“The Last of the Iron Lungs”
“By 1961, there were only 161 reported cases in the US. But in 1988, there were still an estimated 350,000 cases worldwide. That year, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Rotary Club began an aggressive campaign to end polio everywhere. Last year there were 37 cases reported in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
According to Bruno, if an infected person in either of those countries visited family in an area like Orange County, California, where many parents are opting out of vaccinating their children, “then we could be talking about the definition of a polio epidemic.”
Wenger said that’s why the Gates Foundation recently joined the other organizations in the global effort to eradicate polio. “If there’s a virus anywhere in the world, it could just come back in,” Wenger said. “Some little kid could get on a plane and fly in and reinfect an area. And if the kids in that area are not vaccinated, you could start the virus circulating again.”
But even though the last wild case of polio in the US was in 1979, it still haunts this country. “A lot of people think of polio as a disease of the past and don’t realize there are people here today that are still suffering the effects of polio.” said Brian Tiburzi, executive director of Post-Polio Health International (PPHI), an advocacy group for the estimated 350,000 to 500,000 polio survivors living in the US.”
I realize that I routinely walk past one of these in the lobby of a medical research building on my campus. The first time I saw it I assumed it was some weird piece of equipment that was being moved; when I passed by again and it was still there, I wondered if maybe there was some ongoing construction that had displaced an old boiler.
It wasn’t until I read this article that I looked closer and saw the plaque and realized it had been placed there intentionally and permanently to celebrate this piece of equipment and its importance in medical history.
