Polio eradication inspire global biodefense systems?

End Polio Day (Oct 24, 2022)

Recent front page news reports include health experts' fear a “swarm” of Covid “subvariants” will soon be overrunning our defenses, a sharp rise in ARI in childhood hospital cases, flesh-eating bacteria in Florida, Cholera in Haiti, Polio is back in the US for the first time in decades, and the White House released our nation’s new National Biodefense Strategy.  Given the reality that biotech advances over the past two decades have made bioweapons an increasing possibility for anyone with a lab and a grudge, and the return of nuclear fears, do we really need Halloween this year?   

Humans are the most intelligent species on earth. Maybe not the wisest.  We have split the atom, frequently leave earth’s atmosphere to explore space for days on end, and even nudged an irrelevant asteroid a million miles from the earth as an experiment to confirm we can build a planetary defense system when (not if) needed against another celestial mass. Unfortunately, we’ve not yet managed to protect our species' essential life support infrastructure on our own planet’s bountiful natural systems.  Systems that are essential for everything we hold near and dear and depend on here for all life’s survival.  We could.  Some are trying.  But collectively we persist in resisting the practical solutions and the tools we’ve had for generations.  Even with more new tools and solutions created each day, the relatively easy plan of eradicating polio is still with us.  From space, we appear to be a species standing in a pit of vipers while swatting at bees.  

Do we need a spiritual revolution to invest in the global capacity to protect against humanity's oldest and greatest earthly threats?  Microbes (natural and now human engineered) are evolving rapidly.  We are not.  But we did have one glorious victory. The global eradication of Smallpox is arguably humanity's greatest achievement.  Humanity globally eradicated it in only ten years during the 1970s Cold War with a heroic global campaign that protected every human against the greatest scourge ever known.  A virus we couldn’t see unless we had an electron microscope.  Smallpox had killed more humans in the last century than all of our wars, revolutions, genocides, homicides, and natural disasters...combined.  Yet, the Polio virus, for which we still have no cure, remains.  And it has been maiming and killing (mostly children) for millennia.  For two decades we have had it on the edge of global annihilation.   

A 1916 outbreak in NY City killed over 2000 people.  In 1952, the US recorded our worst outbreak killing over 3000.  Fortunately, global science research led to the creation of the first successful vaccine by Jonas Salk, a US physician.  He tested it on himself and then his family in 1953.  One year later 1.6 million children in Canada, Finland, and the USA were protected. 

 

Astonishingly, in 1979 an inspired Rotary Club member in the Philippines dreamed of eradicating polio globally.  That effort succeeded in vaccinating 6 million Philippine children, and within five years Rotary International birthed it as an official worldwide Polio eradication campaign.  In 1988 the World Health Organization joined in.  The Gates Foundation recently announced $1.2 billion in addition to billions it had given since it joined the ‘Polio Plus’ campaign 14 years ago. 

In 1990 the Polio eradication target date was set for the year 2000.  Unfortunately, international conflicts stymied that easily affordable, doable, and globally agreed-upon plan.  2003 became the new deadline.  Enormous progress was made, yet again for the same reason, it needed to be reset to 2015.  Then this August the U.S. had its first confirmed polio case since 1979 with recent wastewater samples in Jerusalem, Israel, and London, UK, indicating community transmission in regions where new cases of polio have not been seen for decades.  

Scientists always knew that polio was only a plane ride away. And polio anywhere is a threat to everyone everywhere due to infection cases literally going viral.  This concept is not rocket science.  The borderless nature of viruses is indisputable and will never change.  But now eradication efforts must also contend with vaccine misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories that go viral.   Combined with complacency and a perception that polio is no longer a threat makes this victory even harder.  But it is still doable.  And permanently eliminating this virus means that anyone of any age, political party, wealth standing, or religious belief will never be crippled or killed by this virus again. Will we be able to start planning victory parties before 2025?  

Our species had the means of protecting against Smallpox for hundreds of years. Maybe thousands.  Indigenous African tribes used it.  George Washington used it.  The British didn’t.  Our nation stands today because of George Washington’s military genius and his bold decision in trusting that unknown tradition.   Today’s biothreats are inevitable and accelerating for multiple reasons at the same time and pace of Truth and trust decay.

Working with science and within “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” (see the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence) has the potential for preventing multiple sources of global chaos sparked by any one of dozens of unsustainable trends we’ve known about for decades (world hunger, species extinctions, war, terrorism, genocide, the evolution of weapons, pollution, global warming, new and re-emerging infectious diseases...).

 

The three most complicated systems in the known universe are the environment, the immune system, and the human mind.  For over 3 billion years immune systems within every higher life form needed to keep up with the evolution of microbial threats that nature was constantly churning out.  Viral variants will persist indefinitely.  And unless our human mind’s problem-solving skills and concepts, which got us this far, fail to grasp the profundity of this trifecta, polio and other microbial threats will thrive.  We won’t.

All life forms are exposed daily to hundreds if not thousands of new microbial mutations due to six or more mutagenic forces.  Almost always immune systems quickly adapt because most microbes are not a threat.  Some novel pathogens like Covid19 are.  Vaccines enable us to boost (essentially hack) our own immune systems.  This ‘hack’ has saved billions of lives in just decades.  But this vital human security asset is now in question with our stagnant political systems and flawed mental concepts have become our greatest threat.   Things evolve.  We stopped.

Our minds evolved for over 100,000 years solving survival problems enabling our species to thrive in an ever-changing environment.  Using the scientific method doctors gave up bloodletting and leeches. Now we need to abandon other delusional beliefs.  Primarily the concept of independence. Yes! It is only a mental concept.  It exists nowhere in our known universe except in our minds and in dictionaries.  What is more important?  Protecting national sovereignty or protecting human freedoms, security, health, and the environment?   Pathogens (natural or human-engineered) change relatively instantly.  These, and pollution, cyber threats, and poverty do not respect borders.  And our minds and political systems are failing us.

Future generations of every creed, color, culture, and country can survive sustainably.  But we must first realistically prioritize our needs, and theirs.  It is possible for humanity to engineer a global governance system that maximizes our cherished freedoms, fundamental security, and every aspect of health.  Expecting better results on any of these using our existing government systems fits the definition of insanity as truth/trust decay accelerate.

Profoundly, Jen Easterly, director of CISA our nation’s newest federal agency (the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency) stated last October that “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....”.   I’m sure Ms. Easterly understands that cybersecurity and biosecurity are uniquely similar.  And lacking a comprehensive global approach to any threat endangers all generations.

 

Globally eradicating Polio is a step in the right direction of engineering a reliable global health governance system capable of preventing and protecting us against nearly every biosecurity threat.   We can no longer allow Polio to dominate our children’s unprotected nervous systems while choosing delusional priorities.

God forbid another Polio variant emerges.  Or an antigovernment extremist group creating a genetically modified global genocidal killer.   “Things Change, can we”.  This is our most fundamental planetary health challenge.

If you doubt this, read the preamble to the US Constitution, and give a school grade to each of its seven intentions.  Abraham Lincoln wrote that our “Declaration of Independence is our Apple of Gold.” And our “Constitution” it’s a “Frame of Silver”. 

Jefferson's close friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush suggested he edit the best-known phrase in the Declaration of Independence to read "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Health" instead of happiness.  Imagine how different our nation might be today. 

Jefferson also wrote that every law and Constitution should be rewritten every 19 years.  Because the future belongs to the living...not the dead.  

Anyone truly committed to achieving the seven intentions listed in the US Constitution's Preamble should focus at least as much of their time promoting the 17 global Sustainable Development Goals as talking about the elections.   Simply because the Director of CISA told us a fundamental truth.