Man, insanity(as in irresponsible reporting was back then too. But it's more prevalent now) was back then as is now.

I'm glad Salk WON big time.

There are many Winchells now, causing the rise of diseases that can be easily prevented by scaring folks.

A wonderful article to post. Thank you for sharing this with us.
I never actually knew the history of this great breakthrough in medicine, before now.

Me neither, actually. I also never realized the huge amounts of people it affected.

~ harui

When I was little, there was a member of the staff at my school who had his leg paralyzed because of polio. Because of that, they made a point to teach about it, so I was aware of the great triumph that this vaccine had in eliminating polio, and who made it.
Although, I had no idea about the struggles the vaccine had with false information and public mistrust.
It all sounds so familiar, with what is happening today.

Looking sat those dates for the last major outbreak of polio reminds me of the few times I've looked at older local cemeteries and seen just how many kids died in the early 50's. I seem to recall that was when they had the last big polio epidemic in Pennsylvania.

That's what I often try to point out to people about how up until very recently in history the majority of child-deaths were caused by a swathe of diseases that we often think of as 'minor' or 'something that happened a long time ago'. I mean hell up until the turn of the century if one had caught the Mumps as a 12 year old it'd most likely mean a good chance of dying while today it's practically unheard of. Don't even get me started on how really really wide spread tuberculosis was x-x;.

The main thing I remember about tuberculosis was that Doc Holliday and several other insanely brave (or just plain suicidal) gunslingers supposedly had it. The idea seems to have been that since they were facing a lingering and horrible death anyway, why care if they lived 0r died when they fought someone?

My dad had polio as a kid, and survived (just!)


so - viva science!

Heh....though to think, this is kind of coming back to haunt us now, with the enterovirus >_<