Forrest Maready, the guy who created the crooked face theory of vaccine injuries, wrote a book about polio - The Moth in the Iron Lung.

The Moth in the Iron Lung by Forrest Maready copies old ideas about DDT causing polio epidemics.

Forrest Maready wrote a book that simply copied old ideas about DDT causing polio epidemics.

Disappointingly, the book is not about mutant moths giving folks polio...

The Moth in the Iron Lung Book

A book about mutant moths might have been more believable than what Forrest Maready came up with though...

So what is the Moth in the Iron Lung about?

Forrest Maready blames the big 1894 polio outbreak in Vermont on farmers spraying lead acetate to get rid of the codling moth... Where is the evidence that pesticides were sprayed before every other polio outbreak around the world?

Forrest Maready's 'Biography of Polio' basically blames polio epidemics on:

the polio virus - which will likely upset the germ denial crowd.
the arrival of the gypsy moth in Boston in 1865 - an invasive species among silkworms that were being imported
teething infants in the 19th and early 20th centuries who were treated with Steedman’s Teething Powders which contained mercury (wait, why didn't all of these kids develop autism from the mercury exposure?)
the spraying of Paris green, an arsenic based pesticide to help control the invasion of gypsy moths in Medford, Massachusetts
the spraying of lead arsenate in Medford to fight those gypsy moths
heavy metals and pesticides disrupt "the normal protective function of the intestinal immune system," allowing the poliovirus to cause paralysis instead of a more mild infection
peanut oil and aluminum in penicillin shots to treat poliomyelitic streptococcus that Edward C Rosenow discovered (and no one else found...)
and then, of course, DDT

Of course, none of Maready's ideas really makes sense when you take a closer look at the evidence.

The First Five Errors in the Moth in the Iron Lung Book

Forrest Maready believes his pesticide theory explains how polio outbreaks became more common in the 20th century.

Experts have a much better theory though.

"Before the developments associated with the 20th century, almost all children were exposed to poliovirus during infancy, largely due to poor sanitation conditions. Sewage entered watersheds without treatment transporting the polio virus into rivers, lakes, streams and thus direct into the water supplies. Indirectly, polio virus passed through the food chain and could be traced even in milk supplies. Due to the low case:infection ratio of infants, and due to protection from transplacentally acquired maternal antibodies, paralysis was rare amongst young children, although the disease itself was endemic. Because of their exposure to polio at an early age, infected infants acquired immunity to the disease thereby protecting them in later life."

Modeling polio as a disease of development

Everyone used to get exposed to polio when they were infants, when they still had some immunity (transplacentally acquired maternal antibodies) and so had very little risk of getting paralytic type symptoms.

"It is believed that the pre-epidemic period was characterized by a relatively high contact rate among children. In particular, children under 2 years of age create a microenvironment of less than optimal hygiene within the family and within daycare settings, readily facilitating fecal–oral and oral–oral (mouth–fingers–mouth) transmission. The spreading of the poliovirus between families was also intensive with multiple families often sharing the same toilets or privies."

Modeling polio as a disease of development

With better hygiene and sanitation, they all started getting polio at older age, when those maternal antibodies had already worn off. And that is what put them at risk for more serious disease when the epidemics began.

"With development, improvements in sanitation reduced the transmissibility of the disease. As such, children were no longer exposed to the polio virus at an early age, and thus remained susceptible to the disease as older children or even adults. This led to the transformation of polio from endemic to epidemic in the early 20th century."

Modeling polio as a disease of development

This makes much more sense than than Maready's moth theory!

"This is a difficult hypothesis to entertain, simply for the fact the disease was called infantile paralysis for the majority of its history. Even well into the 1940s and 1950s, poliomyelitis—or its nickname, polio—was used interchangeably with infantile paralysis.

Even if improvements in sanitation prevented children from acquiring the infection as infants, they would have eventually acquired it later on, ostensibly at a more dangerous point in their life—without antibodies from breastmilk to protect them. This would suggest that paralysis should be more frequent amongst anyone except infants."

The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio

He dismisses it because polio was also called infantile paralysis!

"Infantile Paralysis is a misnomer applied to this disease which has persisted and we have, by general usage, almost universally adopted the name."

Infantile Paralysis (Acute Anterior Poliomyelitis)

And because a lot of people still used outhouses in the mid 1900s.

"A curious detail accompanied the epidemiologist’s account: the victims were infants, predominantly boys, as had happened in the past, but the infections seemed to target Italian children — the immigrants living amongst the muck and grime of Brooklyn."

The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio

He also didn't like the idea that Italian immigrant infants living in 'muck and grime' were getting polio?

Doesn't that go against the improved hygiene and sanitation theory of polio disease development?

Actually, it doesn't.

These Italian immigrants were forced to live in 'muck and grime' in overcrowded tenement buildings once they came to the United States, but in Italy, not so much.

My great-grandfather, who lived in this 'muck and grime' only stayed a year and went back to Southern Italy because it was more developed than the part of New York he had been forced to live in.

So it's likely that these folks were not exposed to polio in Italy, where the effects of improved sanitation and hygiene had already reached them, but they were easily exposed in overcrowded tenement buildings.

And why were orphanages and children's homes spared at the time?

Probably because they weren't mixing with a lot of outside people!

DDT Vs Polio Vaccines in the Elimination of Polio

His smoking gun?

That polio was eliminated because we stopped using DDT, something for which he conveniently doesn't provide any evidence

"The live poliovirus vaccine of Albert Sabin won the national recommendation over that of Harold Cox, but would not be fully implemented until 1963. By then, poliomyelitis had nearly disappeared from the U.S. landscape, due in large part to the dwindling presence of lead arsenate and DDT."

The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio

If polio epidemics were caused by DDT, we should see a clear correlation with its use, right?

"The peak year for use in the United States was 1959 when nearly 80 million pounds were applied. From that high point, usage declined steadily to about 13 million pounds in 1971, most of it applied to cotton."

DDT Ban Takes Effect

Why didn't polio cases peak in 1959???

Let's continue to work to get polio finally eradicated.

Of course, it's because DDT is not associated with polio!

It wasn't when Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted pushed the theory back in 2011 as the Age of Polio, or Mike Adams pushed the theory in 2012, and neither is it now, when Forrest Maready seems to have now copied it.

I won't get my time or money back after ready this book, but you can save yours.

And hopefully get your kids vaccinated and protected!

The First Five Errors in the Moth in the Iron Lung Book

The Moth in the Iron Lung Book

The First Five Errors in the Moth in the Iron Lung Book

DDT Vs Polio Vaccines in the Elimination of Polio

More On the History of Polio