To the editor: I’m a survivor of bulbar (throat) polio; I contracted it after I was 5 years outdated in 1946. Whereas I used to be lucky to outlive and never be positioned in an iron lung, I used to be left unable to talk or swallow meals for the three weeks I used to be in complete isolation within the hospital. The trauma of the expertise is with me nonetheless.
I used to be overjoyed when first the Salk after which the Sabin vaccines have been launched (I used to be given each). I knew my kids and numerous others would by no means face what I went by way of, or face dying or an iron lung.
I can’t describe how offended I used to be to seek out out that an advisor to Robert Kennedy Jr. is seeking to end Food and Drug Administration approval of the polio vaccine. If that have been to occur it will expose kids on this nation to the horrors of the illness.
No matter is motivating these two, they have to by no means be permitted to have any say on this nation’s well being insurance policies.
Michael Stein, Tarzana
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To the editor: Talking as somebody whose dad and sister-in-law have been polio victims as infants and toddlers (earlier than the vaccines have been obtainable), I can inform you from firsthand remark in regards to the results of polio.
Each had quite a few surgical procedures to straighten out their legs and spent most of their lives strolling on crutches and with braces. Then, they each developed post-polio syndrome in late maturity after they began to lose power within the muscle groups that they labored so arduous to regain. They have been as soon as once more confined to wheelchairs.
And so they have been the fortunate ones as a result of they didn’t should be in iron lungs.
The polio vaccines not solely helped different kids and folks keep away from the identical destiny; in addition they eradicated the illness in the US. Are we actually going to be taken again to these days of iron lungs and leg braces?
Cheryl Lengthy, Arcadia
