0:13

I'm Beth Bennett. This is Howner,

0:15

the K. Junior Science Show. Today

0:17

is Tuesday, January 21st, 2025. Coming

0:20

up, I speak with a virologist

0:22

who studied the poliovirus for

0:24

40 years. About its current

0:26

resurgence and problems with the

0:28

oral vaccine. You'll also hear

0:31

from Howanearther Tom Yeltsman, who

0:33

speaks with author and photographer

0:35

John Waterman, about his new

0:37

book on the effects of climate

0:39

change in the Arctic. I

0:58

think the key thing for people, especially

1:00

Americans, to realize is that polio virus

1:02

is here in the U.S. Just because

1:04

we don't see cases, that's because we

1:06

vaccinate. So don't think it's okay to

1:08

stop immunizing against polio virus. We have

1:10

to keep doing it, and that way

1:13

we'll stay healthy. That was Professor Vincent

1:15

Rock and Yellow, who is Higgins

1:17

Professor of Microbiology and

1:19

Immunology at Columbia University

1:21

Medical Center. He's been studying viruses

1:24

for over 40 years. Professor Recanile

1:26

is passionate about teaching virology

1:28

to the world. His virology lectures can

1:31

be found on YouTube. He blogs

1:33

at virology.org, produces the podcast

1:35

This Week in virology, has co-authored

1:37

the textbook Principles of

1:39

virology, and regularly posts about

1:42

viruses on Twitter, Facebook, and

1:44

Instagram. Welcome

2:01

to the show Vincent. I'm

2:03

speaking with Professor Vincent Rackenello

2:06

of Columbia University polio expert

2:08

and I want to get

2:11

into the details of polio

2:13

vaccinations and it's spread around

2:16

the world. But first let's

2:18

jump into the basics. What

2:20

causes polio Vincent and why

2:23

is it especially transmissible among

2:25

children? So polar myelitis is

2:27

a disease that's been around

2:30

for thousands of years. It's

2:32

a paralytic disease. It's caused

2:34

by a virus which you

2:36

acquire by oral ingestion

2:38

of fecally contaminated

2:41

material that then

2:43

reproduces in you. And in

2:45

some cases, one in a

2:48

hundred or one in 200,

2:50

it gets into the brain

2:52

and spinal cord and causes

2:54

muscle. paralysis. And in the

2:56

beginning of the 1900s, polyomyelitis

2:58

increased in numbers in the

3:01

US until there were huge

3:03

outbreaks of 20,000, 30,000 cases

3:05

of paralytic disease each year.

3:08

And that spurred the development

3:10

of two different vaccines, which

3:12

today have virtually eliminated paralytic

3:15

disease in the US and

3:17

many other countries. Is it

3:19

known why? or what predisposes that

3:22

1% to develop the paralytic

3:24

disease? It's a good question.

3:26

I have a suspicion that

3:28

the individuals who get paralytic

3:30

disease have a genetic defect

3:32

of some sort. It's likely in

3:35

the interferon system that makes

3:37

them... susceptible to high levels

3:39

of replication and the more virus you

3:41

have reproducing in your intestine the more

3:43

you will have in the blood and

3:46

the more likely the viruses to get

3:48

into your brain and spinal cord. Fortunately

3:50

the environment is a bigger threat to

3:52

polio contamination than any laboratory. There's a

3:54

lot of poliovirus in the environment

3:57

and to say that labs can't work on it

3:59

as silly because they're not the threat at all. So

4:01

going back in time,

4:03

Jonas Salk started developing a

4:06

polio vaccine. Now he inactivated

4:08

the virus, is that correct? That's

4:11

correct. He grew the virus

4:14

in cells and culture in the

4:16

laboratory and then he treated

4:18

it with formaldehyde which inactivated the

4:20

virus. So it was no

4:22

longer infectious and then it was

4:24

injected into the muscle of

4:27

the arm and induced an immune

4:29

response that protected against paralytic

4:31

disease. So the very first

4:33

polio vaccine was an

4:35

injectable form and then

4:37

was his form also

4:40

developed or modified so as

4:42

to be given orally or was

4:44

that just the Saban vaccine

4:46

that was given? So the

4:48

oral vaccine was developed by

4:50

a different person, Albert Saban who

4:52

thought an inactivated vaccine could

4:54

not eliminate disease. You had

4:56

to have a vaccine that mimicked natural

4:59

infection in other words, a vaccine

5:01

that you would drink, it

5:03

would reproduce in your intestine, you

5:05

would not get paralysis and

5:07

then you would get immunity. And

5:09

so his vaccine replaced Jonas Salk's

5:11

vaccine and then

5:13

in 2000, we went

5:15

back to Jonas

5:18

Salk's vaccine and have

5:20

since no longer

5:22

used Saban's OPV. So

5:24

the memory I have of drinking

5:26

something nasty, sort of sweet and

5:28

sort of bitter out of a

5:30

little paper cup in a long

5:33

line with other children would have

5:35

been the Saban vaccine in the

5:37

early 60s. That's right. Yeah, it

5:39

would be, they usually dripped the vaccine on a

5:41

sugar cube and gave it to you in

5:43

a paper cup and you ate the sugar cube. Now,

5:46

both of those vaccines were

5:48

in use at different times

5:50

in the US and in

5:52

developed countries today, it's the

5:54

injectable form of the Salk

5:56

vaccine and that's an inactivated

5:58

virus, but is the the oral form

6:00

which is still commonly used in

6:02

the undeveloped world will get to

6:04

reasons why that is later that

6:06

is not an inactivated virus it's

6:08

a is it a dead virus

6:10

but it reproduces in the gut

6:12

so it no it's fully infectious

6:15

it you drink it as you

6:17

said and it reproduces in your

6:19

intestine and gives you immunity without

6:21

causing polyomyelitis but in fact it

6:23

turned out that it did at

6:25

a very low rate So is

6:27

the idea in that oral then

6:29

that you get so few viral

6:31

particles that it doesn't cause the

6:33

disease in the person receiving the

6:36

vaccine? No, so Sabin modified the

6:38

virus growing it in different

6:40

hosts and in ways that eventually

6:43

led it to be unable

6:45

to cause polyomyelitis in experimental

6:47

animals and then in people.

6:49

So you get quite a

6:51

bit of virus. It reproduces...

6:53

very well in your intestine,

6:55

it does not make its

6:58

way into the central nervous

7:00

system to cost, probably most of

7:02

the time. So then the problem that

7:04

I really want to get to with

7:06

the oral vaccine is that you

7:08

have living virus in your gut,

7:11

that is great for you because

7:13

it induces a strong immune response,

7:15

but then you poop it out.

7:18

It gets into the environment, the

7:20

wastewater. If people wanted to measure

7:22

it in wastewater, they could do

7:25

so. But by getting into environments,

7:27

especially in underdeveloped countries where there's

7:29

not adequate sanitation, then other people

7:32

get exposed to it and can

7:34

take it into that oral fecal

7:36

route that you mentioned earlier. It circulates

7:39

for very long periods of time, and

7:41

if these, we call vaccine derived

7:43

polio viruses, and if you

7:45

have reduced vaccine coverage in any

7:47

country, you will have an outbreak

7:49

due to the vaccine-derived viruses.

7:51

And that's what's happened

7:54

mostly in Africa. We've

7:56

had thousands of cases

7:58

of vaccine-derived polyomyelitis. all

8:00

caused by this vaccine-derived

8:02

strain. For example, the

8:05

wild type two and there

8:07

are three serotypes in the

8:09

of polio virus and the

8:11

vaccines have all three

8:13

serotypes. Serotypes two and three

8:16

have been eradicated globally and

8:18

so the only cases of

8:20

types two and three that

8:22

we see are caused by

8:25

these vaccine. derived viruses and

8:27

they're increasing in number every

8:29

year as this virus circulates

8:31

more and more. So Professor Vincent Rack

8:33

and Yellow you have worked on

8:36

polio for a long time. Maybe

8:38

you could give the listeners a

8:40

definition of the serotypes or those

8:42

variants of the virus that have

8:44

different properties? Yeah, so they've the three

8:46

serotypes have been around as long as

8:49

we know. They're basically different enough so

8:51

that if you are infected by one...

8:53

You will not be protected against

8:55

infection with the other two

8:58

serotypes, right? So it's an

9:00

immunological definition. The practical result

9:02

is that any vaccine has

9:04

to include types one, two,

9:06

and three to get full

9:09

protection against polyomyelitis. And in

9:11

the US and other developed countries,

9:13

we have this injectable form,

9:15

but it doesn't contain all

9:17

three serotypes, is that correct?

9:20

No, the injectable form contains

9:22

all three serotypes. And so

9:24

the countries that use it

9:26

in the US, many European

9:28

countries, all use IPV. It

9:31

has all three serotypes. And

9:33

is that true of the oral as

9:35

well? No, the oral vaccine

9:37

is a little more complicated.

9:39

It used to be that

9:41

the oral vaccine had all

9:44

three serotypes. And then in

9:46

2016, the WHO decided to

9:48

remove the type two component

9:50

from this oral vaccine because

9:53

the type two was causing

9:55

more cases of polyomyelitis than

9:57

the circulating wild

9:59

type. viruses. And so they

10:02

were started to use what

10:04

we call a bivalent OPV,

10:06

which consists of type one

10:08

and type three. And then

10:10

unfortunately what they found was

10:12

that there was still type two

10:14

vaccine derived polio virus

10:16

circulating. So in countries,

10:19

we're immunization levels against type

10:21

two dropped right because you eliminated

10:23

it from the vaccine and suddenly

10:25

we have huge outbreaks of type

10:27

two polyomyelitis throughout Africa they have

10:29

to the WHO has to go

10:31

into those outbreaks oh the most

10:34

recent one in Gaza for example

10:36

they found a polyovirus type two

10:38

vaccine derived type two in sewage

10:40

there was then a case of

10:42

polyomyelitis caused by that virus so they

10:44

went in with monovalent OPV2 which

10:46

means just type 2, OPV, which

10:49

is designed to be used for

10:51

outbreak control. Unfortunately,

10:53

it then recedes

10:55

the environment with vaccine-derived

10:57

type 2, and you

10:59

don't solve the problem of

11:02

the circulating virus. And

11:04

this receding is due to

11:06

the activity of the virus

11:08

in the gut because it's

11:11

an active virus, it's reproducing.

11:13

But since it was modified

11:15

during the initial... process

11:18

of producing the vaccine. Is there

11:20

a mutation or some kind of

11:22

other change in the virus that

11:24

would make it more active once

11:26

it's released into the environment

11:29

or more effective I

11:31

should say? The original vaccine had

11:33

a series of mutations that

11:35

made it unable to cause

11:37

paralysis. As the vaccine virus

11:40

is reproducing in your intestine,

11:42

those mutations are lost. by a

11:44

few different mechanisms. And so

11:46

what kids poop out after

11:48

a week or two is

11:50

virus that is fully capable

11:52

of causing paralysis in another

11:54

human. So it's no longer

11:56

a vaccine virus. It's a

11:58

basically a... a poliovirus that

12:00

can cause paralytic disease and

12:03

that's therein lies the problem.

12:05

Exactly that and that is really

12:07

a frightening concept to me because as

12:09

you said earlier it's not just limited

12:11

to undeveloped countries but we're seeing it

12:13

more and more in the US but

12:15

we're not testing for it so we

12:17

have no idea how much is around

12:19

right? In the US we don't test for

12:22

it the only time we did test was

12:24

in the summer of 2022 there

12:26

was a case of polyomyelitis

12:28

here in New York State.

12:30

in a community

12:41

that was reports of

12:44

type two vaccine-derived polio

12:46

virus in environmental sample,

12:48

even in Australia, where

12:51

the only way the

12:53

virus gets in is

12:56

from a person coming

12:58

into the country. It's

13:00

clearly circulating extensively. It

13:02

must be throughout the US. The only thing

13:05

that keeps the US protected against

13:07

polymyelitis is the fact that

13:10

we have very high vaccination

13:12

coverage with the inactivated vaccine,

13:15

like over 90%. But I would

13:17

guess that's dropping. Do you think

13:19

that's true because vaccination rates in

13:21

general are dropping? So far they

13:23

have stayed high, but as you

13:26

may have heard, you know, RFK

13:28

Jr. wants to license the inactivated

13:30

polio vaccine. And I don't think that

13:32

that will happen, but if it

13:34

did. then I would say within

13:36

a year or two we start

13:38

having outbreaks of polyomyelitis in the

13:40

US. Totally preventable. So what do

13:43

you think is the best

13:45

strategy in terms of getting

13:47

back to where we were controlling

13:49

the disease because of the widespread

13:51

use of OPV? We were able

13:53

to get COVID vaccines which

13:55

are injectable into many people

13:57

globally. So the fact that...

14:00

IPV is injectable is

14:02

being used by WHO saying,

14:04

oh, we can't inject, but

14:06

it's wrong because they are

14:08

trying to introduce injectable IPV

14:10

into the routine health care

14:12

for kids, right? So there's

14:14

two different situations. There's routine

14:17

health care, the routine vaccinations,

14:19

and then there's outbreak control.

14:21

They're encouraging nations to use

14:23

IPV, and the idea is to

14:25

get away from it at some

14:27

point. The WHO says, when we eradicate

14:29

poliomyelitis, then we'll switch to IPV.

14:31

Well, we're never going to eradicate poliomyelitis

14:33

as long as you use a

14:35

vaccine that causes it. In my view,

14:38

we should switch right now globally

14:40

to IPV. Unfortunately, you'd

14:42

have to do that forever. It's

14:44

not something you could do for

14:46

five years and stops. You know,

14:48

the WHO sold the eradication program

14:50

to countries by saying, we're gonna

14:52

stop vaccinating in X number of

14:54

years, and they can't keep that

14:56

promise any longer. So they're gonna

14:58

have to say, sorry, we're gonna

15:00

use injectable IPV, and you're gonna

15:03

have to do it forever. But

15:05

the good news is injectable IPV

15:07

is actually available in a combination

15:09

vaccine with lots of other pathogens, with

15:11

six different pathogens. So you

15:13

can get many immunizations at

15:15

once. The idea that you

15:17

can't do this is really

15:20

incorrect. Oh, that's

15:22

fantastic information. And I hope

15:24

that I can get it

15:26

out to a reasonable number

15:28

of listeners and the world word

15:30

will spread because I think it's

15:32

really important. So thank you so

15:35

much for talking today. That

16:02

was Professor Vincent Roccanillo of Columbia

16:04

University, speaking with me about the

16:07

history of the different polio vaccines

16:09

and why the oral vaccine has

16:11

contributed to the resurgence of the

16:13

disease in underdeveloped populations, in, for

16:15

example, Africa and recently Gaza. But

16:18

it's popping up here too in

16:20

developed nations. A case of paralytic

16:22

polio last year in New York

16:24

illustrates the potential for spread here,

16:26

and the importance of continuous vigilance

16:29

and vaccination. I'll link to his

16:31

various online offerings on the show

16:33

website, how on Earth Radio.org. Award-winning

16:58

author and photographer John Waterman

17:00

returned to the Arctic 40

17:02

years after his first trip

17:04

to document the effects of

17:07

climate change. Here's how on

17:09

Earth host and producer Tom

17:11

Yeltsman, speaking with John about

17:13

this recent book, Into the

17:15

Thaw, witnessing wonder amid the

17:17

Arctic climate crisis. Our guest

17:20

is photographer, writer, and adventurer

17:22

John Waterman. He has written

17:24

a book that is full

17:26

of wonder. The book is

17:28

called Into the Thaw, witnessing

17:30

and... a witnessing wonder amid

17:33

the Arctic climate crisis. So

17:35

John, welcome to How on

17:37

Earth. So at the beginning

17:39

of your book, you say

17:41

that 39 years ago, and

17:43

these are your words, you

17:46

traded your worship of high

17:48

mountains for the high Arctic.

17:50

What prompted the trade? It

17:52

all stemmed back to a

17:54

trip that I did in

17:56

1983, my first trip to

17:58

the Arctic. And what I

18:01

saw in it was fairly

18:03

extraordinary. of wildlife and the

18:05

vastness. The quality of the

18:07

light, it really does stand

18:09

out. I visited in 1974.

18:11

I, like many, are really

18:14

just smitten by northern places.

18:16

Tell us about your own

18:18

first impressions of the region

18:20

and how they have shaped

18:22

your life. The light is

18:24

amazing, like wandering about an

18:27

oppressionist painting. That's soft. surreal

18:29

light lasts throughout the night

18:31

if you're there in the summertime

18:33

and the birds are singing at

18:35

that time in the morning so

18:38

it's it's hard to sleep through

18:40

the night which I've learned I've

18:42

adapted to that lack of

18:45

sleep it's insomnia producing to

18:47

be in the Arctic in

18:49

the summer but it's also

18:51

but then I also mentioned

18:54

the wildlife. You know, principally

18:56

there are large herds of

18:58

caribou throughout much of the

19:01

circumpolar Arctic. They're typically there

19:03

are predators such as bears and

19:05

wolves and foxes and ravens

19:07

falling the herd. So it could be

19:10

akin to the sort of experience

19:12

people might expect of the serendane

19:14

plains. I'm going to actually read

19:17

a passage from the book, to

19:19

make sense of it all, to

19:21

feel less lost when I first

19:23

went to the land above the

19:25

trees 39 years ago. I learned

19:27

all I could about the animals,

19:29

the names and habits of the

19:31

many birds, the Arctic turns that

19:33

wheel through the air, the rattle

19:36

and bugle of sandhill cranes, the

19:38

culture of the northern people,

19:40

and how this top hat of

19:42

the earth had been built over

19:44

the eons. Late in my seventh

19:47

decade, I came to realize that

19:49

I dove deep into the Arctic

19:51

for an orientation absent from my

19:53

life. I also sought mastery and

19:55

wanted my journeys through the Arctic

19:57

to release me from my moribund

20:00

introvert. versions, as if the grandeur

20:02

of what the Inupiat referred

20:04

to as the great earth

20:06

and its weather would somehow

20:08

convey beauty and peace to

20:10

my soul. So tell us

20:12

a little bit if you

20:14

care to about these moribund

20:16

introversions. Did you find that

20:18

the Arctic conferred that beauty

20:20

and peace? Let's face it,

20:22

I've taken these long journeys,

20:24

they often require a lot

20:26

out of a person, you

20:28

have to pay attention. They tend

20:31

to take you out of your own

20:33

head and put you in place firmly

20:35

and scotts in the place.

20:37

But then there's the vast most,

20:39

which I neglected to mention earlier,

20:42

much of the Arctic is above

20:44

tree line and out in the

20:46

tundra. You often don't see

20:48

any people, certainly don't

20:50

encounter any trails. buildings

20:53

or trees. So you lack the normal

20:55

visual cues to orient

20:57

yourself in a landscape. It's

20:59

easy to mistake a ground squirrel

21:02

50 yards away for a grizzly

21:04

bear. The light and the vastness

21:06

have combined for a kind

21:08

of hypnotic quality. You write

21:10

movingly and compellingly. of those

21:12

changes that are occurring in

21:15

the Arctic. And you note

21:17

that the region is warming

21:19

now four times as quickly

21:21

as the earth overall. As

21:23

you say, quote, my trips

21:25

in the 1980s were to

21:27

a colder, less brushy place

21:29

filled with caribou. But this time,

21:31

you saw just one.

21:33

So tell us more

21:35

about this, your firsthand

21:37

experience of how profoundly

21:39

the Arctic environment is changing.

21:42

to the Arctic for more

21:44

than 30 years. And when

21:46

you hold a place so

21:49

deeply and fondly in

21:51

your memory and return

21:53

30 years later, and it's

21:56

not the same, it's shocking.

21:58

The river's an attack headwaters

22:00

were flooded in a way that

22:02

I'd never seen before, making

22:05

the river into a lake in some

22:07

places. The valley was brushed

22:09

in a way that I did not

22:11

remember, for instance, I found a wolf

22:13

den there in 1983 with five

22:15

pups. What had been a kind of

22:17

a tundra hillside was a

22:20

chest and head high with

22:22

willows and dwarf birch, but

22:24

also caribou herds almost universally

22:26

throughout the circumpolar Arctic have

22:29

diminished because of habitat loss

22:31

and climate change. So,

22:33

a vastly changed place. Also,

22:35

most notably, you know, the

22:37

world tends to think of

22:39

the Arctic climate change as

22:41

principally being about the

22:43

diminishment of the sea ice.

22:46

The thawing, and in many

22:48

places, abrupt thawing of the

22:50

permafrost is a much graver

22:52

issue. And this visually,

22:56

physically causes

22:58

landslides on steep hills

23:00

or mountainside. More

23:02

gravely, thawing of the

23:04

permafrost allows microbes

23:07

to begin consuming this

23:09

ancient plant matter embedded

23:11

in what was once

23:14

frozen soil. And that

23:16

releases carbon dioxide and the

23:18

more potent greenhouse gas methane.

23:20

I think we have mislabeled what

23:22

is going on in the world,

23:24

certainly in the Arctic. It is a

23:26

climate crisis, principally because of culture,

23:28

because of the people. I

23:31

think that in many ways the earth

23:33

won't dirt and still continue to

23:35

astonish us with its wonder and myriad

23:38

beauties. But the people, many

23:40

of them live on rivers or on the

23:42

coast. And many of

23:44

these people are going to have

23:46

to relocate and adapt and face

23:48

new food insecurities, for

23:50

instance, as the caribou

23:53

hurts continued diminishing. Earth

23:55

shall endure, but there's

23:57

no reason for us not to have hope. One,

24:00

because we can take action, figuring

24:02

out how to reduce our own

24:04

greenhouse gas emissions. You know, the

24:06

most resilient people on Earth, arguably

24:09

the toughest people on Earth, are

24:11

these villagers, the Inuit, and the

24:13

Inupiat, they're the ones that have

24:15

done the least to cause the

24:18

problem, but they are going to

24:20

suffer the most. So there's a

24:22

lot to be learned from these

24:24

amazing people. If there's anything that

24:26

I would hope a reader would

24:29

take away from my... my work,

24:31

my book, and it's that these

24:33

people deserve our attention and our

24:35

help. Well, that's a great note

24:37

to end on. And so thank

24:40

you so much for joining us

24:42

on how on Earth and for

24:44

writing this terrific book. Again, it's

24:46

called Into the Thaw, Witnessing Wonder,

24:48

Amid the Arctic Climate Crisis. You're

24:51

welcome. Thanks for having me. That's

25:07

all for this edition of

25:09

How on Earth. I'm currently

25:11

the executive producer. I produced

25:13

this week's show and Tommy

25:15

Wilson, spoke with John Waterman.

25:17

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25:19

and produced by Josh Cutler,

25:21

additional music by Claude Davice.

25:23

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25:25

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call the KG New comment

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25:45

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25:47

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25:49

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