Dear Editor:
The anti-vax sentiment in general of a large portion of our nation's population is becoming more and more disturbing to me (The Atlantic article of February 12 titled "This is How a Child Dies of Measles" was excellent!); but for the purposes of this writing, I'd like to concentrate mainly on the polio vaccine. As many of you probably saw, the February 22 episode of CBS News: Sunday Morning included an interview with David Oshinsky who wrote Polio: An American Story (2005), and the Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman who had polio at age four and has to wear leg braces and use accompanying ambulators to this day (he's 80). I had a little brother who had polio when he was two. We were very fortunate in that his only lasting effect was one slightly shortened leg, which, of course, is caused by the temporary paralysis of the affected limb(s) and, usually, damaged growth plates. You better believe that when the vaccine became available, our family got it!
Another book, written by someone who has recently become one of my favorite authors, Jerry Apps of Wisconsin, is titled Limping Through Life. It's basically an autobiography centered around the polio he had at age 12, which adversely affected him all the way through high school and college and to a lesser degree after that. His mobility eventually became almost normal again but then the devilish effects came back to haunt him in older age.
I am well aware that we do not currently have a polio epidemic in the United States, but it does still exist in other parts of the world, especially in several countries of Africa, as demonstrated on a map on the CBS program (the program is still available online). While in the past, there were both a live oral polio vaccine (OPV), created by Dr. Albert Sabine; and a killed injectable vaccine (IPV), created by Dr. Jonas Salk, the only one used in the U.S. since 2000 is the IPV, 100 percent safe from vaccine-induced polio. Perhaps more people need to share, at least with their families, the stories of the polio-necessitated iron lungs, etc. from the late '40's and '50's. I thank God for vaccines!
Georgia Wilkinson
