GENERATIONAL “FLOW-ON” OF POLIOMYELITIS
By Eddie Bollenbach, PhD

I'd like to give my impressions and ideas about transplacental transmission of the poliovirus.

Do you know how viruses are cultivated to produce vaccines? They must Be grown inside living tissues and a very convenient way to do this is to use chicken embryos inside eggs. The reason this is convenient for so many viruses, from influenza to polio, is that embryonic and even fetal tissue is very susceptible to infection by a wide variety of viruses. The point of this is that if a human fetus in-utero was infected by a pregnant mother, the fetus would be severely damaged and would very likely die. This is because the viruses grow inside these cell producing a "cytopathic effect". This means the cells get altered in ways which, especially in fetuses, would result in catastrophic damag.For example, large cells with more than one nucleus, cells with visible bodies inside, and other anomalies.

Dick Bruno, in his New Mobility magazine column, addressed the issue of pregnancy and fetal safety by providing the following facts. In the 1950's thousands of women came down with polio while pregnant. In Los Angeles and Illinois there was a study of 1000 such women and at birth or stillborn not one fetus showed any sign of polio. Even with the normal rate of stillbirths, on autopsy of these fetuses showed no sign of the polio virus or even a cytopathic effect. However, having polio while pregnant did pose a serious health risk for the mother as more deaths during pregnancy and childbirth occurred for them. Pregnant women were 5 times more likely to die if they had polio.

In another study addressed in the same article, babies less than six months of age, born between 1897 and 1956 were studied. 150 cases were identified. Four of these babies showed signs of paralytic polio at birth. So it seems that in very rare cases the mother's antibodies do not protect the fetus. I believe, in some of these, there was a misshapen placenta.

Let's move on to some more data: Lauro S. Halstead, MD, Director of the Post-Polio Program at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, DC, and member of PHI'S Medical Advisory Committee, stated about this question::"I know of no study that indicates there is a connection. To the contrary, we know that mothers who got polio when pregnant did not pass on the virus to their children. Some viruses cross the placental barrier, but polio is not one of them."

Following Halstead's lead, I found comments by the CDC in Atlanta, on the danger of oral live polio vaccine administration during pregnancy. The CDC reiterates the lack of evidence for fetal damage due to poliovirus but if the mother is vaccinated with live Sabin vaccine, there is a concern about SV40 which is a virus that apparently does cross the placenta and can infect the fetus. Such infections may cause an increased risk of cancer.

If your mother had polio during pregnancy there is a chance that during birth her shedding of virus from feces, or less likely blood, could have caused an infection. If this occurred, it might be difficult to tell, in an infant, if some motor neurons were damaged. Virus shedding occurs for as long as a month in some individuals although they are not infectious, generally, because the virus has a very high mutation rate and all virulent virus is cleared within a week or two after an active infection. But that is a possibility.

I don't know if anyone here has PPS because of a fetal infection. All the evidence on this taken since the late 1800's have been unremarkable and rare. With all the polio in the 40's and 50's one would expect positive information about fetal contraction of virus if it were a common event. We would have seen it. I do know there are a lot of physical problems that are common in our age group: fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue Syndrome, back problems, arthritic problems, lupus, MS. heart problems, chronic infections, Crones disease, and the list goes onto the point where we would all fall asleep. None of us escape all of these and many have common symptoms to PPS. Currently the guidelines at the NIH to help diagnose PPS include a history of paralytic polio. It would be pretty hard to convince them that PPS is the result of a parent's polio during pregnancy although I believe, and wrote an article in the Jan/Feb 2000 issue of the The American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, on Late Functional Loss in Non-Paralytic Polio. In that same issue were similar papers by Bruno and Halstead. soa history of paralytic polio, to many of us at least, is not required. In summary, I think anyone who feels they have PPS as a result of transplacental infection will have a hard road in convincing health care professionals of it unless an EMG shows typical old polio damage with resprouting. You might also show a higher titer of anti-polio antibodies for one of the three strains. Now if that happened I would be convinced. My co-author Marcia Falconer worked with live poliovirus at MIT and they did the anti-body test there but it is not generally available.
*References*

http://www.newmobility.com/review_article.cfm?id=358&action=browse

Post-Polio International (Halstead)
http://www.post-polio.org/netwkg_a.html