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

August 27, 2022

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(link is external)," 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(link is external) 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(link is external). Now a Rockland County, N.Y., man(link is external) has come down with it, and the virus has been detected in New York City wastewater.(link is external)

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.