The New York Times Letter to the Editor: I Had Polio. Get Vaccinated.

As a victim of childhood polio in the 1950s, I read with particularly keen interest "To Stop the Spread of Polio, Don't Shame Religious Groups," by Jeneen Interlandi (Opinion, Aug. 18).

I contracted polio after my father, a medical doctor, declined to give me the Salk vaccine in 1954 because it was part of a vaccine trial intended for second graders, and I was not yet in that cohort. My brother got the vaccine and, soon after, I came down with the disease, spending the next three months in the hospital and another year on crutches.

Like most Americans, I assumed that polio in our country was a thing of the past. After all, the last case of the illness in the United States was in 2013, and the last case that originated here was in 1979. Now a Rockland County, N.Y., man has come down with it, and the virus has been detected in New York City wastewater.

Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine resistance have prompted a potential public health crisis that could be averted if parents followed longstanding medical protocols and got their children immunized.

Even now, decades later, I have a problem standing for long periods and have to limit my walking while I used to be the fastest walker in any group I was part of. I wear a brace on one leg. And I have been experiencing the symptoms of post-polio syndrome.

It is important to do the safe and smart thing to immunize children and unvaccinated adults. Polio often can be a debilitating and life-threatening disease.

Steve Cohen
Memphis
The writer is a member of Congress, representing Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District.