To the editor: I am a survivor of bulbar (throat) polio; I contracted it when I was 5 years old in 1946. While I was fortunate to survive and not be placed in an iron lung, I was left unable to speak or swallow food for the three weeks I was in total isolation in the hospital. The trauma of the experience is with me still.
I was overjoyed when first the Salk and then the Sabin vaccines were released (I was given both). I knew my children and countless others would never face what I went through, or face death or an iron lung.
I can’t describe how angry I was to find out that an advisor to Robert Kennedy Jr. is seeking to end Food and Drug Administration approval of the polio vaccine. If that were to happen it would expose children in this country to the horrors of the disease.
Whatever is motivating these two, they must never be permitted to have any say in this nation’s health policies.
Michael Stein, Tarzana
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To the editor: Speaking as someone whose dad and sister-in-law were polio victims as infants and toddlers (before the vaccines were available), I can tell you from firsthand observation about the effects of polio.
Both had numerous surgeries to straighten out their legs and spent most of their lives walking on crutches and with braces. Then, they both developed post-polio syndrome in late adulthood when they started to lose strength in the muscles that they worked so hard to regain. They were once again confined to wheelchairs.
And they were the lucky ones because they didn’t have to be in iron lungs.
The polio vaccines not only helped other children and people avoid the same fate; they also eradicated the disease in the United States. Are we really going to be taken back to those days of iron lungs and leg braces?
Cheryl Long, Arcadia