4 ms·

People have no living memory of polio. Anyone who has been to or lived in a country with people who have been afflicted with polio would absolutely not have thi

• pirate787 4y ago
  Interestingly, Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is a childhood polio survivor and fights for eradication funding. https://rollcall.com/2018/07/10/mcconnell-gets-personal-discussing-polio/ https://rollcall.com/2018/07/10/mcconnell-gets-personal-disc...
  • hotpotamus 4y ago
    Then I hope McConnell gets many more illnesses so that he might fund their eradication.
  • mrguyorama 4y ago
    Typical for republican congressmen, they only care about things that affected them personally. You see the same thing with republicans who suddenly have a child come out
• Kon-Peki 4y ago
  > People have no living memory of polio. My grandmother tells the story of the big US polio outbreak when she was a child. Her parents were scared to death, so put her on a train in Indianapolis out to Iowa to live on her grandparent’s farm . She talked about multiple towns that the train stopped in and let people disembark, but refused to allow boarding, and looking out the windows at the signs and evidence of widespread fear. It’s not something you would forget, and she is definitely still alive ;)
• sterlind 4y ago
  My grandfather was paralyzed from polio, and ultimately died from complications of post-polio syndrome. It's a nasty virus. I have living memory.
  • Asparagirl 4y ago
    Mine too! He was a first generation American, born and raised in the Bronx. Caught polio at summer camp, probably in his very early teens. WAS IN AN IRON LUNG FOR A YEAR. HAD TO LIVE APART FROM HIS FAMILY FOR A LONG TIME. As immigrants working their way up from the sweatshops, and eventually running their own quasi-sweatshop, they could not leave to be with him through years of recuperation. Recovered. Never ever wanted to talk about what he had been through. My dad didn’t even know until he was an older teen. Post-polio syndrome arrived. No medications available to help, because there was no interest from companies in putting money into developing the medications, because no one was ever going to get polio again, right? Contributing cause of death.
• woodruffw 4y ago
  I agree that public awareness is declining, but I don't think it's because of a lack of living memory. Almost no Americans have living memory of Ebola, but we all understand that it's very bad. (I'm still in my mid 20s, and my adult neighbor growing up was paralyzed from the waist down from childhood polio. He was born the year before the Salk vaccine.)
• danielodievich 4y ago
  I know someone who has been sick with polio for all of her life, she's really old now. Her body is broken, although not completely paralized. That virus is a nasty piece of work.
• xkcd-sucks 4y ago
  My father in law, mid Boomer American of rural upbringing, got polio as a child and sustained some muscle weakness which led to him swimming for physical therapy and later becoming a competitive swimmer. It was an interesting conversation to have when COVID was a concern and vaccines were just starting to get deployed