Polio is indeed a Hygiene Hypothesis poster child, though the post-'44 surge still begs for an accomplice (DDT is a popular theory but there may have been multiple factors at play).
"Contaminated" water is obviously an oversimplification. I wonder what Zhang imagines humans used to drink before sanitization was invented (besides alcohol, of course)? Just like with air, urbanization creates conditions (pollution and concentrated anaerobic sewage) that are hostile to more temperate bacteria and select for pathogenic bacteria in general, so Germ Theory / Sanitation Theory get to sweep in and look brilliant and convince mentally ill germaphobes like Zhang that nature=death.
I agree that only disaster can result from trying to banish the cold from the world. The elderly might gain a few months past winter. The young will lose lifelong health.
Great stuff. I didn't know anything about the history of polio and how modernization led to it's epidemic status. I agree with what you say, let kids get dirty!
Other things that factored into the paralytic polio outbreaks in the 1940s and 50s were tonsillectomies and inoculations. Wealthy people were more likely to receive both (I suspect). A search in literature from the time will show doctors attempting to 'sound the alarm' that paralytic polio was more frequent after tonsillectomy, and recommended to not perform tonsillectomies during outbreaks. Here is one relatively recent article about this concept called polio provocation: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61251-4/fulltext
This is a very, very interesting piece and as I gave it some more thought this morning after having read it last night I thought of how the attitude of those who would want to pursue a virus-free air was so very much like those who used to (and sometimes still) pursue a "vermin-free" environment leading to the extermination of wolves, bears, tigers, lions, foxes, raptors, weasels and their relatives and other such predators from the environment, all so that their livestock (cattle, sheep, goats, chickens) can be potentially protected. In the end, yes their livestock faced less predation but the broader environment in which they lived in was upset in many ways, with knock-on effects that then required yet more interventions (such as now killing off further "vermin" like deer, whose populations exploded and would compete with some of their livestock; others like the bison having been exterminated before simply for their pelts, meat and because they could be and also because they would compete (in the minds of the ranchers) with their cattle for grazing land). Coupled with this we also attempted to get rid of "pests" and "weeds" on vast, sometimes industrial, scales. Of course now, that the environment is thrown out of whack, the very foundation on which all agriculture is based (pollination of flowering plants by pollinators) is threatened.
A clear example of this would have been China's Four Pests campaign from 1958 to 1962 where they targeted rats, flies, mosquitoes and....tree sparrows. Sparrows were on the hit list because it was thought they fed on farmers' grains and fruits (which they did, but not in any amounts that would have really mattered). So sparrows were hunted, nests and eggs destroyed, adult birds driven away from resting and nesting spots (with the aim of having them die by exhaustion) and in the end the birds were nearly driven to extinction within just a couple of years.
The cost of this became readily apparent though as yields of grain and rice fell in the year after the campaign had been so successful, and the Chinese government halted the program after being informed that the sparrows ate the insects (including locusts) which were more of a danger to farmers' grains and fruits. Of course without the sparrows, locust populations exploded and caused great losses for farmers and compounded the other ecological problems that were caused by the Great Leap Forward. The upshot was the Great Famine in which 15-45 million Chinese died.
And as Addison Reeves notes in this thought-provoking piece titled "The Pandemic Response as contemporary Imperialism", https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2021/08/22/the-pandemic-response-as-contemporary-imperialism/ , [progressivism] "view[s] humans as separate from the natural environment, treating nature as something merely to be tamed and conquered. Nature is treated as inherently flawed and in need of improvement by humans. Human solutions, especially technological solutions, are always seen as better than letting nature run its course even when the problems are man-made ones."
This describes the attitude to viruses in the environment perfectly I think. Even in instances where viruses were made more dangerous due to human activities like urbanization creating pollution and anaerobic sewage as Brian Mowrey noted in another reply here. This is even taken to the extreme in this particular instance, where the virus itself might well have been man-made (or at least man-modified).
That's not to say that things like improved hygiene generally and the smallpox eradication weren't overall good things for people, but definitely there is a tendency to assume that we should always intervene to a extreme/maximal extent, even in situations where the initial problem was not all that much of an issue.
Excellent piece, I appreciate the way it touches on the hygiene hypothesis. For those who are interested, also look into helminthic therapy.
We have amazingly complex and efficient immune systems that have developed over millions of years. Yet we insist on browbeating and threatening our immune systems rather than working with them.
"...one effective COVID-19 mitigation strategy stands out—improving indoor ventilation. It was known quite early in the pandemic that outdoor transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was rare, and that indoor transmission was frequently associated with crowded and poorly ventilated spaces..."!!!
One good to come out of this scam is now we know how to treat the FLU: with the same med combos as treating rowuhan.
A pet peeve of mine is that people don't wash before they outside. They stink! Especially in warm and hot weather. They exacerbate their smell by trying to hide it with cheap perfume.
"The old adage survives despite our best efforts; in the case of seasonal cold and flu viruses, what doesn’t kill you still makes you stronger." Alas, not anymore with them deliberately damaging our immune systems. People don't recognise or now realise this danger.
Fresh air, sunshine, hygiene are basic stuff that people still don't apply.
Great piece, Dr. Templeton. Just today the AP published an article noting the astonishing “luck” of Africa in evading massive Covid mortality so far. The article went on to speculate whether Africans’ greater exposure to parasites, bacteria and viruses may play a role in conferring more robust immunity.
I do have a question on polio, though. I lived in Burkina Faso for 4 months as a Peace Corps volunteer and saw a non-trivial number of polio-stricken children and adults. There’s certainly no excess of clean/sanitized water in Burkina. Curious how this fits in with the thoughts you shared here.
sunetra gupta goes so far as to suggest that increased global pathogen exposure may be the main driver of longer lifespans:
As another fascinating observation, she speculates that the technology of travel has led to a wider exposure to pathogens in the 20th century than had ever been experienced in history. This might have made a major contribution to the astonishing extension of life spans in the course of the 20th century, generally from 48 years to 78 years. We are perhaps accustomed to crediting better diet and better medicine but this simple explanation neglects the major contribution of well-trained immune systems all over the world. I’ll say it here: I find this insight to be nothing short of astonishing.
Polio is indeed a Hygiene Hypothesis poster child, though the post-'44 surge still begs for an accomplice (DDT is a popular theory but there may have been multiple factors at play).
"Contaminated" water is obviously an oversimplification. I wonder what Zhang imagines humans used to drink before sanitization was invented (besides alcohol, of course)? Just like with air, urbanization creates conditions (pollution and concentrated anaerobic sewage) that are hostile to more temperate bacteria and select for pathogenic bacteria in general, so Germ Theory / Sanitation Theory get to sweep in and look brilliant and convince mentally ill germaphobes like Zhang that nature=death.
I agree that only disaster can result from trying to banish the cold from the world. The elderly might gain a few months past winter. The young will lose lifelong health.
Great piece, I've been saying this for a while
Lockdowns are paradoxically counterproductive for the reasons you've stated here
Lockdowns after vaccination is nonsensical because you actually want the virus to travel among the vaccinated population before the immunity wanes
Great stuff. I didn't know anything about the history of polio and how modernization led to it's epidemic status. I agree with what you say, let kids get dirty!
Other things that factored into the paralytic polio outbreaks in the 1940s and 50s were tonsillectomies and inoculations. Wealthy people were more likely to receive both (I suspect). A search in literature from the time will show doctors attempting to 'sound the alarm' that paralytic polio was more frequent after tonsillectomy, and recommended to not perform tonsillectomies during outbreaks. Here is one relatively recent article about this concept called polio provocation: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61251-4/fulltext
This is a very, very interesting piece and as I gave it some more thought this morning after having read it last night I thought of how the attitude of those who would want to pursue a virus-free air was so very much like those who used to (and sometimes still) pursue a "vermin-free" environment leading to the extermination of wolves, bears, tigers, lions, foxes, raptors, weasels and their relatives and other such predators from the environment, all so that their livestock (cattle, sheep, goats, chickens) can be potentially protected. In the end, yes their livestock faced less predation but the broader environment in which they lived in was upset in many ways, with knock-on effects that then required yet more interventions (such as now killing off further "vermin" like deer, whose populations exploded and would compete with some of their livestock; others like the bison having been exterminated before simply for their pelts, meat and because they could be and also because they would compete (in the minds of the ranchers) with their cattle for grazing land). Coupled with this we also attempted to get rid of "pests" and "weeds" on vast, sometimes industrial, scales. Of course now, that the environment is thrown out of whack, the very foundation on which all agriculture is based (pollination of flowering plants by pollinators) is threatened.
A clear example of this would have been China's Four Pests campaign from 1958 to 1962 where they targeted rats, flies, mosquitoes and....tree sparrows. Sparrows were on the hit list because it was thought they fed on farmers' grains and fruits (which they did, but not in any amounts that would have really mattered). So sparrows were hunted, nests and eggs destroyed, adult birds driven away from resting and nesting spots (with the aim of having them die by exhaustion) and in the end the birds were nearly driven to extinction within just a couple of years.
The cost of this became readily apparent though as yields of grain and rice fell in the year after the campaign had been so successful, and the Chinese government halted the program after being informed that the sparrows ate the insects (including locusts) which were more of a danger to farmers' grains and fruits. Of course without the sparrows, locust populations exploded and caused great losses for farmers and compounded the other ecological problems that were caused by the Great Leap Forward. The upshot was the Great Famine in which 15-45 million Chinese died.
And as Addison Reeves notes in this thought-provoking piece titled "The Pandemic Response as contemporary Imperialism", https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2021/08/22/the-pandemic-response-as-contemporary-imperialism/ , [progressivism] "view[s] humans as separate from the natural environment, treating nature as something merely to be tamed and conquered. Nature is treated as inherently flawed and in need of improvement by humans. Human solutions, especially technological solutions, are always seen as better than letting nature run its course even when the problems are man-made ones."
This describes the attitude to viruses in the environment perfectly I think. Even in instances where viruses were made more dangerous due to human activities like urbanization creating pollution and anaerobic sewage as Brian Mowrey noted in another reply here. This is even taken to the extreme in this particular instance, where the virus itself might well have been man-made (or at least man-modified).
That's not to say that things like improved hygiene generally and the smallpox eradication weren't overall good things for people, but definitely there is a tendency to assume that we should always intervene to a extreme/maximal extent, even in situations where the initial problem was not all that much of an issue.
Excellent piece, I appreciate the way it touches on the hygiene hypothesis. For those who are interested, also look into helminthic therapy.
We have amazingly complex and efficient immune systems that have developed over millions of years. Yet we insist on browbeating and threatening our immune systems rather than working with them.
Excellent piece!
"...one effective COVID-19 mitigation strategy stands out—improving indoor ventilation. It was known quite early in the pandemic that outdoor transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was rare, and that indoor transmission was frequently associated with crowded and poorly ventilated spaces..."!!!
One good to come out of this scam is now we know how to treat the FLU: with the same med combos as treating rowuhan.
A pet peeve of mine is that people don't wash before they outside. They stink! Especially in warm and hot weather. They exacerbate their smell by trying to hide it with cheap perfume.
"The old adage survives despite our best efforts; in the case of seasonal cold and flu viruses, what doesn’t kill you still makes you stronger." Alas, not anymore with them deliberately damaging our immune systems. People don't recognise or now realise this danger.
Fresh air, sunshine, hygiene are basic stuff that people still don't apply.
Very interesting piece posing much food for thought.
Thank you.
Great piece, Dr. Templeton. Just today the AP published an article noting the astonishing “luck” of Africa in evading massive Covid mortality so far. The article went on to speculate whether Africans’ greater exposure to parasites, bacteria and viruses may play a role in conferring more robust immunity.
I do have a question on polio, though. I lived in Burkina Faso for 4 months as a Peace Corps volunteer and saw a non-trivial number of polio-stricken children and adults. There’s certainly no excess of clean/sanitized water in Burkina. Curious how this fits in with the thoughts you shared here.
sunetra gupta goes so far as to suggest that increased global pathogen exposure may be the main driver of longer lifespans:
As another fascinating observation, she speculates that the technology of travel has led to a wider exposure to pathogens in the 20th century than had ever been experienced in history. This might have made a major contribution to the astonishing extension of life spans in the course of the 20th century, generally from 48 years to 78 years. We are perhaps accustomed to crediting better diet and better medicine but this simple explanation neglects the major contribution of well-trained immune systems all over the world. I’ll say it here: I find this insight to be nothing short of astonishing.
https://brownstone.org/articles/a-framework-for-understanding-pathogens-explained-by-sunetra-gupta/
Another excellent article, thank you. Only sorry it’s taken me this long to discover you.
So much talk about "ventilation" and yet the majority is BLOCKING the main VENTILATION SYSTEM of our Organism... Funny behavior indeed!