I know something about polio

 Michael –every other Thursday

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a doctor or a medical scientist. I don’t know about the latest research or treatments. But my first partner had polio as a young child so I have some first-hand knowledge about living with the aftereffects of the disease. And of dying with them.

She caught polio when she was four from a young relative who was believed to have the flu. Apparently, the early symptoms can be quite similar. In fact, many people don’t show much in the way of symptoms at all, so it’s a bit like Covid – you can pick it up without realizing the other person is even sick. This was one of the reason that parents with young children dreaded the disease in those days. The other was how the symptoms might develop.

Her symptoms became severe, and her life was only saved by an iron lung, a horrible experience now superseded by modern ventilators, which, I believe, are still pretty awful. She lived, but was badly affected and needed medical interventions that included a spinal fusion.

She was the most amazing person. Smart, active, and despite daily difficulties, she never once complained in the ten years we were together. There was no challenge she wouldn’t take up if it was physically possible for her to do so.

What I learnt later is that there is post-polio syndrome. What that means is that one’s reserves have been seriously curtailed by the disease and the experiences around it. Perhaps a person with healthy lungs has 25% spare capacity. Perhaps a polio victim has 10% spare capacity. As we age, we need that spare capacity. That capacity ran out for her in her late thirties.

I will always miss her.

One of the great achievements of humanity has been to reduce the everyday (mainly childhood) diseases of the past to handfuls of cases, and to completely eliminate one of them, smallpox. It might seem unbelievable – but nothing seems unbelievable any more – that anyone would want to unwind those truly remarkable achievements. Yet, we have the new nominee for health secretary seemingly keen to do so, and his lawyer actually pushing the FDA to withdraw its approval of a polio vaccine. (I understand it is one vaccine, not all polio vaccines. I’m not sure of the details, but there is a live (but greatly weakened) virus version of the vaccine that is oral, and so easy to administer, that under the right conditions – largely that there is not a high rate of vaccination in the population – can mutate into something dangerous. This has a rate of the order of 1 in three million vaccinations and never in the currently well-vaccinated US.)

Of course, the battle cry of the antivaxers is that vaccines can cause/are correlated with autism. It’s just not true. There are no scientific studies that support that. A recent study from Denmark followed more than half a million children, and showed no correlation between autism and whether or not the child had been vaccinated. Yes, autism is increasing. So are many other things that could be responsible such as pollutants of various types including microplastics. Real medical scientists are working on the issue and no doubt will make progress if they are not prevented from doing so by people with no medical or scientific training who have their own axes to grind and no real concern about who gets hurt – or dies – along the way.

I am not a great fan in general of the minority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, but he knows something about polio too. He had it as a child. Here’s what he said:

“The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous. Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.”

Don’t tell us, Mr. McConnell. Tell your colleagues in the Senate!