Polio Then and Now: From Salk’s Game-Changing Vaccine to Today’s Resurgence

Posted by Emily Glenn on October 23rd, 2014 Posted in: News from Network Members, Public Health

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Credit: CDC photo by S. Smith. Member of an Emergency Citizens Group in Oklahoma City, radioing information to headquarters during the 1963 Polio Eradication Campaign. Public Health Image Library (http://phil.cdc.gov), #1624.

This is a guest post written by Ann Glusker, MLIS, MPH, Reference and Consumer Health Librarian at The Seattle Public Library.

The library world is a small one, and when I heard that a friend of a friend had worked with Jonas Salk, and that she would be interested in speaking about him and his work to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, a program was born!  What could be more timely than considering polio, which has yet to be eradicated, as we battle many other endemic diseases worldwide (and this was before the recent Ebola crisis)?   My planning partner and I asked Salk’s colleague, Kathleen Murray, and also Dr. Linda Venczel, who has worked on polio eradication for much of her career, including with the CDC and the Gates Foundation, to speak.  I’m happy to say that you can hear them present their program, “Polio Then and Now: From Salk’s Game-Changing Vaccine to Today’s Resurgence” this coming Tuesday, October 28, at 7 pm at the Seattle Public Library’s Central (downtown) location.

I have always been aware of polio, as my aunt had the disease (luckily with little lasting effect thanks to the innovations of Australian nurse Sister Elizabeth Kenny), but until I started reading more about it in advance of the program, I hadn’t really realized how terrifying it was.  It’s been recognized for a long time, perhaps dating back to the early Egyptians, but the epidemics that caused widespread fear really began in the 20th century (ironically, it’s thought, due to enhanced sanitation—if children didn’t get exposed to polio-laden water in very early life, when they still had maternal antibodies, it was harder for them to fight off the virus).  While most people with the virus are asymptomatic, the progress of the disease can be devastating to others, causing paralysis and even death.  Worst of all, it disproportionately affects children.

Salk’s achievement needs to be considered in this context; he was literally the savior of millions, but beyond that his vaccine allayed decades of fear.  It came at a time in post-WWII America when everything seemed possible—walking on the moon, and triumphing over the most dread diseases.  His accomplishment fit the zeitgeist of the that decade.  And yet, almost 60 years after the vaccine was declared effective, polio (unlike smallpox, which was declared eradicated in 1980) still exists on earth; it is ALMOST (99%) eliminated, but in these days of international travel, that’s not a sure thing.  It’s unimaginable that it should have a resurgence, but it’s possible.

And, we still have more to learn about polio.  There are advances still being made in preventing polio by means of a combination vaccine, which may in turn have implications relating to the concerning increase in cases of Enterovirus 68, a “cousin” of polio (along with the question of whether it is related to rare instances of child paralysis).  And, the challenges in eradicating polio speak to many of the same issues we are seeing in areas stricken with Ebola: resource-poor areas, suspicion of modern technologies, widespread fear, and (in the case of Ebola) lack of an effective and cheap vaccine.

Basically, the story of polio continues and is deeply relevant to our modern world.  If you’re interested in doing some more reading (on a popular level), we’ve developed this booklist and these blog posts on polio then and now, to support our program.  And if you want to do more in-depth scientific reading, there’s always your friend and mine, PubMed.  MedlinePlus has a page on polio as well.  But, if nothing else, take a moment to appreciate that you probably haven’t had to think much, in your lifetime (or at least your children’s), about catching or dealing with polio.