50 Year anniversary for Polio vaccine

[Hutch]

Lost Angeles mentioned this in another thread, but I thought it was worthy of it's own.

This article (http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/04/11/polio.vaccine.50.ap/index.html) discusses the 50-year anniversary of the Salk Polio Vaccine being shown to be effective.

In the year proceeding Salk's confirmation, about 60,000 Americans developed polio and thousands died or were permanently crippled (from April edition of Smithsonian Magazine). Today polio is virtually eradicated in the Americas and Europe and has declined precipitiously in most of the rest of the World. Unlike smallpox, it has been totally eradicated, but we're getting there.

I remember being in the St. Louis Science Center (I worked there as a volunteer for several years) and seeing an Iron Lung, which had probably been used to keep polio suffers alive during the course of the disease. May they always remain in a museum, testament to the men and women who beat it back.

[alfaniner]

I just heard on the radio that the man largely responsible for mumps, measles, hepatitis, and meningitis treatments just died. Unfortunately, I don't recall the name, but I thought a man who did so much should be better remembered by history.

[joesixpack]

I'm sure that there are some anti-vaccination nut-cases out there who will insist that autisim was unheard of before the polio vaccine was invented.

I'm always stunned by the willful ignorance of those who insist, in the face of a steadily rising life expectancy across the industrialized world, that modern medicine harms more people than it helps.

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

When will we see this kind of success regarding "alternative" medicine?? ;)

[Jorghnassen]

Originally posted by joesixpack
I'm sure that there are some anti-vaccination nut-cases out there who will insist that autisim was unheard of before the polio vaccine was invented.

Well, when did autism start being diagnosed anyway? Like fluoridisation of tap water, don't you see it's all part of a big communist plot? :D

[CBL4]

Another forgotten killer. The antivax idiots do not appreciate the lives saved.

As far as autism, I cannot vouch for this information but here is a history:
The term autism was, for years, only used in some circles of psychiatrists and psychologists. It is believed to have been first introduced around 1911 by noted Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who used the term to describe an individual's exclusion of the outside world and virtual withdrawal from social life. The words "autistic" and "autism" are developed from the Greek word "autos" meaning "self."

Autism was first described as a specific condition by Dr. Leo Kanner, of Baltimore, Md., who published his famous paper on the disorder in 1943. In 1944, Dr. Hans Asperger, of Vienna, Austria, published another famous paper that first described a similar condition that later became known as Asperger Syndrome. These landmark papers featured the first theoretical attempts to explain these complex disorders.

Despite the papers published by Kanner and Asperger in the 1940s, autism has long been a mystery to the medical community – even today.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the medical community generally incorrectly believed autism was a psychological disturbance caused by detached, or uncaring mothers (refrigerator mothers.) This belief, later completely disproven, was based on the observations and opinions of Dr. Bruno Bettleheim, one of the first child development specialists to focus on autism.

For decades, generations of mothers of children with autism were unfairly accused of causing their child's disorder. In the early 1960s, a few people in the medical community such as Dr. Bernard Rimland and Dr. Eric Schopler, began to challenge Bettleheim's opinion. In 1964, Dr. Rimland provided a definitive review of evidence that established autism as a biological condition – thus demonstrating Bettleheim's theory was wrong.

Soon after autism was proven to be a biological condition, Dr. Andreas Rett first described Rett Syndrome as a specific condition in a paper published in 1966.http://www.naar.org/aboutaut/whatis_hist.htm

CBL

[Anders]

Originally posted by joesixpack
I'm sure that there are some anti-vaccination nut-cases out there who will insist that autisim was unheard of before the polio vaccine was invented.

I'm always stunned by the willful ignorance of those who insist, in the face of a steadily rising life expectancy across the industrialized world, that modern medicine harms more people than it helps.
It's even worse, some people believe HIV is the result of polio vaccine made from monky livers in Africa.

But that theory is largely dimissed by all serious reasearchers.

[anonimouse]

Originally posted by CBL4
For decades, generations of mothers of children with autism were unfairly accused of causing their child's disorder. In the early 1960s, a few people in the medical community such as Dr. Bernard Rimland and Dr. Eric Schopler, began to challenge Bettleheim's opinion. In 1964, Dr. Rimland provided a definitive review of evidence that established autism as a biological condition – thus demonstrating Bettleheim's theory was wrong.

Of course, Rimland is also a wacko who treats his patients with high-dose vitamins and secretin and believes immunizations are at least partially to blame for autism.

[godofpie]

Lost Angeles mentioned this in another thread, but I thought it was worthy of it's own.

This article (http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/04/11/polio.vaccine.50.ap/index.html) discusses the 50-year anniversary of the Salk Polio Vaccine being shown to be effective.

In the year proceeding Salk's confirmation, about 60,000 Americans developed polio and thousands died or were permanently crippled (from April edition of Smithsonian Magazine). Today polio is virtually eradicated in the Americas and Europe and has declined precipitiously in most of the rest of the World. Unlike smallpox, it has been totally eradicated, but we're getting there.

I remember being in the St. Louis Science Center (I worked there as a volunteer for several years) and seeing an Iron Lung, which had probably been used to keep polio suffers alive during the course of the disease. May they always remain in a museum, testament to the men and women who beat it back.

My dad was the polio poster child for NC in 1944.
http://joycemoyerhostetter.blogspot.com/2008/06/celebrity-sighting.html
That's mom and dad in the van. The state used to have an exhibit that included dad's story at the NC natural history museum in Raleigh. My grandfather was very proactive when dad had polio, writing letters, talking to politicians and compiling 8 mm movies about polio and life in the polio hospitals. My dad restored the 8 mm film about 20 years ago and put it on video and shows it to groups on request while he narrates it. Dad said he cried tears of joy the day the doctor gave me my polio vaccine.

[TobiasTheViking]

Well, when did autism start being diagnosed anyway? Like fluoridisation of tap water, don't you see it's all part of a big communist plot? :D

Autism has always been here...

[Ixion]

I remember being in the St. Louis Science Center (I worked there as a volunteer for several years) and seeing an Iron Lung, which had probably been used to keep polio suffers alive during the course of the disease. May they always remain in a museum, testament to the men and women who beat it back.

Unfortunately, there are some people still alive who rely on the iron lung for continuous life support.

Woman in Iron Lung Dies from Power Failure (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/28/iron.lung.death.ap/index.html)

Hopefully, someday this disease will join smallpox.

[Ixion]

I just heard on the radio that the man largely responsible for mumps, measles, hepatitis, and meningitis treatments just died. Unfortunately, I don't recall the name, but I thought a man who did so much should be better remembered by history.

I think the man you are thinking of is Maurice Hilleman, who is credited with creating over 30 different vaccines, 8 of which are now routine in the United States. However, according to Wikipedia, he died in 2005.

[leon_heller]

When I was young there were polio outbreaks every summer in London, people were quite scared of it. A friend of mine went down with it when we were away at scout camp. Luckily, he wasn't very ill and recovered in a few days with no paralysis. We had to remain indoors for a couple of weeks, with a health visitor calling every day to check that we didn't have any symptoms. The vaccine became available a year or so later.

Leon

[alfaniner]

... However, according to Wikipedia, he died in 2005.

Which was when that post was made.

[Ixion]

Which was when that post was made.

You know what...I never even checked the date. Silly me! :p Haha...well, I learn something new everyday.

[Rolfe]

One of my very earliest memories is of being taken to a clinic (in the village of Newmains, for some weird reason) to have my polio jag. It was a fairly big deal, and I do have memories of radio accounts of the dreadful disease, and my mother had a friend whose musically talented brother had died of it after swimming in Lake Lucerne.

I remember queuing up to have the jag, and noting that there were several babies ahead of me in the queue. One of them started screaming its little head off after the vaccination, and I vowed to be grown-up and not make a fuss. According to my mother I turmed to the nurse and said "thank you", which caused some amusement. I remember my mother having told me that I'd get a little sticking plaster over the pinprick, and when that didn't happen, but I was told to come back in two weeks (for the second dose) I asked if that was to have the sticking plaster put on!

I didn't think much about the circumstances at the time, such a large group of children of varying ages all coming in for vaccination at one time, but I realise now that this was the very first mass vaccination of children with the new Salk vaccine.

Go, immunology, go!!!!

Rolfe.

PS. Some years later, on hearing that the polio vaccine had now become oral, and was administered by sugar lump, I feld decidedly cheated.

[sophia8]

I've read a lot of garbage from anti-vaccination loons; the lack of logic is frightening. They claim that not only is vaccination 'unnatural' (while they're using 'unnatural' electricity and computers to spread this stuff!), but infections like mumps and measles are actually good for kids, by strengthening their immune system.
They never seem to spot the hole in that argument - namely, that if these diseases were all so benign, why did anybody ever start looking for vaccines against them in the first place?
Reading through their ravings, I sometimes find myself half-hoping that a big epidemic of one of these "harmless" infections will hit their area, so they can see its effects for themselves. That's an evil, horrible wish, but it may be the only way to convince these people. They've been lucky enough to to be probably amongst the first people in history who don't have to worry about their kids dying from preventable diseases.