The incidence of poliomyelitis, once a dreaded and disabling illness, is extremely rare these days, although worrisome pockets of the highly contagious disease are now starting to surface in the Middle East.
But before 1955, when Pittsburgh virologist Jonas Salk demonstrated the effectiveness of his new vaccine, polio had been common in developed countries, including the United States. Although many people who became infected with the polio virus didn’t get sick or show any symptoms, many others — especially young children — died of it. And even among survivors, polio’s effects tended to be lifelong, including chronic weakness, muscular deterioration and paralysis.
So, it wasn’t surprising that many parents of young children, back in the pre-vaccine days, tended to be protective. Although the details of transmitting polio were not well understood at the time, its person-to-person contagion was already recognized. What it meant was that mothers (my own included_ took a broad view of prevention. Going to see cartoons at movie theaters, for example, was seen as a polio risk. So were certain sports and swimming activities, as well as selected cases of being with other children at their homes.
In temperate regions, including Pittsburgh, polio season typically extended from summer through early autumn. But for the very cautious, it extended from spring all the way through the following winter. As a result, keeping children safe meant parents invoking polio season prohibitions whenever it seemed convenient. In effect, preventing polio infection had morphed from a public health caution into a child-behavior control measure.
Still, the maternal warnings had a basis in fact. Neighbors, classmates and colleagues of mine had all been affected by it, and the results were awful. So Dr. Salk’s vaccine was a truly monumental development and a milestone in the history of public health.
Polio and its prevention weren’t the only public health crises we’ve experienced. Others have included the 1918 flu pandemic known as the Spanish flu, the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic, HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, the 2009 swine Flu pandemic and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Dysentery was among a group of diseases the ultimately killed more Civil War soldiers than combat. Other serious human epidemics, including tuberculosis, malaria, cholera and smallpox also left their mark in recent years. But none of them can compare to the bubonic plague of the 14th century, which ushered in the Black Death that eventually claimed a quarter of London’s residents.
Regrettably, these epidemics won’t be the last. Global trade and travel have made isolating new strains of disease much more difficult. Diseases and health risks I had never heard of in my youth are now increasingly common: listeria, Marburg virus disease, E. coli, dengue fever, Ebola and West Nile virus are among the more recent entries into the world’s endless cavalcade of life-threatening diseases.
Anaphylaxis caused by acute peanut allergy was unheard of back then. What were referred to as childhood diseases, including mumps, measles, chickenpox, rubella and one or two others were simply allowed to run their course and, in the process, generate their own immunities.
Today, I am deeply grateful to the doctors, scientists and pharmaceutical companies who responded to these life-threatening diseases. These advances have been instrumental in the increased life expectancy that Americans have witnessed over the past decades. And, with new pandemic threats always on the horizon, vigilance in preventing the spread and severity of new diseases remains a huge public health imperative.
So I am confused and unhappy about the Trump administration’s apparent disdain for health science and life-saving vaccines. Of course, it’s true that every medication has its side effects, and those warnings should be taken seriously. But their primary effects, in almost every instance, far outweigh those risks.
With a growing population worldwide, and the constant mutation of viruses and bacteria, other pandemics are bound to occur over time. We can’t afford to ignore the life-saving tools already available that limit the spread of deadly diseases, nor can we afford to relax about the development of new ones.
Polio season — however it may have been invoked or misapplied — seems to be a thing of the past. But health vigilance and medical science remain essential parts of our future.
Peter Longini, of McCandless, grew up in Squirrel Hill. He is a former communication professor, speechwriter and ghostwriter for business leaders and public officials.
First Published: March 15, 2025, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: March 15, 2025, 9:57 p.m.
