The 1916 New York City Polio Virus "Lab Leak" Hypothesis
Still trying to understand the mechanistic propositions...
Posting my reaction to a tweet based on H.V. Wyatt’s 2011 paper The 1916 New York City Epidemic of Poliomyelitis: Where did the Virus Come From?1
Of epidemics in 1916 and 1931,
said, “Polio hit hardest in the blazing heat of summer—then nearly vanished in winter. Read the full story for free (link).”
X user @mentiju4 quote-tweeted Bystrianyk and said,
…or it was yet another lab-leak.
with a screenshot of the Wyatt abstract.
Lab leak advocate Matt Ridley reposted it.
My response:
Hi @mentju4 (and @mattwridley)
Mr. Wyatt's lab leak hypothesis in his paper "The 1916 New York City Epidemic of Poliomyelitis: Where did the Virus Come From?" is a wild guess.
“A New York laboratory was passaging poliovirus in primate brains, a technique which increased pathogenicity. I propose that highly virulent virus escaped and caused the epidemic. Scientists, technical and animal house staff were unaware that they could be infected by poliovirus which could then infect others.”
Implication: person to person transmission. How? He [Wyatt] does not say.
@mentju4 I am not seeing how you're addressing or contesting what @RBystrianyk is saying.
To be fair, I was also unclear as to what @DrSuzanneH7 was proposing about route/mechanism on The Joe Rogan Show. (Transcript excerpt below.)
Humphries: Most viruses in nature don’t become more problematic as they go through the human system. They become less problematic. Remember the whole COVID thing. Like, in the beginning, people were getting super, super sick. It wasn’t as contagious, but it was more virulent. And as it attenuated into the human bodies, it sort of spilt -- it kind of fizzled out a bit, and then we got the Omicron, which was, you know, less…it was more spreadable but it was much less pathological. And that’s the natural process that happens. So, when you’re gonna have problems, real problems with microbes, they’re usually gonna be reverse-attenuated, meaning made more lethal in a lab. And then they’re introduced into the population.
And, look, I’m not making this up either: 1916, upper East side Manhattan, there was a Rockefeller Lab that their specific stated goal was to try to create the most pathological - neuropathological - strain of polio possible. And they did that by taking monkey brains and human spinal serum and injecting it into monkeys - and there was a big problem with that - which was released into the public by accident.
And the world experienced the worst polio epidemic on record. Twenty-five percent (25%) mortality. That’s unheard of. Really freaked the public out. You can see the epicenter as it fanned out, and as time went on, never heard of it again.
She said it was "released into the public by accident." Colleagues @jengleruk @MartinNeil9 and I have formally contested the Lab Leak hypothesis,2 Mr. Ridley/Prof van der Merwe's recent paper, and the [Lab Leak]/Market false binary.
I have also investigated the NYC mass casualty event of spring 2020 in-depth. For those reasons, I would love to hear what the propositions are.
TY.
I reached out to Mr. Ridley this weekend in X direct messaging with a request that he acknowledge he had seen our response to his paper but have not received a reply.
It seems the idea that “Somehow, something must have escaped” is being applied to 1916 in a manner similar to 2019: devoid of a demonstrated mechanism.3
Historical fiction meets science fiction in another dramatic New York City “epicenter” story.
Update: 12 August 2025
I’ve posed some questions to related to this topic in the comment section of his article Polio: Rethinking the Origins of Paralysis.
12 August 2025, 11:27 am, US Central
Good day,
We haven’t met, but I attended the tail end of a presentation you gave for PANDA in 2024. If I recall correctly, I asked a Q&A question about some of the data in the all-cause death curves you presented. Thank you for your work.
I have a few questions related to your view on the 1916 New York City polio epidemic and the escape of viruses from labs. One of my “specialties” in “Covid Land” is the NYC spring 2020 event. As part of that investigation, I’ve revisited past events characterized as epidemics in the city’s history and noticed some striking patterns in the “stories” that get told -- both at the time and in later retellings.
I’m aware of what Suzanne said on The Joe Rogan Experience and have read pp. 398–400 in Dissolving Illusions. Forgive me if you’ve already addressed these things on X or Substack (if so, please direct me to the post[s]). My aim here is solely to understand your position, not to challenge it.
1) Do you agree with Wyatt’s hypothesis, at least insofar as you find it plausible and reasonable?
2) On Rogan, Suzanne said: “When you’re gonna have problems, real problems with microbes, they’re usually gonna be reverse-attenuated, meaning made more lethal in a lab. And then they’re introduced into the population. Look, I’m not making this up either: 1916, upper East side Manhattan, there was a Rockefeller Lab that their specific stated goal was to try to create the most pathological — neuropathological — strain of polio possible. And they did that by taking monkey brains and human spinal serum and injecting it into monkeys — and there was a big problem with that — which was released into the public by accident. And the world experienced the worst polio epidemic on record. Twenty-five percent (25%) mortality. That’s unheard of. Really freaked the public out. You can see the epicenter as it fanned out, and as time went on, never heard of it again.”
She appears to subscribe to Wyatt’s hypothesis, though she didn’t specify how, by what means, or on what timeline it was “released into the public by accident.” What do you see as the possibilities?
3) On p. 400 of Dissolving Illusions, you wrote: “Today, laboratory generation of infectious disease in the absence of a natural virus template has been accomplished by scientists,” and then give poliovirus examples. Am I correct that this applies only to your thinking on poliovirus, and not (for example) respiratory viruses?
For context, I did a quick post on this topic yesterday after seeing an RT of the Wyatt study by
: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/the-1916-new-york-city-polio-virusMy interest in Mr. Ridley stems from his lab-leak position on SARS-CoV-2 and his June 2025 paper—which my colleagues and I have critiqued, though Mr. Ridley has yet to acknowledge it:
(Original publication in The Conservative Woman: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/this-covid-narrative-collapses-under-the-slightest-scrutiny/)
I appreciate any time you can afford to a response.
Regards,
Jessica Hockett
Substack Note version:
CORRECTION: My original post used a screenshot from a different (but related) study - Before the vaccines: medical treatments of acute paralysis in the 1916 New York epidemic of poliomyelitis and said the opening sentences of the abstract sounded hauntingly familiar. (Hospitals in New York were overwhelmed by the epidemic. With nothing known about the virus, most cases were treated with traditional or symptomatic remedies. New treatments were made though unsuccessful.)
Questioned or interrogated is probably a better word
Added post-publication: The first of the keywords beneath the study Abstract is “laboratory escape”.
H.V. Wyatt is relatively cautious in his conclusion; however, he was clearly of the mind that things from labs can escape "on" humans and spread between them.
"It is not possible to prove that the 1916 epidemic was caused by the escape of MV from the Rockefeller Institute. Neither can we know if there have been other escapes of poliovirus from laboratories. However it is a remarkable coincidence that a unique neurotropic strain of poliovirus was developed a few miles from an epidemic caused by a uniquely pathogenic strain of the virus. My theory would not be proved even if it could be shown that a Rockefeller worker had lived in Brooklyn. Nevertheless such an extraordinary epidemic requires an extraordinary explanation: it is the only suggestion to be offered so far. Correct or not, it provides a powerful message for everyone who works with pathogens."
The paper should also be read in view of his credentials and affiliations: https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/21852/bio
The June 2011 publication came shortly "after" H1N1/Swine Flu and advances the belief lab-escaped pathogens can and have created significant mortality events.
Matt Ridley's Lab Leak stance re: SARS-CoV-2 sounds similar to Wyatt's position on 1916 (Short version here: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/matt-ridleys-believe-it-or-not)
It's never an outbreak of acute onset central nerve paralysis (poliomyelitis) from injecting the children with weirdo diphtheria or other mumbo jumbo quackzines, it's always 'a lab leak' -
"In 1916, New York City experienced a severe diphtheria epidemic, but it wasn't until later that widespread vaccination campaigns became prominent. While diphtheria antitoxin was available in 1894 and the Schick test for susceptibility was introduced in 1913, vaccination campaigns, particularly for children, gained momentum in the years following the 1916 epidemic."
In 1976, the national influenza quackzine roll-out was recalled due to accumulating reports of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). GBS in adults closely mimics the poliomyelitis in children.
When the quackzine campaigns is failing, the PR damage-control routine appears to be to spin the events into becoming some Sci- Fi lab leak cover-story narrative.
Sadly, then the deception become gospel, naively but automatically getting integrated into the cannon of emerging medical science, thus paving the way for the next cycle of: quaczkine campaign failure with severe adverse events> lab leak cover story. or some combination thereof.