Most cases of Polio are actually caused by vaccines - it's not a case of confusing cause and effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio#Epidemiology

This is only the case because the vaccine has been so effective that the disease is close to being infected, and a vaccine-caused case is much less severe than a wild case, but they're still looking into a different vaccine type that will lower the risk of vaccine-caused infections.

Hence the comment about seatbelts.

Not saying anything tongue in cheek. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/16/780068006/how-the-oral-polio-...

That article says nothing about the relative risk of no oral polio administration vs. the small number of people who can get polio from it. The level of death pre oral polio vaccine vs after is clear.

The article is simply pointing out that it would be better if everyone could get the vaccine without live virus because the live virus oral version is beginning to have some unintended issues. The use of oral polio vaccines has saved huge numbers of lives but it needs to be modified now. It is not speaking against vaccines in general.

I wonder if not using the vaccine would result in more or fewer total cases over a period of time.

(None of which is to say we shouldn’t always try to design safer seatbelts and airbags)