A number of California children have been paralyzed and diagnosed with polio-like symptoms, and doctors are baffled trying to determine what’s causing the affliction.
Dr. Carol Glaser, who heads the California Department of Public Health unit that’s investigating the new polio-like cases, calls the discovery of the affliction a “concern,” and said doctors are struggling to determine its identity. Polio was supposed to have been eradicated from the nation in the 1950s.
CNN reported the number of children afflicted by the illness was five. Fox News, however said at least 25 have been reportedly affected. And The Associated Press reported the cases — which include paralysis of various limbs — have been found in children over the course of several months, since 2012.
Dr. Keith Van Haren, a pediatric neurologist at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, says all five patients he’s seen or studied suffered full-blown paralysis in their arms or legs within two days. And six months later, none had recovered.
“We know definitely that it isn’t polio,” he said, in AP.
Ms. Glaser declined to detail how many cases he knows of, while Mr. Van Haren said he was aware of 20, AP reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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