According to the Polio Global Eradication Initiative's own statistics there were 42 cases of wild-type polio (WPV) reported in India in 2010, indicating that vaccine-induced cases of polio paralysis (100-180 annually) outnumber wild-type cases by a factor of 3-4. Even if we put aside the important question of whether or not the PGEI is accurately differentiating between wild and vaccine-associated polio cases in their statistics, we still must ask ourselves: should not the real-world effects of immunization, both good and bad, be included in PGEI's measurement of success? For the dozens of Indian children who develop vaccine-induced paralysis every year, the PGEI's recent declaration of India as nearing "polio free" status, is not only disingenuous, but could be considered an attempt to minimize their obvious liability in having transformed polio from a natural disease vector into a manmade (iatrogenic) one.
VAPP is, in fact, the predominant form of the disease in developed countries like the US since 1973. The problem of vaccine-induced polio paralysis was so severe that the The United States moved to the inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) in 2000, after the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended altogether eliminating the live-virus oral polio vaccine (OPV), which is still used throughout the third world, despite the known risks.
