The polarization across the country continues, especially as it relates to important issues that will affect the future health of children all over America. Blame it on the pandemic or blame it on the political climate that has prompted the newest increase of people who have turned a public health issue into a political issue. The rapid increase in conspiracy theories about vaccinations in general increased considerably in recent years.
Public health workers and scientists, as well, found their years of hard work and dedication to eradicating polio questioned and their statistical data ignored completely.
The steady growth of my own demographic — the Baby Boomers — was attributed primarily to men’s return home from war and starting their families. Yet, what most of us didn’t say aloud was that the government support of those men who came home included the development of public health and education programs necessary to make this possible.
The G.I. Bill offered the needed training and education to fill all the jobs being created in a healthy economy and the schooling they needed to seek employment.
The government discovered it was essential to decrease poverty levels and meet a growing population’s medical needs as well. Development of nutritional and public health programs such as prenatal and birth-to-five health care also included helping cities find ways to provide clean water. Public schools were encouraged to meet nutritional childhood requirements by providing hot lunch programs in their schools. Schools began to provide some additional help in the area of children’s health by providing training for medical professionals to help with the burgeoning school nurse program. It offered to take children who showed signs of illness out of the classroom. Sometimes schools could get private or government help with providing family health care clinics once or twice a year.
The fact that our servicemen came home to a grateful nation who wanted to help them give their children the opportunities in life they never had is undeniable.
Those babies born to what has been called “The Greatest Generation” were affected by our changing cultural mores and values. That is the reason vaccinations for so many childhood diseases have been provided before children go to school, and most of the vaccines required for entering a public preschool or elementary school continue to be required. Polio, measles, mumps and rubella were reported to be eradicated or close to being on their way to eradication. Public schools are beginning to show a resurgence of measles now.
When the first polio vaccine was being doled out in the 1950s in public schools and health clinics, it was heralded as an indispensable tool for stopping a public health crisis of undeniable proportions. The view then was that all school-age children needed to be vaccinated not only for their protection, but the public’s protection.
The decreasing numbers of those stricken, and the lower death rates from polio due to scientists such as Dr. Jonas Salk, is not refutable either. Parents refusing to let their children participate was not an issue. It soon became required in school districts all over the country.
The polio vaccines were the only way to stop the wave of disease that emptied out schools and filled up local cemeteries. The use of iron lungs to keep patients alive and metal leg braces to allow patients to learn how to walk again, was the only remedy prescribed by doctors. Stories in the neighborhood told of children who lost the fight early on, and the metal leg braces worn by many children were a constant reminder.
Today families can refuse to get their school-age child a vaccination, and the result is that more serious life-threatening diseases, once thought eradicated, are returning.
Some among us are theorizing that pandemics are going to continue being part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Maybe so, and public health experts and scientists will continue to study public health crises for a long time.
I am tired of the complacency that has taken hold recently about such laudatory science programs. Tampering with educational and public health care needs in this way is unforgivable. Shame on us!
By DOLLY VISCARDI