Posted on 04/04/2020 1:53:57 PM PDT by Hojczyk
FEB. 25, 2015
April 12, 2015 will be the 60th anniversary of the announcement of the Salk vaccine’s ability to prevent polio. Had it been available at your local CVS like flu shots are today, they would have had to call out the National Guard to handle the stampede.
In the early 1950s, there was no diagnosis more terrifying to parents than polio. In the 1952 epidemic, nearly 58,000 cases were reported, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with varying degrees of paralysis. There wasn’t a parent in America who would have requested a “personal belief waiver” to exempt their child from that shot.
Polio aside, in my childhood, there was no hope of avoiding measles, mumps, chicken pox and rubella (German measles) — miserable afflictions that I would never have wanted to inflict on my kids.
There could also be serious lasting repercussions to these illnesses: the pregnant neighbor who contracted rubella, (German measles) whose baby was born with severe birth defects; cases of deafness following mumps; encephalitis from measles. The curvature in my spine (and decades of back pain that has gone with it) is likely from polio.
When rubella came around again, my mother sent me to the home of a friend who had it to be sure I’d contracted it well before my childbearing years.
A new generation of young parents have never personally experienced diseases now preventable by vaccines. That’s both the good and the bad news. I guess for some, it’s easier to fear the autism spectrum they actually see.
But I wish every parent who doesn’t vaccinate their child could travel back to a 1950’s polio ward full of kids in iron lungs, or watch children suffer horribly — and sometimes permanently — from now-avoidable afflictions.
(Excerpt) Read more at lajollalight.com ...
“German measles”
GERMAN?? Racists!!
I’m 1/2 German and I won’t stand for it!!
Population in 1950. 150 million
Population now. 330 Million
Amazing how little I knew about polio. I looked it up about a week ago, and found it was very much like the current thing going around. Most people who contracted it were mildly sick and recovered. People with compromised immunity were at greatest risk, and the percentage of people suffering bad effects like paralysis was quite low, with adults being more likely to suffer paralysis of the limbs.
The American Experience Documentary about Polio is very well done and worth watching.PBS
I used to work with a very successful business woman who walked with a limp from catching Polio when she was a child.
Polio injections for 3 years starting at age 5...
Population in 1950. 150 million
Population now. 330 Million
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!950-Real Americans and immigrants who who wanted to be American and absorb our culture
Now-Snowflakes, wimps and pervs abound and it’s all about what they can get for free.
The same city, Pittsburgh, that gave the world the polio vacine could come through again with a vacine against coronavirus.
A sweet girl in my elementary school had leg braces due to polio.
We all took the Sabin sugar cubes (not the Salk shots).
The kid (my age) up the street caught it and while he lived he had to where braces and use crutches. We were about 9 and myself and a few of the otherkids use to take away his crutch and taunt him.
We were such as*holes as kids. I cringe when I think of some of the things I said and did.
Who the hell is Inga and what qualifies her to tell anyone anything?
She just ASSUMES that everyone is stupid and needs education?
She needs discipline. Sounds like a blogger.
“ I wish every parent who doesn’t vaccinate their child could travel back to a 1950’s polio ward full of kids in iron lungs, or watch children suffer horribly — and sometimes permanently — from now-avoidable afflictions.“
I wish every vaccine “know it all” had to spend a week caring for a vaccine injured child. People need to stop thinking that vaccines are all good and risk free. They aren’t.
Anti-vaxxers should take note.
My brother born in ‘45 caught it at around age 5-7. His upper arm is about the diameter of his wrist, but that same forearm is huge. I guess post-polio syndrome is affecting people. He absolutely hated therapy and refused to exercise in any capacity afterward (but he’s lean and fit otherwise.) My older siblings wonder if he caught it from taking a sip of water from a horse trough, when they were visiting a local farm.
I had both. There was a 6 year difference in commercial availability.
When the Sabin (sugar cube) became available, it was given free, at schools, on a Sunday to any resident who wanted it. No fears of liability, malpractice suits, etc. This was in Philadelphia.
Not many of my generation who later became parents refused vaccines for their children for polio or the MMR. What a blessing to not have those 4 dangerous diseases to worry about in our children.
I contracted polio in 1955 at age 5. The vaccine was not yet widely available then as I recall. I had a mild case that mainly affected my back muscles and had to go to therapy once a week for almost 10 years.
My back muscles still ache and I get a burning feeling to this day when doing simple tasks like washing dishes at the sink.
May have had something to do with my back surgery five years ago for a collapsed disc.
Amen!
Summers in the 1940s were really scary. People knew polio was transmitted by human contact and public swimming pools, particularly, were very dangerous places. My Mother kept me in virtual quarantine during the hot months when infections seemed to be at their peak.
People can do as they wish now about vaccinating their kids, but I thank my parents over and over for taking advantage of new vaccines as they emerged. Polio vaccine came just in time to protect my own children, for which I am ever thankful. One of my uncles was crippled for life with polio.
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