Every Day Is Special: polio

Showing posts with label polio. Show all posts

October 28 – Great Strides Against Polio

Posted October 28, 2017

Today is the anniversary of two important events in the history of humanity's fight against a devastating illness, polio!

First, on this date in 1914, Jonas Salk was born in New York City. He would later discover and develop one of the first successful polio vaccines.

Second, on this date in 1956, world-famous singer Elvis Presley got a polio vaccination on television. Believe it or not, this televised vaccine is credited with raising immunization levels in the U.S. from just 0.6% of the population to 80% of the population - IN JUST SIX MONTHS!!

Polio is a crippling and often deadly disease caused by a virus. It is infectious - it spreads from person to person. It can invade a person's brain and spinal chord, and that often results in paralysis - which means not being able to move parts of your body.

Before polio was eradicated in most of
the world, seeing lots of kids and adults
with wasted-away legs, crutches, and
wheelchairs was common.

Polio victims who could no longer breathe on
own often used an iron lung (below).

One of the most famous victims
of polio is President Franklin
D. Roosevelt. He often hid his
paralysis from sight and was rarely
publicly seen in his wheelchair.

The disease is preventable with the polio vaccine, and most the world is pretty much polio-free, now. Experts hope that this disease will be totally gone next year!

Unfortunately, now that many diseases
are rare in developed nations, many
parents have decided without good
evidence that vaccinations are bad
for kids, that they don't work, and that
they are just a way for "Big Pharma" to
get more money.

None of that is true, and if such anti-vax
parents convince many other parents to
skip vaccinations, we may have out-
breaks of almost eradicated illnesses.

Which would be so sad!

The answer to this question is, of course,
that science as a whole and most scientists
CAN be trusted. The methods of science
are the best way humans have ever come
up with to discover what is true.

Also on this date:

International Animation Day

Costume Designer Edith Head's birthday

Chef Auguste Escoffier's birthday

Ohi Day in Cyprus and Greece

Anniversary of the opening of the Gateway Arch

Foundation of the Independent Czechoslovak State

Plan ahead:

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November holidays
November birthdays
Historical anniversaries in November

January 3 – Happy Birthday, March of Dimes!

Posted on January 3, 2017

Which of the U.S. presidents suffered from polio (before he was president)?

Which U.S. president, on this date in 1938, started a national foundation to combat polio?

It probably doesn't surprise you that the answer to both questions is the same: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Polio is an infectious disease. Some people who catch polio suffer from such weakness in their muscles that they aren't able to move; some of the people who suffer from "infantile paralysis" (another name for the disease) die. When FDR created the March of Dimes, the U.S. was suffering from a polio epidemic! As mentioned above, Roosevelt himself had had polio, and because of the disease he was unable to move his legs.

Luckily, these days almost everyone in the developed world and many in the "Third World" has access to the polio vaccine (which was first developed by Jonas Salk). Actually, it's hoped that the enormous vaccination efforts worldwide will eradicate the disease in just a few years!

Roosevelt's original name for the foundation was National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Just a few weeks into the organization's life, an actor named Eddie Cantor inspired a nationwide fundraising effort for the foundation: he asked nightclubs and cabarets to hold dance competitions and send in a portion of their profits to fight polio, and he asked those in the motion picture and radio businesses to create special features to raise funds, as well. What about the average citizen? Cantor suggested that people buy lapel pins for a dime, and so many people mailed letters to the White House, enclosing a dime to fight polio, that people said that the mail "swamped" the White House!

Cantor got the idea for the much snappier name "March of Dimes."

Roosevelt reported that letters with dimes, quarters, and even dollar bills were coming into the White House by the truckload, including more than 40,000 letters a day, for a while.

After that, the March of Dimes held an annual fundraiser asking children to donate a dime each. During the Christmas season, booths were set up so that kids could drop their dimes into a slot. Many times the booths were on the honor system -- nobody watched over them!

Because of the success in fighting polio, the organization that Roosevelt started widened its efforts to improve the health of mothers and babies by preventing birth defects, lowering rates of infant mortality, and even preventing premature births.