Biotechnology itself has transformed polio into a far greater threat to human health than it ever was before we tried to eradicate it with vaccines.
Ten years ago, a group of scientists working at the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbioloy at SUNY, Stony Brook, described for the first time the de novo chemical synthesis of polio virus, which they confirmed was fully infectious.
This discovery, when reported in newspapers around the globe in July of 2002, created a great deal of controversy, which Eckard Wimmer, one of the key scientists involved in the project, described thusly:
This commonly overlooked superfood protects the body from nuclear fallout, kills a wide range of cancers, and keeps the arteries unclogged -- to name but a few, experimentally confirmed ways in which the apple awakens your inner physician