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The last American polio patient to still rely on an iron lung device hath died, aged 78. {AP 12 July}
https://apnews.com/article/iron-lung-last-patient-died-polio-41e5b4da4f4e710344dd0872d7fcf987
FTA: Polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, with annual outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis. The disease primarily affects children.
Vaccines became available starting in 1955. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a national vaccination campaign cut the annual number of U.S. cases to fewer than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s. In 1979, polio was declared eliminated in the U.S., meaning it was no longer routinely spread.
If Americans had thought in the 1950s the way so many do today — and if public-health policy had been dictated by the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the widespread adoption of Jonas Salk's vaccine would never have been possible. There would be far more individuals like Martha Lillard in the world (albeit most would not live anywhere near as long), and the polio virus would likely remain a scourge upon the planet.
Martha Lillard was told not to expect to live beyond the age of twenty, and the fact that she reached seventy-eight is undoubtedly a testament to the human will to live. I would have thrown in the towel decades ago, so she hath my deepest respect.
Fare thee well.
🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈
