Discussion on Polio Vaccine and Cancer Risks

The polio vaccine contained a, um, a, a virus

called simian virus 40, SV40.

It's w- it's one of the most, uh, carcinogenic materials that is known

to man. In fact, it's used now by scientists around the

world to induce

tumors in rats and guinea pigs in labs.

But it was in that vaccine. 98 million people who got that vaccine in

my generation got it, and now you've had this explosion

of soft tissue cancers in our generation that kill many, many, many, many, many

more people than polio ever did. So if you say to me, "Did the,

you know, the polio vaccine was effective against polio?" I'm gonna

say yes.

But, uh, if I say to... If you said to me, "Did it kill more people than it,

did it aver- cause more deaths than it avert?" I,

I would say I don't know, because

we don't have the data on that