Polio vaccine
 

I ran into a childhood polio survivor the other day. it got me thinking about how the public responded to a vaccine and the comparisons to the current pandemic.

Can anyone here offer any insight into what was going on when the polio vaccine was first created? Was there as much skepticism as there is now with COVID? What was it like to live when polio was a threat?

Edit.. Keep the politics out of this. Both sides do bad things. I'm curious about people who were around back then.

I think I may have gotten my first polio vaccine in 1954 - maybe a year earlier. I remember polio was a big scare at the time, and the vaccine was welcomed. I don't remember any resistance or scepticism connected with the vaccine. You just went and got it. I remember standing in a line with my mother & sisters and believe we got injections. I remember being amazed when it was dispensed on sugar cubes later on.

People were far more trusting of our Government at that time and wanted to believe, the war was over and life in the USA was optimistic, we did not have a 24 hour MSM news cycle spreading knowingly false information. We had three stations reporting the news twice a day and the public loved and trusted Water Concrite (or at least the public didn't think the media was corrupt). Information took much longer to spread then it does today. Remember a news story in those days often happened days even weeks before it was made public just because of the amount of time it took to get the information from one place to another. Today information moves instantaneously often watching it live. The political environment was far less polarized and partisan then it is today. No doubt the Government and politicians were just as corrupt as today but the public didn't know it. Look at the Shenanigan's JFK and his brothers pulled that we know today that wasn't reported then. Yes, Teddy and Chapaquidick but all the affairs, corruption and vote rigging wasn't reported.

A very different environment then we live in today.

Not only the trust issue, but as mentioned above, there were almost daily reminders in communities about what polio could do to you if it didn't kill you. Men and women walked about with twisted legs. They were survivors. You didn't want to be like them.(Sorry Ralph, sorry Carl.)

Drcoastline was right too regarding the speed of information, but not just information, but also BS. I think one of our biggest problems these days compared to when I grew up is knowing who to believe. In our community, you knew who to believe. They might talk a big story, but you knew to discount the details by 80 -90 %. You have been warned by your parents or friends. These days every moderately competent individual with an agenda and a computer or a smart phone can spew their garbage over the internet and there are always those who embrace their brand of crap because it sounds like what they want to believe.

We also tend to forget the rates of infant mortality families lived with less than one hundred years ago. Do yourself a favour and go through an older section of a cemetery and look at the stones with several dates inscribed. You will in many cases read the names of three or four children who died in their first few years of diphtheria, whooping cough and other now almost forgotten killers. We have been spared those frequent reminders of the apparent frailty of this mortal coil, so it becomes easier to close one's eyes and ears to the danger. In just over a year in Canada, we have lost over 26,000 souls to Covid and doctors are reporting that some, on their deathbeds are denying they have the disease because they believed it didn't exist.

In a way I get it. It feels less scary to some to ignore something and hope it goes away. We all have deniers regarding those symptoms of stroke or who ignore the early signs of cancer, just hoping "It's nothing serious." Then we cluck our tongues and shake our heads and say, "If only they had paid attention to the first warnings." We've witnessed it here on this board. It is part of human nature to want to believe things will be alright.
There are some things you can't wish away. Our parents knew that and had to believe it because they had watched children die. They saw their neighbours twisted bodies and were thankful for the opportunity to stop the disease.

Best
Les

I was born in '60 and still remember eating a sugar cube about a decade later... before starting school I think.... I reckon it was a polio vax .... LSD was legal then too :D

I grew up near the Passaic River which had a habit of over flowing it's banks in those days. Polio was not epidemic in "Riverside" by any means but it wasn't unknown. Several kids were stricken. We were brought en masse t the school gymnasium and given the sugar cube. No questions, no hesitation ever mentioned by the family in the years after.

This was way before my time but I’m pretty sure the government also didn’t shut down schools and businesses, lock people in their homes and tell them where they could and couldn’t go, cancel church, cancel events, and make them wear things. Then spread incorrect information for over a year. Sorry but pushback is inevitable.

I went and looked up the polio vaccine, research started in 1935, with Salk starting field trials of his successful vaccine in 1952 and it was approved in 1955. That’s 20 years vs 9 months. Also there were issues with incorrectly manufactured lots of the Salk vaccine causing paralysis or death and leading to a drop in vaccination rates, which ultimately led to the adoption of the Sabin oral vaccine because the public no longer trusted the Salk vaccine. Sounds familiar.

-The people trusted the government because the politicians didn't have blatant agendas that were not in the interests of the majority of whom they represented instead of power hungry despots mandating things that hurt their constituents (and even the entire country) to fit their woke agenda or to ensure their candidate will win the election.

-The polio vaccine was not experimental but fully tested.

-There was trust in the numbers reported instead of inflated numbers (a CA county recently reduced their number of deaths by a full 25% because they admit they counted every death where the virus was present even if that wasn't the cause of death. https://www.foxnews.com/health/california-county-cuts-covid-death-toll)

So you werent there and have no input. Gotcha.

No, this is an admission that the person doesn't have proper knowledge of the subject and counter to the average internet user, is not going to espouse opinion derived out of thin air. I wish many trolls would consider this some time.

Although we have many trolls here who love to argue, this is no reflection on any one person. Let every person inspect their own heart.

Edit: It looks like the person gave input so what are you b1thc1n about?

There's no point in talking to you.

Way back in about the mid 1950's I went to private school and the headmaster's wife drove four of us schoolboys to get the polio vaccination. This was is in UK. After she dropped us off she had to go to the dentist. We the boys decided we were better off going to get the vaccination than going to the dentist. I was probably around nine at the time.

No big deal getting the shot but polio apparently was very bad if you got it. The iron lung was developed to assist breathing.

Good point. Polio is far more deadly. Statistically, those who were infected had far more severe consequences. It wasn't where half (?) just got sick for a week or two and got over it.

It mostly affected children and you could see the negative results walking down the street.

That "trust " of the "fully tested " vaccine went out the window when the Salk vaccine had a batch that killed a small number of people. Idaho was hit hard. The US stopped vaccinations. It is known as the "Cutter" incident. It basically ruined the reputation of the Salk vaccine.

Due to the distrust a rival vaccine, Sabin (weakened virus) stepped up and became the go to vaccine.

At it's peak in 1952 (half the current population) there were about 57,000 known cases, 21,000 with mild to severe disability, and 3,100 deaths.

Today's social media in 1952 would have been all over those deaths and crippled children from the Salk vaccine. Kids pictures plastered everywhere. Hobbled up vaccinated kids with braces. How it was untested and rushed. The Salk vaccine was so bad why should we trust this new Sabin vaccine that is a "LIVE VIRUS!!!!".

Simply put...there is no comparison to be made. There are few if any parallels in any regard. Quite the contrary actually.

Science and especially the science having to do with vaccines may have been a tiny bit less well understood and developed 85 years ago too.

Even as a kid i was very skeptical of doctors and getting the shot. Can remember my mom yelling and pointing to the kid across the street (who had polio) and saying "Do you want to end up like that??!!" Then she grabbed me and dragged me in for the shot LOL!!

Yup. A good friend of ours had his right leg crippled by polio.

Two distinct memories of that time period for me.

First time I ever saw a person in a wheelchair. It was a girl from our small town that was about five years older than me. She had braces on both legs and my mother said she had polio.
She only lived a couple more years after that.

The other memory is standing in line in the 50's to receive our vaccinations. Two nurses...one to give the shot...the other to sterilize the needle with alcohol and a cotton towel.
One syringe and one needle did the whole classroom.
Didn't know any different at that time...all worked out well.