Roosevelt may not have had polio, a new study suggests

November 01, 2003|Associated Press

DALLAS -- Franklin D. Roosevelt may not have had polio at all, but a paralyzing disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome, Texas researchers say in a study that calls into question all the history books and presidential biographies.

"We feel from the clinical evidence, which is all that exists, that it's more likely that he had Guillain-Barre syndrome," said Dr. Armond S. Goldman, professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

But Goldman added: "There is no way we can rule out the possibility of poliomyelitis. We felt it was unlikely, but we weren't there. We did not examine him. He had very fine physicians who were experts in their field who did."

Goldman was the lead author of the study, published in today's Journal of Medical Biography.

Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio at age 39 in 1921 after swimming at Campobello Island in Canada. The researchers acknowledge that his vigorous exercise preceding the illness, fever during the initial phase, and permanent paralysis were consistent with a diagnosis of polio.

But they say that Roosevelt's age, the pattern of his paralysis and the pain he experienced all point toward Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Other experts were skeptical.

"I think it's a significant stretch," said Dr. Marinos Dalakas, chief of the neuromuscular diseases section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Dalakas said Roosevelt's fever and other factors would strongly indicate polio, and contracting polio at Roosevelt's age would be "unusual but not unique."

"It is pretty amazing when people try to rewrite history," said Martin Harmon, spokesman for the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation in Warm Springs, Ga., where a polio-stricken Roosevelt used to bathe in the soothing waters.

"Obviously, the diagnosis at the time was in the middle of the polio epidemic. It would be hard for me to believe that the doctors could not recognize the same symptoms that he had among the rest of our population."

"It would be fascinating to know if it weren't polio," said presidential historian Robert Dallek, "but Roosevelt still had to overcome his disability, which was paralysis, to serve effectively as president."