I remember getting the Polio Vaccine..There were no "ANTI VAXXERS"..then!...Were there?

[Stuart G]

...How stupid is stupid?....wait....600,000 deaths as of today.... ....>>>????

.....?????????... I guess there are a lot of ....STUPIDS....in the U.S.A.

[viva la]

1. A few outlier religious groups refused the polio vax

The only incidents of polio in decades, I think, were in those communities.

[Walleye]

3. Back then the right wing thought fluoridation of drinking water was a communist plot

A whole generation with cavities in their teeth and silver fillings, barbaric

[nycbos]

22. I thought it was the most dangerous and monstrously conceived...

... communist plot we ever faced as a nation.

[Walleye]

24. Perfect. But I remember we had a chronic letter to the editor writer who was against fluoridation.

[Walleye]

2. Eisenhower was president. And he believed in promoting the general welfare of the American people

I do see that now the children are being infected by Covid, folks are becoming more concerned. We old people have worthless lives I guess

[TheProle]

26. There was also a higher level of trust in science

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/03/988756973/cant-help-falling-in-love-with-a-vaccine-how-polio-campaign-beat-vaccine-hesitan

Anti-intellectualism has been on the march for decades.

[Walleye]

28. Yes it's infuriating to those of us who came of age in the 60s

Science, diplomacy, the United Nations, they’ve all been targets of the crazy stupid right wingers. It is a vast right wing conspiracy as Hillary once said

[jpak]

4. Same experience here - NO antivaxxers - none

Same thing with the smallpox vaccine too....

[elleng]

5. No, and trmp was a mere 'child.'

We and most of the world recognized that nazis were anti-social, and not to be befriended.

[Maru Kitteh]

13. He's never been more. And he's never been

more of a child than he is now.

[sanatanadharma]

6. Back then the anti's lacked standing, only personal egoic opinion

Just like today, back then the anti's lacked standing, having-only personal egoic-opinion.

Today however, the anti's can say, "I read it, it is all over the internet"; as though repetition conveyed veracity.
My opinion is that the internet has turned into an amusement-park fun-house hall of crazy mirrors reflecting back the faces of those distorted selves.

There was a time when reality was accurately named and irrationality had no fame.

[Stuart G]

10. Yes, ....THE INTERNET.....has ....."THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY"..to quote someone..

[sarcasmo]

7. There was no Fox News.

[marybourg]

11. Ha ha. Look below.

[sarcasmo]

12. Ha...

[hlthe2b]

8. There was good polio vax acceptance, but this 1930's comic depicting SMALLPOX ANTI-VAXXERS

show that that acceptance for polio (for many reasons) was not necessarily the case previously, despite near-universal fear of deadly smallpox in the centuries preceding use of the first vaccine




And yes, this is real.


This NPR piece does a good job exploring the differences with polio:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/03/988756973/cant-help-falling-in-love-with-a-vaccine-how-polio-campaign-beat-vaccine-hesitan

[crickets]

15. Excellent article.

I do wish we could foster the "we're all in this together" attitude again today, but politicizing of health issues and deliberate disinformation campaigns have made that all but impossible.

[Walleye]

29. They were rooting against our Olympic athletes. We're lost

[marybourg]

9. There was no Fox News.

[greatauntoftriplets]

14. Fortunately for me, my mother wasn't anti-vaxx.

[Jim__]

16. I remember people in my neighborhood saying the vaccine gave you polio.

That was due to the Cutter incident in which the vaccine actually did give some people polio - due to a faulty process in the manufacture of the vaccine. An article in the JRSM says it caused 40,000 cases of polio. Apparently most of the 40,000 cases did not cause paralysis.

An excerpt from JRSM:

In April 1955 more than 200 000 children in five Western and mid-Western USA states received a polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned. Subsequent investigations revealed that the vaccine, manufactured by the California-based family firm of Cutter Laboratories, had caused 40 000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10.

Paul Offit, paediatrician and prominent advocate of vaccination, sets the `Cutter incident' in the context of the struggle of medical science against polio and other infectious diseases over the course of the 20th century. He reminds us that, within a decade of Karl Landsteiner's identification of the polio virus in 1908, an epidemic in New York killed 2400 people (mostly children) and left thousands more with a life-long disability. In the 1950s, summer outbreaks in the USA caused tens of thousands of cases, leaving hundreds paralysed or dead. `Second only to the atomic bomb', polio was `the thing that Americans feared the most'.

Offit provides a gripping account of how the `March of Dimes', inspired in part by President Franklin D Roosevelt's personal experience of polio, raised funds for research and focused national attention on the disease. He profiles leading figures, notably Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin —brilliant, egotistical and flawed characters—pioneers in vaccine development and as scientific celebrities, and notorious for their bitter personal rivalry.

Offit offers a balanced judgement on both the Cutter incident and on the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Reviewing failures in the manufacturing and inspection processes, he exonerates Salk from blame and concludes that `the federal government, through its vaccine regulatory agency... was in the best position to avoid the Cutter tragedy'. Three larger companies produced safe polio vaccines according to Salk's protocol for inactivating the virus with formaldehyde. The lack of experience and expertise at Cutter Laboratories, undetected by the inspectors, caused the disaster.

...

[womanofthehills]

25. The mistake was that Cutter Labs did not put in enough formaldehyde to kill the live virus

So kids who got the virus from the vaccine were also transmitting the virus. Cutter labs gave all their employees kids the vaccines first.

A girl a few houses down from me got polio when we were kids - we all played together but no one else on the block got polio including her siblings. She was in a wheelchair for 2 yrs and then she suddenly died. Unlike Covid-19, polio was often picked up more from food and water, contaminated stool - by touching a contaminated surface and then touching your mouth, but it could also spread thru saliva and coughing. It usually went to your intestines first. I don't think we knew this at the time because I do not ever remembering being told in school or at home to wash my hands because of the polio danger.

[ananda]

17. We lined up at school... and that was that.

AFAIK, every child in the country was vaxxed,
and parents were happy about it.

[Scottie Mom]

20. Yep. And I remember kids in front of me screaming their heads off.

I don’t recall, however, anyone not getting the vaccine.

[Hekate]

34. Oh, so you were standing behind my baby sister, were you?

Gods, what a racket.

But our parents had no sympathy, believe me. Mom held her firmly until it was over.

[Scottie Mom]

36. So...is she a red head?

The screamer in front of me...definite flame red hair!

[Walleye]

30. I'm certain that even Donald Trump got the polio shot as a child

[Deminpenn]

18. Those photos and news stories of polio victims

in iron lung machines scared plenty of Americans.

[Initech]

19. Also no Facebook either.

This is seriously becoming "DBP" - death by propaganda.

[Chainfire]

21. Our parents weren't paranoid Nazi assholes.

If fact, most of our Fathers had just got through putting the end to paranoid Nazi assholes. In the 60s we were excited and happy about advancements in medical science that may prolong our lives. In the 50s and 60s put more faith in scientists and doctors than in politicians. At that time, we weren't interested in installing pathological liars and idiots to run our government.

[malaise]

23. as soon as the polio vaccine was available mom

ensured that every one of us got the cube as I remember it.

[enough]

27. Children were dying. People were extremely fearful. I was a kid then and kids

felt their parents’ fear. A very different atmosphere. The iron lung was every child’s nightmare.

[FakeNoose]

31. Maybe there might have been a few, but we never heard of them

I'm saying the real weirdo's who were home-schoolers and (maybe) Amish-types - they might have been anti-vax. But any kids who went to regular schools in the 1950's were vaccinated against polio. That includes all of us baby boomers.

Nobody protested, we all just did it and so did our parents. As far as I know my parents had to pay because the shots weren't free. The government didn't cover the cost, I don't believe. My parents were glad to pay for polio vaccines for us kids. It took a big load off their minds.

[Brother Mythos]

32. I was only about five years old at the time, but I don't remember any resistance.

And, as a distance cousin of mine had been severely stricken with polio, everyone in my family was more than happy to stand in line and get vaccinated. I remember the women were not happy about the big scar, but they got the vaccination anyway.

[Hekate]

39. No scar from the polio vax -- that was from the smallpox vaccination. Mine was the size of a dime...

… and was placed on my upper arm, but my mother’s scar was on her thigh and was larger than a quarter-dollar.

[Brother Mythos]

41. You're right, I was clearly mistaken.

[Hekate]

42. No problem. I was amused when a nurse called over a student nurse to show her my ancient scar...

I was at a “seniors” event and one feature was the availability of flu vaccinations. As the young nursing student was informed, you won’t see this on younger people. It’s the sign of a very, very successful vaccination program.

[Hekate]

33. Yes, but they were few & our parents called them "religious nuts"

[Poiuyt]

35. As a kid, I hated that shot

It was really painful! Then the sugar cube vaccine came along and all was good.

BTW, my mother had polio in the 1920s, so there was no question about us getting it.

[BadGimp]

37. re: Were there? - there absolutely were!

A key difference then was there was no vast organized effort to exploit the ignorant and rile them up for political purposes like there is today.

Today we have multiple media networks that work hard to capture the attention of these people and direct their resulting frustrations and anger. The media is after the money and a shit ton of money is working alongside and behind them.

Ignorance and crazy have always been with us, we just never had an industry spring up around it like we do today.

[leftyladyfrommo]

38. Nope. Just a whole lot of really relieved people. nt

[Demsrule86]

40. There was a hot vaccine. ... my Mom called my Dad

and said she would hold off on the polio vaccine. She was a nurse. Dad cut his business trip short and came home. He took my older brothers and sisters to get the vaccine. I was not born. So there was some hesitancy.