This opinion editorial by John Lindstrom was published in The Detroit Free Press. Read more here.
I was born before the polio vaccine was invented. I have a memory, a question and a sermon.
The memory: Me and all my little friends in our east-side Detroit apartment complex suddenly barred from playing together.
My question: What the hell is wrong with people? Why do folks act like they’d rather suffer diseases than prevent them? Do they think polio, measles, pertussis and other diseases have vanished from the earth? That they have lost their deadly powers?
My sermon: Folks, get vaccinated. Get the vaccines you need. Protect yourself. Protect your kids. Protect others. You want to get sick? It’s not just about you. Stupidity gives you no right infect anyone else. Got it?
Measles, mumps and rubella are dangerous and painful
Why would you risk getting sick? I had chicken pox; I had measles; I had rubella for God’s sake; I had mumps. Trust me, if they had had vaccines for those at the time, my arms would have been poked.
Each of those diseases was miserable. I was in agony, especially with measles. I was separated from my brother and sister. My parents had to stay literally at arm’s length from me. My clothes were washed separately. Every time I went to the one bathroom in our tiny home ― by then we’d moved to Royal Oak ― Mom had to scrub it down. I missed days of school, and it took weeks before I could play with others.
I wasn’t alone. Kids all over got desperately sick. Sick from diseases that still can kill ― in 2023 measles killed more than 107,000 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization ― but which are now preventable. If you get vaccinated.
It’s wild to fear a vaccine more than a deadly disease
Throughout history, entire populations were savaged by an endless cast of diseases. Bubonic plague ravaged much of the Roman Empire; the Black Death nearly depopulated Europe; smallpox pandemics struck randomly everywhere. In the 20th Century we were victimized by the Spanish Flu, then later by HIV/AIDS (which continues, though medications have changed the prognosis).
A few years ago, COVID-19 attacked the planet, and has killed more than 7 million worldwide. In the U.S. alone, COVID has killed more than 1.2 million of our friends and family. In early 2020, COVID wrecked our economy as well.
Over the centuries, scientists developed cures, treatments and even better: preventatives. We call “preventatives” vaccines.
Why then, are so many of us more terrified of vaccines than the diseases they prevent?
Bad science, debunked studies and Tylenol
Autism? Vaccines don’t cause autism, as has been proven hundreds of times. Hundreds of times! Why would anyone believe the moron who cooked up a devastating lie about a measles vaccine ― in a study that has been debunked, and was reportedly intended to provide his own vaccine formulation a market advantage ― over the legions of scientists who proved him wrong?
And despite what President Donald Trump sputtered at a news conference Sept. 22, there is no conclusive research tying acetaminophen to autism. (The organization Autism Speaks urged Trump and his administration to develop new research on autism, instead of “revisiting questions that have been well studied, including vaccines and autism.”)
Be more responsible than U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Our nation faces one of the largest outbreaks of measles in years, even as the latest forms of flu and COVID are festering. We need clear guidance on how to prepare and respond. Yet, we’re being told effectively: Flip a coin, and oh, as of this week, most of you can’t get a COIVD vaccine without a prescription.
Kennedy and the Trump administration’s irresponsibility is forcing Michigan, along with other states, to take their own steps to ensure COVID vaccines are available, and urging parents to protect their kids. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed an executive order assuring the availability of COVID vaccines here.
The long history of vaccine panic
As long as there have been vaccines, there has been vaccine terror, going back to the early 18th Century, when Boston faced a smallpox pandemic. Onesimus, an enslaved African owned by Cotton Mather, demonstrated a technique for inoculating a person against disease and vaccines were born.
And disputed, as people refused to believe you could fight a disease with the same disease (“The Fever of 1721” by Stephen Cross is a terrific book on the subject).
People still question that premise, though science has shown the validity of vaccines.
Scientists and physicians labored over the centuries, proving the essential principles of vaccine efficacy, and drawing people in as believers ― George Washington, for example, ordered the revolutionary army to get vaccinated for smallpox ― but skeptics still loudly voiced opposition.
For one disease, though, public demand to find a vaccine was overwhelming, so much so there was nary an opposing voice.
That was polio.
The polio vaccine was a miracle
Polio can torture and kill at any age. For decades, its randomness and mystery terrified people more than other diseases.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was 39 when he contracted polio. While the public knew of his condition, he hid it as best he could with heavy braces, leaning on his son for support (one very brief film clip shows his manner of, well, walking). He started March of Dimes to finance research and help for polio victims.
Comedian Bob Newhart told Johnny Carson he never learned to swim because summertime was polio infection time, and his parents kept him from public pools. The novelist Phillip Roth wrote “Nemesis” about an outbreak of polio in the 1940s.
Then came the miracle.
When in 1955 a polio vaccine was announced, department stores turned their public address systems to the press conference so shoppers heard the news. Nationwide, doctors crowded movie theaters to witness the press conference. Every newspaper announced the news with “War Declared”-sized headlines.
And across the nation, church bells rang.
Weeks ago, announcing Florida was dropping its vaccine requirements, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapoo compared vaccine mandates to slavery.
Church bells celebrated the polio vaccine.
My mother never forgot
Why was I barred from playing with my little friends at our Detroit apartment? I remember vividly being denied going out to the mudhole we called the Little Playground. I remember that first day of confinement, whining other kids were outside playing, and Mom showing me, through the window, the window no other kids outside. So, I spent the day with my comic books, coloring books, watching Soupy Sales. It was okay, for one day.
But it went on. “Can I go out NOW?” was my persistent whine.
Mom and a neighbor compromised: The little girl across the hall and I could stand at our doorways and wave. Then, we were allowed to color together for a little while in the hallway. Then a couple of upstairs kids could join us for coloring. Well, coloring and yowling, “Mama! We wanna go outside!”
Days later, we were freed to our swings and slides. But we didn’t know why it had happened.
Finally, a couple years ago I asked Mom if she remembered why we were locked up.
Oh, she remembered.
Because one summer day in 1955 ― after the vaccine was announced, but before I had received one ― ambulances roared up to the building next to ours. And two iron lungs holding two kids struck with polio were taken out to the ambulances. All the moms saw this happen. And in the only way they could protect us, our playtimes were banned.
I was a kid then, no more than 4. Death, paralysis, pandemics meant nothing to me. When I was scared of the dark or strange noises, Mom and Dad protected me. I knew that then. I understand now what I didn’t then, that being denied my favorite swing for several days was another kind of protection.
My baby sister, born after I dealt with all those diseases and after vaccines were available, never had to be locked in to be safe.
Because she was vaccinated.