One of the perks of getting older is having lived when times were very different, and attesting first hand to those changes. Great strides have been made in the area of public health in our lifetimes. We cannot lose sight of those advances- there’s a cost to forgetting them.
One good perk of getting older is having lived when times were very different, and experiencing the improvements of change. A good example is our phones. Most people do not want to go back to having a single wall phone per household. When I was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was actually no such thing as every single person having their own personal portable phone. Each home only had a single wall-mounted phone, usually in the kitchen.Very early on, multiple households even shared the same line. Try to imagine the horrors of party lines– they meant “parties” like you had to wait your turn to make a call- and neighbors could listen in on your conversations- or vice versa. We have certainly learned that today’s cell phones do have their downsides, but they’re still lovely little mini-computers that can be used appropriately. Most do not want to lose these advances- especially those who remember the days without them. I truly appreciate the miracle of cell phones, despite being tech-challenged. (I recently accidentally Face-timed a friend and still can’t figure out how that happened).
There are other improvements that I remember too. Vaccine use wasn’t as controversial as it is today- vaccines were hailed as life-savers. During my childhood, one of my fellow toddler cousins had the dubious distinction of being the last reported case of polio in our state of Illinois. He survived the polio but never walked again. My cousin Tommy’s wheelchair was our family’s sad reminder of the very real devastation of polio- the Salk vaccine rollout that began in 1955 was too late for him.
No Re-litigation of Proven Cures
This came to my mind recently when Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell was the solo Republican vote against vaccine opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becoming head of US Health and Human Services. McConnell survived childhood polio himself, and explained, “I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.”
In the mid-1950’s, the polio vaccine was ardently welcomed, embraced by families determined to protect themselves and their children from a disease that started small but rose to 52,000 polio cases by 1952. Polio is a viral infection of the intestinal tract, that can travel to the brain stem, halt lung function, cause paralysis and death- and usually affects children.
So I truly hope that some today will reconsider their vaccine skepticism. No one should have to revisit leg braces, wheelchairs, iron lungs- or fatalities- when there is a reliable proven prevention available. Americans during my growing-up years thankfully gained trust in medical breakthroughs, and experienced greatly improved public health from medical miracles such as penicillin and childhood vaccines. In 1979, the World Health Organization declared polio cases eradicated in the US. Rubella, measles, and mumps vaccinations began in the 1960’s, and reduced those deadly child-killing diseases as well.
Rising Vaccine Hesitancy
But now vaccine hesitancy is on the rise, impacting medical achievements made against diseases. Texas is currently experiencing an outbreak of measles– up to 90 confirmed cases, with more likely, most of them in unvaccinated individuals. New Mexico and Georgia have also reported recent measles cases. Measles is an airborne disease that is highly contagious, and can cause complications or even be fatal. Measles is also vaccine-preventable and was thought to have been eliminated from the US in 2000.
Certainly asking questions is a valid thing to do-vaccines, like any widely used medical treatment, can have side effects or problems. Instances of contaminated vaccines (e.g. the Cutter Incident) happened, prompting stricter regulations and oversights to be put in place or increased, with additional studies done to improve safety. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) still continuously monitor vaccine safety through multiple safety systems. Despite issues, there is overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks. It’s understandable that a parent whose child experienced a vaccine-related illness would feel very differently. Yet history still shows that diseases, left totally unchecked, cause more extensive damage and death than any rare complications arising from vaccine use.
The Horrors of Preventable Diseases Must Not Fade
Dissenters may cynically believe that organizations like the drug companies (or big Pharma) are only perpetrating a vaccine system solely for profit. However this belief ignores that too many people are alive today that can personally attest to the life-saving effectiveness of vaccines- which brings us to our current situation. National health could suffer greatly if the valid history of vaccine successes are ignored or forgotten, under the helm of a health leader that discounts vaccine use for our country’s population. Older adults and their first-hand remembrances are crucial, to bring experiential witness to our collective national memory. The horrors of preventable diseases must not fade.
Now I that I’m older, I have a compromised immune system from past cancer treatment- which makes me much more vulnerable to diseases. Many others like me depend on a US population that vigorously defends its public health. Therefore, everyone needs to recognize someone like my cousin- who never walked again because a vaccine arrived too late for him. Or read Mia Farrow’s story of polio’s impact on her son Thaddeus. Francis Ford Coppola has his polio story, along with actors Alan Alda and Donald Sutherland, or outdoor entrepreneur Richard Cabela too. These survivors’ debilitating battles with polio should be influences in vaccine policies.
As elders, we must commit to sharing our experiences of history’s lessons, so they remain clear in collective memory- our sharing can guide educated decisions for today. There is a great cost to forgetting.