The Polio Vaccine Killed Her Father, But She’s Still Pro-Immunization
(Photo: Getty Images)
In the fall of 1976, when Nuria Sheehan was an infant, she received a dose of the oral polio vaccine. In a stroke of horrifically bad luck, her father was infected with the weakened form of the virus. Paralysis set in. His health rapidly diminished, and he passed away about one year after Sheehan was born.
Sheehan recently wrote a piece for the Washington Post detailing her thoughts on vaccination and the fallout from the trial that followed her father’s death.
But despite her family’s tragic ordeal, Sheehan told Yahoo Health that she still believes in the power of vaccines and the herd immunity that comes with them. “The risk of an adverse reaction to a vaccine is incredibly low, but the health risks that are being created now by under-vaccination are immediate and significant,” Sheehan says. “That low risk is something that we should take willingly.”
Nuria Sheehan. (Photo: Courtesy of Sheehan)
The oral vaccine Sheehan received contained a weakened-yet-live dose of the polio virus developed by Albert Sabin, instead of another vaccination with an inactive form — such as the vaccination created by virologist Jonas Salk, who, during the trial that followed Sheehan’s father’s death, testified that the particular oral version Sheehan was given had some known dangers the inactive version he’d developed did not.
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Since 2000, the oral polio vaccine is not recommended for routine use in the U.S. anymore, in favor of four shots of the inactive form administered in infancy and early childhood. This is because, very rarely, paralysis can follow in someone given an oral dose of the vaccine; roughly one in 2.7 million.
According to the World Health Organization, the weakened virus in the oral vaccine works by “activating an immune response in the body. When a child is immunized with OPV [oral polio vaccine], the weakened vaccine-virus replicates in the intestine for a limited period, thereby developing immunity by building up antibodies. During this time, the vaccine-virus is also excreted.” Which is when it can cause issues in the person received the shot, or the virus can potentially even genetically mutate or spread, however rarely. Sheehan’s father was never vaccinated against the virus, leaving him susceptible.
Today, the oral type is still used in parts of the world where polio is more common, but the U.S. finally fully switched over to the inactive form of the vaccine “because the few cases of polio that were occurring (8–10 per year) were caused by the OPV vaccine itself and not the wild virus,” according to the Immunization Action Coalition. “The change to IPV protects individuals against paralytic polio, while eliminating the small chance (about once in every 2.4 million doses) of actually contracting polio from the live oral vaccine.”
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Modern medicine has allowed for the best method for vaccination in the U.S. via the inactive shot — but even with the oral vaccine, the odds of complications are very small, which is why it’s still used in many places around the globe.
This is Sheehan’s major message to those wary of vaccines: the risk is smaller than the gain.
She tells Yahoo Health that she never felt any contempt against vaccination, although her mother did choose not to vaccinate her much as a child and often relied on holistic treatment regimens. “After living through my father’s death and a court case, in which the county health system and the pharmaceutical companies took no responsibility, I completely understand my mother’s decision to not have me fully vaccinated,” she says. “But what’s critical to this situation is that my family was an extremely rare case.”
The odds of contracting polio from someone who has received the oral polio virus? One in five million, she writes. When Sheehan wasn’t fully vaccinated as a child, she could count on the immunity of the masses to bolster her own, as an exception to vaccinations and not the rule.
“I wasn’t at risk from serious illness because I could rely on herd immunity,” she says. “But now that level of herd immunity is eroding because vaccine exemptions are being overused.”
At age 25, Sheehan came down with mumps. Suddenly, she saw her body in two ways simultaneously: potential victim of infections and potential threat to spread them. Since, this has informed her thinking on vaccinations and immunity.
Having fully seen, touched and experienced all sides of the debate firsthand, Sheehan empathizes with the parents who have concerns about vaccinations. “I found Eula Biss’s On Immunity incredibly helpful to understand the fears surrounding vaccines,” she says. “As she points out, these fears come from valid places, in particular worries about toxins in our environment. However, the fears are being misdirected into decisions to not vaccinate.”
As Gail Shust, MD, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai, told Yahoo Health last month, the odds of an unvaccinated person contracting measles after coming into contact with the virus is nine in 10. “The worst complication, which occurs in about one in 1,000 cases, is encephalitis, which can lead to permanent brain damage or be fatal,” she said.
Notably, with measles gaining steam in the U.S., Sheehan says she’d urge everyone to weigh the dangers against the imminent risks. With the MMR vaccine, the CDC estimates the odds of serious allergic reaction at one in a million.
