Why polio is so dangerous

[struggle4progress]

Explore what makes polio so dangerous, what is causing the 21st century resurgence of cases, and how we can eradicate the disease.

[SWBTATTReg]

1. A good article but the concern I have, and a lot of other people is that they are a lot of people who seem to think that

vaccines are bad or some other nonsense.

They are a danger to society and should be treated as such. Beware of such people, for they will 'willingly or unwillingly) spread infections/diseases/etc. w/o a care in the world, thinking that they are invincible, and before you know it, they infected scores of others around them.

I am a retiree, so I'm lucky that when I get a cold or such, I self-isolate, and don't contact the outside world until I'm well. I do care about others.

[paleotn]

2. My maternal aunt died of polio. She was 5.

I'm old enough to remember older people who were crippled by the disease. A constant reminder back then. Most of them are now gone and the ramifications they personified are gone with them. These later generations have no idea the horror infectious disease caused and seem to not care about what turned the tide. When I was a kid, getting vaxed for a whole host of different pathogens was simply normal. Our parents knew well what would happened if we weren't. Today, not so much and that worries me a lot.

[Farmer-Rick]

3. As if RFK would continue to allow vaccines

He's the new head of health and human services. He thinks vaccines are a hoax and bad for children.

Vaccines are the only way to stop polio. I'm sure the worm brained idiot will allow polio to come back again. Maybe he'll prescribe heroine for it.

But even George Washington believed in immunization. His troops would scratch the surface of their skin with a needle infected with cow pox to avoid getting smallpox. They knew even back then the importance of immunization.

Just sit back and watch what horrors anti-vaxxers can cause. The suffering is the goal.

[DeeDeeNY]

4. I had a cousin with polio

She had gotten it in her 20's before there was a vaccine. Her husband divorced her and left her with a young baby, but she had wealthy parents who took her and her son in. They lived far from us and I only saw her on the few occasions my family drove out to visit, but I had no idea that what she had was polio, and as a kid I never thought to ask my parents. I just figured she had been born like that, only finding out the actual story many years later, after she died. I remember how awful I felt whenever we would visit and I saw the way she suffered. She was completely paralyzed and had to be spoonfed. When I found out the true story, I was shocked to learn she had lived a normal healthy life through adulthood and had been married with a child before getting stricken. It had never even dawned on me that the boy I would see whenever we visited was her son. It's an awful disease.

[Irish_Dem]

5. People have no idea how bad polio is?

Unbelievable.

[struggle4progress]

6. There's useful info in the video:

for example, when not enough people are vaccinated there's a better chance of the attenuated virus crossing with with wild virus

[Irish_Dem]

7. Diseases that were wiped out are now making a return.

Yes it is going to be dangerous.