David Oshinsky's Polio: An American Story

Martha Ann Lillard woke up one morning in 1953 while she was in kindergarten and she had a sore throat that became something much worse; polio. Martha Ann Lillard was diagnosed with polio at age 5 and was paralyzed from the disease. Polio made her have to stay in her house for about 60 years. The reason that she had to stay home was because she had to stay in an 800 pound iron lung which helped her breathe because her respiratory system was paralyzed. The iron lung also known as a respirator helped a person with polio breathe by increasing and decreasing air pressure to expand and contract their lungs. Martha Ann Lillard went into the iron lung when she was 5 and she came out when she was 65. The big question on all of this is how it came

Polio: An Eradicated Disease It was unthinkable for someone to contract polio if they were born in the 1960s or later in America. To that generation and after, polio was just another fleeting disease. People born before this time period are reminded how frightening the disease was, which debilitated thousands of people.

Whooping Cough known as pertussis. It is an infection in the respiratory system that’s caused by the bacterium Bordetella (Kids Health, 1995-2015). In 1906, Octave Gengou and Jules Bordet discovered the bacteria Bordetella pertussis, and found a vaccine to stop the disease before it actually occurred. The first outbreak took place in the 16th century. Before they were able to discover such vaccine to cure whooping cough, well over 250,000 cases of whooping cough per year in the U.S., with 9,000 reported deaths (Medicine Net, 1996-2015).

Those who oppose infant vaccinations believe that they cause a host of chronic, incurable, and life threatening diseases. To start off with the most debatable issue which is that mercury found in vaccines as a preservative leads to autistic spectrum disorders especially since it is given to infants at critical developing periods. According to a study, mercury levels are decreasing in the blood after being given the shot, thus believing that vaccines containing thimerosal which is an organomecury compound are safe to use (Pichichero et al, 2000). According to a more thorough study , mercury is not leaving the body or disappearing but traveling to the brain and turning into inorganic mercuric chloride (Burbacher et al, 2005).In the US, the commonness

Many individuals would get sick and without the proper medicine or cure their chances of survival were slim. Thankfully, scientists began research with the aid of animals. These measures led to several vaccines that would save thousands of lives. Life expectancy rose as the number of vaccines rose. “Millions of people were immunized against smallpox, polio, and major childhood killers such as measles, which in turn, led to a sixty percent increase in children reaching adulthood between 1850-1900” (Living Longer).

Polio is an infectious viral disease that affects the central nervous system. The year 1950, a year before Henrietta Lacks died, was the peak of the polio

Originally, on Tuskegee University, monkey cells were being used to measure the quantity of antibody developed in response to the poliovirus infection. However, since there were not large enough quantities of the cells, another host cell was needed, which ended up being HeLa. With the immortality of HeLa cells and its ability to be easily infected by the poliovirus, it was an amazing alternative source, from there the poliovirus vaccine was created. Before this vaccine, right around 1953, there were close to 60,000 polio cases in the United States. Destroying the results of the polio vaccination could put society in distress, and maybe even beat the amount of polio cases from

The year of 1853 deemed obligatory for all children born after the first of August to receive routine immunizations. By 1898, one hundred years after Edward Jenner’s unveiling of the vaccine, smallpox in London had fallen dramatically – to one in every 100,000 (less than 50 people per

There are numerous evidences present in the literature to support the usefulness of vaccination for the treatment of viral infections such as Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Small Pox (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2013). A person is given a shot once for these diseases and seldom need another shot. Health agencies are now able to make statement such as the eradication of Small Pox, Polio and Measles (College of Phycisian of Philadelphia, 2015). The efforts toward polio and measles eradication in the Americas have been possible only mainly because there was a very high level of political commitment and collaboration among governments of the region (Knobler, Lederberg, & Pray, 2002).

Although of an unfamiliar name, Jonas Salk is a hero. Responsible for the creation and development of the polio vaccination, he saved millions of children's lives. Granting all this, I discovered that Salk had

02 Oct. 2015. This is a secondary source through the Smithsonian and Zocala public square. It states how vaccinations have been controversial in America and it states life in that generation. "Jonas Salk Biography." --

Vaccinations go through a series of testing to ensure that the shots are safe and effective; majority of the time, the side effects of the shot are minimal compared to the damage an illness can do to the individual. Vaccinations save time and money because if an individual does not get vaccinated, they are at great risk for acquiring an illness that will lead to more intense medical bills (USDHHS, n.d). Lastly, vaccinations help future generations. Shots have been given to people for so long now in order to fight different illnesses that some have completely vanished and others have become very rare. Like previously stated, Polio used to be a terrified illness and now there are no known cases in America at all (USDHHS,

Stephen Parnell Professor J. Bocharova Eng.-103-5015 16 March 2018 Vaccines are Killing Our Children For no other reason than freedom should any person be made to put anything into their body that they do not choose to. In fact in California it appears the law makers have put a gun to our heads mandating we vaccinate our children. When it comes to vaccinating we always hear how beneficial vaccinating is and the lives that vaccines have saved, but the consequences are often ignored. In a case of a father of five who became paraplegic from the Whooping cough vaccine.

Have you ever questioned why public schools are making kids get vaccinations? Vaccines are enforced in public schools in order to prevent virus spreading and potential danger. March 4, 1918, it started with an American soldier who reported sick with a flu and hours later hundreds were infected. Known as the “Spanish Flu” or “the epidemic of 1918” it is ranked as one of the most deadliest epidemics and had death tolls higher than that of World War 1. The impact of the epidemic on the 20th Century is that it provided insight on treatment of the flu, created the influenza vaccine, and a controversial topic for further research.

Modern medicine provides people with the ability to protect themselves from the world’s most fatal diseases. Merely a century ago, it was not uncommon for a child to die as a result of diseases such as polio, pertussis, and tuberculosis. Today, it is highly unlikely for a person to contract these diseases, let alone die from them. However, refusal of vaccinations has been increasing throughout the years due to the anti-vaccination movement. This movement declares mandatory vaccines unconstitutional and vaccinations overall as the cause of autism.