigeria with a twice-yearly house-spraying with 2.0 g./m.2 DDT water-dispersible powder, and because it was known that the addition of small quantities of malathion to DDT increased mosquito mortalities, field trials were initiated to investigate the effectiveness of DDT, and a mixture of DDT and malathion.

2.2) Four huts were sprayed with 2.0 g./m.2 DDT water-dispersible powder and another four with 2.0 g./m.2 DDT and 0.5 g./m.2 malathion water-dispersible powder, unsprayed huts acted as controls.

3.3) A long-lasting repellant effect was observed in both types of sprayed huts, and caused a reduction in the number of A. gambiae and A. funestus entering them.

4.4) There was a notable reduction in the DDT and DDT/malathion sprayed huts in the proportion of mosquitoes resting in them, and an increase in the numbers leaving.

5.5) In the DDT huts the irritant effect of the insecticide prevented a considerable proportion of A. gambiae from feeding, and this resulted in a pronounced increase in the number of unfeds found in, and leaving, these huts.

6.6) In the DDT/malathion huts there was no marked reduction in the biting rate of A. gambiae and only a slight increase in the number of unfed A. funestus, but both species left the sprayed huts before completion of the gonotrophic cycle.

7.7) Both insecticidal formulations produced a small, but appreciable, overnight room kill.

8.8) A 70 per cent. mortality in A. gambiae was achieved only during the first 4 months in the DDT huts, after this unsatisfactory kills were obtained.

9.9) In the DDT/malathion huts mortalities were 70 per cent. or above for both species for 5 months, and although that of A. funestus dropped to 47 per cent. in the last 2 months, a 60 per cent. kill was recorded for A. gambiae in the sixth month.

10.10) Mortalities of the blood-fed fractions were high for 6 months in the DDT/malathion huts, but for only 4 months in the DDT huts.

11.11) It is concluded that the addition of a small amount of malathion to DDT increases mortality, improves the effective persistence of the insecticide, and causes a reduction in irritability.





[URL]http://www.who.int/ipcs/capacity_building/who_statement.pdf