Some parents who never had #measles, never worried about #polio, who don't remember what life was like when kids caught these diseases, fear the vaccines that prevent them instead. @statnews.com's @thekibosch.bsky.social spoke to people who remember these foes. https://www.statnews.com/2025/05/10/what-it-is-like-to-have-measles-rubella-polio-pertussis-first-person-patient-stories/

A security official stands guard as a health worker administers a polio vaccination to a child. Pakistan has launched its second nationwide polio vaccination campaign, running from 21 to 27 April, aiming to vaccinate more than 45 million children, Quetta, #Pakistan

Photograph: Fayyaz Ahmed/EPA

@photography
#vaccination
#polio

Israel is preventing the entry of polio vaccines into Gaza, threatening the gains made in seven months of efforts to combat the spread of an epidemic.

@palestine
#Gaza
#children
#vaccines
#polio

At least 602,000 children in Gaza at risk of permanent paralysis

The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip has likened Israel’s prevention of polio vaccines in the besieged and bombarded territory to “a time bomb that threatens to spread the epidemic”.

In a statement, it said 602,000 children in Gaza were at risk of permanent paralysis and chronic disabilities unless they could receive the desperately needed vaccines.

@palestine
#Gaza
#children
#polio
#vaccines

Has nobody seen #Oppenheimer? The #Apollo mission?
Has no one seen, with century old technology, what we accomplished against diseases like TB, #polio, #malaria, #MMR?
What we lack is courage, imagination, and daring.
Fuck these retrogrades. Fuck them. Fuck their input or opinions.

This has me terrified.
I am a parent to an #autistic child with #adhd. She is not broken. She does not have a disease that needs to be cured.
She has a #neurotype that is only recently being acknowledged and accepted.
#neurodivergence need sto stop being seen as "other" or as needing to conform to some arbitrary "normal".
#vaccines save lives. There is 0 link with vaccines and autism.But even if there were, if you'd rather your child have #polio than autism, you shouldn't have kids at all.

_The Evening Post_, 27 February 1925:
      LOCAL AND GENERAL…
  A #Wellington periodical recently published #photographs showing a number of infantile paralysis #patients who are under treatment at the Wellington Hospital. At yesterday’s meeting of the Hospital Board, exception to the photographs being published was taken by Mr. C. H. Chapman, who wanted to know who gave permission for the photographs to be taken. He voiced his strong disapproval of such photographs being permitted to be taken, and said he hoped that whoever had taken them would never be permitted to do so again. The chairman (Mr. F. Castle) said as far as he knew no member of the board gave authority. Mr. C. M. Luke stated that his committee intended to bring up the matter at its next meeting.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19250227.2.45

@JosephMeyer my father became a doctor in 1941, as early antibiotics were coming into widespread use. When I was born in 1956, #vaccines for #polio, #measles, etc., were starting to become available. He watched diseases go from deadly and common to treatable and/or preventable and rare. I can barely imagine what he'd say about the present insanity.

Despicable

#Trump insults #MitchMcConnell over #RFKJr vote, casts doubts on #polio diagnosis

Asked about McConnell’s bout with polio influencing his decision to vote no, Trump appeared to question his diagnosis.

“I have no idea if he had polio,” Trump said. “All I can tell you about him is that he shouldn’t have been leader.”

#science #medicine #law #ConspiracyTheories #vaccines #USpol
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/13/trump-mcconnell-kennedy-vote/

Wish me luck. Sneaking my #newborn into #Mexico for a better #life - to get the #polio, MMR, and whooping cough #vaccines...

How Lagging #Vaccination Could Lead to a #Polio Resurgence
In its original form, the #virus survives in just two countries. But a type linked to an oral #vaccine used in other nations has already turned up in the West.
Most #American #parents hardly give thought to polio beyond the instant their child is immunized against the #disease. But there was a time in this country when polio paralyzed 20,000 people in a year, killing many of them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/health/polio-vaccine-outbreaks.html
https://archive.ph/6b0GP

Several thoughtful letters reminding us about what life was like before the #polio #vaccine, and with polio:

https://wapo.st/3ZZPiOe

The world, through continuing effort, has already eliminated two of the three strains of polio virus. Stopping vaccination now would expose Americans to continuing risk. It really is only one flight away, until it's eradicated everywhere. That tantalizingly reachable goal won't be achieved if we stop vaccinating too soon.

#Publichealth data shows #vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives worldwide over the past 50 years. A biochemist breaks down how claims by RFK Jr. about vaccine safety and effectiveness are inaccurate: https://theconversation.com/vaccine-misinformation-distorts-science-a-biochemist-explains-how-rfk-jr-and-his-lawyers-claims-threaten-public-health-246000 #measles #mumps #polio #mmr #science #vaccineswork

Marilyn Monroe promoted the polio vaccine in the "march of dimes" campaign in the 1950s:

https://perfectlymarilynmonroe.com/post/189885390862/marilyn-monroe-at-the-march-of-dimes-charity-event