But it’s now clear that those lapses in collective memory \u2014 and, along with them, overconfidence in our medical armor \u2014 are not the only factors that put the public at periodic risk from viruses.<\/p>\n
We have today, with the incoming administration, the real prospect of what I described in a column in 2020, during the pandemic<\/a>: \u201cA regressive government that is skeptical of science and cavalier about funding research.\u201d<\/p>\n That seems like understatement now as Donald Trump proposes anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the nation\u2019s secretary of health and RFK has at his side, helping with the selection of staff, an adviser who wants the Food and Drug Administration to withdraw or suspend approval of the polio vaccine<\/a>. This adviser, attorney Aaron Siri<\/a>, works full time at challenging government approval of vaccines and vaccine mandates.<\/p>\n And RFK, while denying that he\u2019s an anti-vaxxer, has a long record showing he\u2019s exactly that. For one thing, he spread the thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines were to blame for autism.<\/p>\n With his nomination needing Senate approval, he\u2019s now trying to soften his image, saying that he supports the polio vaccine and that, more generally, none who chose to be inoculated will be denied a vaccine of any kind.<\/p>\n But if Kennedy and Siri succeed in making certain vaccines unavailable, Americans won\u2019t be able to make that choice.<\/p>\n Considerable damage has already been done.<\/p>\n By elevating this quack to be health secretary \u2014 part of Trump\u2019s apparent effort to bring the worst possible people into the federal government \u2014 the president-elect further elevates vaccine skepticism and, in so doing, heightens the risk to public health.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s not just failure of memory and lapses in vigilance that present a threat, as Dr. Gallo stated. It\u2019s more than that now. It\u2019s active, know-nothing, anti-science.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just shocking,\u201d says Catherine Raggio<\/a>, Maryland\u2019s former secretary of disabilities and a survivor of childhood polio. \u201cI\u2019m appalled that anyone would consider not requiring the polio vaccine for children given its success in nearly eradicating this disease.\u201d<\/p>\n Raggio served in the O\u2019Malley administration from 2007 to 2014, and she\u2019s a longtime leader in promoting independent living for people with disabilities.<\/p>\n She wrote a memoir<\/a>, \u201cGreat Falls I Have Taken,\u201d about the polio that ravaged her legs as a child and left her with permanent disabilities.<\/p>\n Raggio grew up in Pittsburgh. Diagnosed with polio as a three-year-old in 1950, she was hospitalized, on a ward with other children with polio, in a place called the Industrial Home for Crippled Children. She was separated from her parents for 14 months.<\/p>\n \u201cMy first memory in life is waking up in the hospital and screaming. Two nurses were putting sandbags over my legs to keep me still,\u201d she says. \u201cI guess the thinking was that the more movement you made, the more damage you did to your body with the polio. I don’t know if that was accurate or not. They didn’t know that much about it at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in a hospital cubicle. I have a vivid memory of exactly what it looked like. They had taken my baby doll away from me. I was all alone and scared, and that’s my first memory of life.\u201d<\/p>\n Raggio\u2019s book is based in part on her mother\u2019s account of those years. It describes the debilitating and lasting effects of the virus on Raggio\u2019s body as well as the psychological effects from her institutional treatment. She became \u201ca tough little cookie,\u201d she writes in her book<\/a>. \u201cMake no mistake, however. I was traumatized by polio, the treatment I received and the disruption of my young life. The effects of the trauma lingered for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n Polio was once the most feared disease in the world, and every 20th Century parent’s nightmare. The virus attacked the nervous systems of children, weakened muscles or caused paralysis. Thousands survived in respirators known as iron lungs. In 1952, there were 57,879 cases; more than 3,100 victims died that year and 20,000 were left disabled.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the mid-20th century, the polio virus could be found all over the world and killed or paralyzed over half a million people every year,\u201d according to a World Health Organization history<\/a>. \u201cWith no cure, and epidemics on the rise, there was an urgent need for a vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n Two major things happened: Researchers at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital successfully cultivated the virus in human tissue in 1949 and, five years later, Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine. By 1957, annual cases dropped from 58,000 to 5,600, according to the WHO. By 1961, there were only 161 cases. The vaccine saved millions of lives.<\/p>\n I am happy to provide this information, given Dr. Gallo\u2019s warning about memory failure, but, more importantly, given Kennedy\u2019s nomination and his association with Siri.<\/p>\n That anyone would want the FDA to revoke the polio vaccine \u2014 or any vaccine that has stopped the spread of childhood diseases \u2014 is nuts. Even nuttier is giving anti-vaxxers power, or even advisory status, over this nation’s public health policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s nuts to have anti-vaxxers anywhere near public health policy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99999,"featured_media":11079543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-01-02T19:43:36Z","apple_news_api_id":"694a2419-d1ea-47c1-a7d1-0393b416c475","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-01-02T19:43:36Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AaUokGdHqR8Gn0QOTtBbEdQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":true,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"middle","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"subheadline":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[83,96,99],"tags":[24457],"feature":[],"location":[223],"type-of-work":[],"coauthors":[404],"class_list":["post-11079478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-headlines","category-opinion","category-opinion-columnists","tag-social","location-maryland"],"post_status":"","edit_last":0,"edit_lock":0,"highlights":"","original_byline":"","original_canonical":"","original_category":"","original_email":"","original_id":0,"original_pubdate":"","original_source":"","primary_section":"99","primary_tag":0,"print_workflow_body":{"deck_headline":"","print_title":"Dan Rodricks: Given RFK Jr.'s nomination as health secretary, a memoir of polio and the vaccine that saved millions | STAFF COMMENTARY","print_subheadline":"","print_priority":"","print_placement":"cover","print_planned_ready":"","print_pub_date":1735862400,"print_slug":"TBS-L-RODRICKS-0103","print_content":" When it comes to deadly viruses, the eminent virologist Robert Gallo often said that humans have a memory problem.<\/p>\n In media interviews and countless speeches, Dr. Gallo, emeritus director of the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore<\/a>, repeatedly made this point: The record shows gaps in vigilance at every 25 to 30 years, with devastating results.<\/p>\n But it's now clear that those lapses in collective memory \u2014 and, along with them, overconfidence in our medical armor \u2014 are not the only factors that put the public at periodic risk from viruses.<\/p>\n We have today, with the incoming administration, the real prospect of what I described in a column in 2020, during the pandemic<\/a>: \u201cA regressive government that is skeptical of science and cavalier about funding research.\u201d<\/p>\n That seems like understatement now as Donald Trump proposes anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the nation\u2019s secretary of health and RFK has at his side, helping with the selection of staff, an adviser who wants the Food and Drug Administration to withdraw or suspend approval of the polio vaccine<\/a>. This adviser, attorney Aaron Siri<\/a>, works full time at challenging government approval of vaccines and vaccine mandates.<\/p>\n And RFK, while denying that he\u2019s an anti-vaxxer, has a long record showing he\u2019s exactly that. For one thing, he spread the thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines were to blame for autism.<\/p>\n With his nomination needing Senate approval, he\u2019s now trying to soften his image, saying that he supports the polio vaccine and that, more generally, none who chose to be inoculated will be denied a vaccine of any kind.<\/p>\n But if Kennedy and Siri succeed in making certain vaccines unavailable, Americans won\u2019t be able to make that choice.<\/p>\n Considerable damage has already been done.<\/p>\n By elevating this quack to be health secretary \u2014 part of Trump\u2019s apparent effort to bring the worst possible people into the federal government \u2014 the president-elect further elevates vaccine skepticism and, in so doing, heightens the risk to public health.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s not just failure of memory and lapses in vigilance that present a threat, as Dr. Gallo stated. It\u2019s more than that now. It\u2019s active, know-nothing, anti-science.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just shocking,\u201d says Catherine Raggio<\/a>, Maryland\u2019s former secretary of disabilities and a survivor of childhood polio. \u201cI\u2019m appalled that anyone would consider not requiring the polio vaccine for children given its success in nearly eradicating this disease.\u201d<\/p>\n Raggio served in the O\u2019Malley administration from 2007 to 2014, and she\u2019s a longtime leader in promoting independent living for people with disabilities.<\/p>\n She wrote a memoir<\/a>, \u201cGreat Falls I Have Taken,\u201d about the polio that ravaged her legs as a child and left her with permanent disabilities.<\/p>\n Raggio grew up in Pittsburgh. Diagnosed with polio as a three-year-old in 1950, she was hospitalized, on a ward with other children with polio, in a place called the Industrial Home for Crippled Children. She was separated from her parents for 14 months.<\/p>\n \u201cMy first memory in life is waking up in the hospital and screaming. Two nurses were putting sandbags over my legs to keep me still,\u201d she says. \u201cI guess the thinking was that the more movement you made, the more damage you did to your body with the polio. I don't know if that was accurate or not. They didn't know that much about it at the time.\"<\/p>\n \u201cI was in a hospital cubicle. I have a vivid memory of exactly what it looked like. They had taken my baby doll away from me. I was all alone and scared, and that's my first memory of life.\u201d<\/p>\n Raggio\u2019s book is based in part on her mother\u2019s account of those years. It describes the debilitating and lasting effects of the virus on Raggio\u2019s body as well as the psychological effects from her institutional treatment. She became \u201ca tough little cookie,\u201d she writes in her book<\/a>. \u201cMake no mistake, however. I was traumatized by polio, the treatment I received and the disruption of my young life. The effects of the trauma lingered for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n Polio was once the most feared disease in the world, and every 20th Century parent's nightmare. The virus attacked the nervous systems of children, weakened muscles or caused paralysis. Thousands survived in respirators known as iron lungs. In 1952, there were 57,879 cases; more than 3,100 victims died that year and 20,000 were left disabled.<\/p>\n
![\"Cathy](\"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/02_01-1.jpg\")
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