Life or Death: The Nightmare of a World Without Vaccines
Imagine a world where polio comes back with a vengeance
In a news conference on April 12th, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed the crowd with his trademark winning smile.
He spoke proudly about how that day marked the anniversary of the discovery of a vaccine that protected against paralytic polio, which was a major cause of death and disability among children.
He used the first part of his address to announce a summer drive to encourage mass vaccination, calling the drug a ‘miracle’ and personally backing the effort.
At the time, vaccination was understood to be a literal lifesaver. The invention of a vaccine that could prevent children from contracting polio was hailed as an accomplishment comparable to humanity reaching outer space— with far more public good to be gained.
For parents at home, the hope that their baby wouldn’t fall ill and die was far more meaningful news than one man making it into orbit.
There are many people alive today who are survivors of polio, and many of them are permanently impacted by severe health issues even later in life.
Some are wheelchair-bound and unable to walk. Many struggle with arthritis and other joint disorders, can’t sleep deeply, and live with chronic fatigue, some are in constant pain.
Many more didn’t survive the illness at all or later died due to complications from post-polio syndrome. The muscles of their lungs became paralyzed, and they suffocated in agony.
Poliomyelitis was a nightmare. Vaccination virtually wiped it out in North America, and that is a scientific marvel we should all be celebrating.
I think the late John F. Kennedy would be proud to know how far we’ve come, and how many little children no longer need to fear this horrific disease.
I imagine he’d be horrified by his nephew’s actions now.
Polio is an incredibly infectious disease, and it spreads easily from person to person. The contagious period lasts for weeks after infection, and since mild symptoms mimic that of a common cold for many, it often goes undetected until it’s far too late.
The disease is horrific. When serious symptoms emerge, it becomes a life-or-death situation, and there’s a chance of permanent impairment.
Common Polio symptoms include:
Fever
Fatigue
Neck stiffness
Intense headache
Vomiting
Diarrhea or constipation, flip a coin
Sore throat
Muscle pain, atrophy and paralysis
Difficulty breathing, talking, or swallowing
Polio is a disease that specifically targets the brain and spinal cord of affected individuals. It destroys the nerves in your spine, which can have very severe consequences for your overall health.
That means that your body, when affected by poliomyelitis, can no longer function properly. And once again, it can be permanent.
Most people who contract poliovirus will survive, which is good because it spreads like wildfire when it's introduced to a population. However, according to the World Health Organization, approximately 1 in 200 infected persons develop irreversible paralysis.
Of those, 5-10% will die when their lungs cease to function.
Now, some look at these statistics and shrug. Why should they worry? I just said in the introduction that the polio virus has been virtually eradicated here in North America, so it’s not like their kids are at risk.
Except they are, because poliovirus still exists in other parts of the world where the vaccine rate is lower. All it takes is one traveller bringing it home to a population of unvaccinated children for it to become an endemic problem again.
One cough, one handshake after someone fails to wash their hands in the bathroom, one failure to follow proper sanitation procedure, and we could be looking at another pandemic.
So, thank goodness for the polio vaccine, right? Right! When the vaccination rate is high, even the occasional traveller bringing it over poses very little risk, which has historically been the case since the vaccine was introduced here.
If everyone has immunity, the virus can’t get a foothold. That makes it nice and easy to control and keeps everybody safe, especially when the population has access to the inactive form of the vaccine.
Side note — the inventor of the first polio vaccine, Jonas Salk, refused to patent the formula because he believed it should be freely available to everybody who needed it. Can you imagine someone doing that today?
You’d have to be an utter fool to want to get rid of it.
With all that said, let’s look at the state of vaccination in the United States today.
We all know about the anti-vaccine movement, which is responsible for outbreaks of previously-managed illnesses like measles and whooping cough.
The movement was popularized during the recent COVID-19 Pandemic, where anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers advocated for people to ignore common-sense health measures to protect themselves from severe illness.
While this movement is dangerous at the public level, the worst is yet to come. Imagine how much worse it might get if the movement found a purchase in the government!
Well, you won’t have to imagine for long. That reality is here, and it’s a nightmare.
Now that Donald Trump has taken his place as America’s 47th President, we’re watching with great anticipation as he builds out his list of nominees for various important positions in his administration. Several of them have already been confirmed.
One of the appointments he’s made so far is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. If you’re curious, yes; Mr. Kennedy is the late President Kennedy’s nephew.
Mr. Kennedy is a well-known and oft-cited vaccine skeptic, beloved in the anti-vaccine movement.
Assisting him in his work preparing to staff HHS before his confirmation was his personal lawyer and top legal advisor, a man named Aaron Siri. Siri made headlines in December after it hit the news that back in 2022, he petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval for many vital vaccines over supposed safety concerns.
One of the vaccines he wanted to take out of doctor’s hands was the polio vaccine.
Now, RFK Jr. stated with his own mouth that he doesn’t intend to take vaccines away, which is good. However, we do know that he has Donald Trump’s blessing to investigate the nonexistent link between vaccination and autism.
Oh—and he’s stated that he plans to review childhood vaccination schedules after promising not to change them. He said it after a sudden mass firing of HHS employees, too. So, I don’t know that we can trust his statements, given that he made them when he was trying to earn the votes needed for his appointment.
I would characterize that as an incentive to lie.
Also, as an autistic woman, I’m getting incredibly tired of an easily debunked lie being treated as a legitimate issue. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a developmental disorder; it develops while a fetus is growing in the womb. We are born autistic, vaccines do not ‘give’ us autism.
With vaccine skeptics in charge of health policy in the United States government, we should all be scared.
This has the potential to be disastrous for public health—and not just for the U.S. Diseases do not respect borders on a map. Contagions spread.
Given how the Federal government has limited the CDC’s ability to report and communicate about outbreaks, vital information is being withheld from the public.
How many people in the States are aware that there’s a tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas? One of the largest outbreaks of the disease in modern U.S. history is happening right now, and it is barely making the news.
How can we trust a government that doesn’t take threats like this seriously? How can we trust a government that puts a man like RFK Jr. in charge of HHS?
Your health is the greatest thing of value that you have. It should be worrisome to see the government of the wealthiest nation in the world treat it like it’s worthless.
Before the invention of the polio vaccine, over half a million people around the globe died or developed lifelong paralysis after being infected. That’s half a million per year, not in total.
After the polio vaccine was handed out, that number dropped like a stone.
Now, polio is incredibly rare: There were an estimated 541 global reported cases of poliovirus in 2023. Most of them came from regions locked in conflict, where vaccination rates go down due to disruption of supply chains.
If ever you’ve wondered whether vaccines work, there’s your answer.
They do.
President John F. Kennedy was a huge fan of vaccination because he saw people dying of polio all around him. When the vaccine was invented, it brought hope to families all around the globe.
He called it a miracle for a reason.
Like JFK, we should all be immensely grateful for the quality of life offered by this miraculous form of preventative care. And we should all be terrified at the prospect of seeing tomorrow’s generations denied access to such an incredible shield.
Now would be a good time for Americans to write to their representatives and ask them to fight for the rights of all Americans to have access to appropriate healthcare.
If you truly have a right to life and the pursuit of happiness, now’s a good time for them to prove it.
Solidarity wins.
I get your point, but there are enough horrible things going on in this world without imagining something like that. I try to stay positive as much as possible, but it is becoming increasingly more difficult!
Brilliantly crafted