Even the popular polio shot had its haters
November 29, 2021 7:00 PM Subscribe
As [polio] outbreaks moved from city to city, swimming pools and movie theaters closed, and parents safeguarded children at home. Salk’s announcement marked the start of the largest medical experiment ever conducted at the time, a placebo-controlled study of 1.8 million children in 44 states, carried out in 1954, that would pave the way for the near eradication of the disease.
Duon H. Miller, the cantankerous owner of a cosmetics company in Florida, was having none of it.
Duon H. Miller, the cantankerous owner of a cosmetics company in Florida, was having none of it.
"self-made shampoo magnate" is not a sentence I expected to run into here.
posted by mhoye at 7:28 PM on November 29, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 7:28 PM on November 29, 2021 [10 favorites]
The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to a Growing Vaccine Crisis
Also: MRS. HOBBY TERMS FREE VACCINE IDEA A SOCIALISTIC STEP
(Oveta Culp Hobby was Ike's secretary of the new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare).
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 7:32 PM on November 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
Also: MRS. HOBBY TERMS FREE VACCINE IDEA A SOCIALISTIC STEP
(Oveta Culp Hobby was Ike's secretary of the new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare).
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 7:32 PM on November 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
Polio was a terrible disease, a literal baby killer. If only being an antivaxxer was considered a public health menace and not an absolutist first amendment legal matter.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:38 PM on November 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:38 PM on November 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
The Great Salk Vaccine Mess -- JSTOR-captured article (but free?) that was an educational précis of the initial mass vaccination roll-out under Ike's administration.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:01 PM on November 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:01 PM on November 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
He lived long enough to see the introduction of the live, attenuated Sabin vaccine, which was administered on a sugar cube.
I wish I could know whether vaccine developers and public health officials experienced a moment of grim satisfaction over that.
posted by jamjam at 8:09 PM on November 29, 2021 [9 favorites]
I wish I could know whether vaccine developers and public health officials experienced a moment of grim satisfaction over that.
posted by jamjam at 8:09 PM on November 29, 2021 [9 favorites]
"a literal baby killer."
So is pertussis, and literally every pediatrician I know has horror stories of infant patients who have died from it. And yet lots of parents-to-be refuse a Tdap booster even though they have almost certainly had multiple Tdap shots (as an infant, to enter K-12 schooling, to enter college) AND that tetanus boosters are GOOD FOR EVERYONE (tetanus sucks). AND that basically every obstetrics practice now recommends that every pregnant person get vaccinated during EVERY pregnancy between 27 and 36 weeks (GUYS I GOT SO MANY SHOTS, I feel like I'm immune to tetanus FOREVER, but really only 10 years, but also? SO MANY SHOTS). Pregnant people's partners, parents, and other children should ALSO be up-to-date on their Tdap vaccinations, and every pediatrician, GP, and gerontologist will HAPPILY tell you if you need a Tdap booster to safely see your siblings/children/grandkids. My parents got a bazillionty Tdap boosters in 15 years as their various kids had kids and guidelines shifted, they are basically The Hulk of Tdap now. If you have a good friend having a baby this year? Go to your local fucking Walgreens and ask for a Tdap booster. Any commercial pharmacy will give you one as long as it's been more than a year, AND ALSO TETANUS SUCKS, so get that sucker.
Anyway my larger point is people are dumb about vaccines even when they're no-brainers, and need further ass-kickings to get shots, and ALSO YOU SHOULD ALL GO GET TDAP BOOSTERS BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOU AND TETANUS IS BAD. And also babies and whooping cough.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:21 PM on November 29, 2021 [53 favorites]
So is pertussis, and literally every pediatrician I know has horror stories of infant patients who have died from it. And yet lots of parents-to-be refuse a Tdap booster even though they have almost certainly had multiple Tdap shots (as an infant, to enter K-12 schooling, to enter college) AND that tetanus boosters are GOOD FOR EVERYONE (tetanus sucks). AND that basically every obstetrics practice now recommends that every pregnant person get vaccinated during EVERY pregnancy between 27 and 36 weeks (GUYS I GOT SO MANY SHOTS, I feel like I'm immune to tetanus FOREVER, but really only 10 years, but also? SO MANY SHOTS). Pregnant people's partners, parents, and other children should ALSO be up-to-date on their Tdap vaccinations, and every pediatrician, GP, and gerontologist will HAPPILY tell you if you need a Tdap booster to safely see your siblings/children/grandkids. My parents got a bazillionty Tdap boosters in 15 years as their various kids had kids and guidelines shifted, they are basically The Hulk of Tdap now. If you have a good friend having a baby this year? Go to your local fucking Walgreens and ask for a Tdap booster. Any commercial pharmacy will give you one as long as it's been more than a year, AND ALSO TETANUS SUCKS, so get that sucker.
Anyway my larger point is people are dumb about vaccines even when they're no-brainers, and need further ass-kickings to get shots, and ALSO YOU SHOULD ALL GO GET TDAP BOOSTERS BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOU AND TETANUS IS BAD. And also babies and whooping cough.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:21 PM on November 29, 2021 [53 favorites]
"self-made shampoo magnate" is not a sentence I expected to run into here.
Sort of like “self-made pillow magnate”.
posted by darkstar at 8:26 PM on November 29, 2021 [28 favorites]
Sort of like “self-made pillow magnate”.
posted by darkstar at 8:26 PM on November 29, 2021 [28 favorites]
"Live vaccine" is a phrase that scares the crap out of everyone .... but the best possible outcome right now would be if omicron turns out to be virulent enough to displace delta/etc but as benign as the common cold (sometimes another covid virus) - that could effectively end the epidemic.
And that virus would effectively be a "live vaccine" - which sort of brings us to the question of why are we not out there engineering a virus with those very properties right now? (this is a case where 'natural' may not be best)
posted by mbo at 8:35 PM on November 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
And that virus would effectively be a "live vaccine" - which sort of brings us to the question of why are we not out there engineering a virus with those very properties right now? (this is a case where 'natural' may not be best)
posted by mbo at 8:35 PM on November 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
The polio vaccine's popularity, according to the article, is a bit of an outlier compared to Covid (which I knew) and smallpox (which I didn't.)
posted by mark k at 8:35 PM on November 29, 2021 [4 favorites]
“The postwar era was a very trust-in-science era,” said Berman.OTOH the '50s were also a time people loved nuclear power, pesticides and pie-in-the-sky geoengineering ideas, in ways that can seem naively quaint now. I think the scientifically minded are more humble now but I wonder if you can really separate the bad skepticism from the good?
[ . . . ]
[T]he polio vaccine came when Americans had just seen a rush of scientific and technological advancements, from antibiotics and penicillin to helicopters and television sets. Academics and experts were enlisted to outmaneuver the Soviets. The public not just accepted, but cheered, the headline-making work of guys in white lab coats.
posted by mark k at 8:35 PM on November 29, 2021 [4 favorites]
which sort of brings us to the question of why are we not out there engineering a virus with those very properties right now?
unintended consequences is a useful phrase for questions like this
posted by hippybear at 8:40 PM on November 29, 2021 [16 favorites]
unintended consequences is a useful phrase for questions like this
posted by hippybear at 8:40 PM on November 29, 2021 [16 favorites]
92.6% of US infants have 3+ doses of polio vaccine by 24 months.
MMR (90.8% vaccinated by 24 months in the US) was circulating in my local area due to anti-vaxxers when my oldest two were infants (they're currently 12 and 10) and I cannot tell you how freaking excited I was when they were 6 months old and eligible for MMR shots. It felt like, Jesus, now my kids can go out into society/mommy-and-me music class and NOT DIE.
(A local infant music class program collapsed because a lady who was attending refused to vaccinate her children and told all the other parents they should be EXCITED if her kids gave our kids measles because then they'd be REALLY immune instead of FAKE immune like from GOVERNMENT SHOTS, and the owners of the class franchise refused to boot her out (because free speech I guess? and/or cowardice) and everyone BUT her quit the class, and the program collapsed from lack of enrollment. It's been 11 years and honestly I'm still mad at her.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:45 PM on November 29, 2021 [49 favorites]
MMR (90.8% vaccinated by 24 months in the US) was circulating in my local area due to anti-vaxxers when my oldest two were infants (they're currently 12 and 10) and I cannot tell you how freaking excited I was when they were 6 months old and eligible for MMR shots. It felt like, Jesus, now my kids can go out into society/mommy-and-me music class and NOT DIE.
(A local infant music class program collapsed because a lady who was attending refused to vaccinate her children and told all the other parents they should be EXCITED if her kids gave our kids measles because then they'd be REALLY immune instead of FAKE immune like from GOVERNMENT SHOTS, and the owners of the class franchise refused to boot her out (because free speech I guess? and/or cowardice) and everyone BUT her quit the class, and the program collapsed from lack of enrollment. It's been 11 years and honestly I'm still mad at her.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:45 PM on November 29, 2021 [49 favorites]
The more I know about pandemics the more it seems that there is nothing special about the current one, except maybe the extremely fast creation of effective vaccines, and the use of the electronic surveillance state to mandate lockdowns.
posted by meowzilla at 8:52 PM on November 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by meowzilla at 8:52 PM on November 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
While we're on this topic... the relatively recent 2003 Polio vaccine boycott in Nigeria (population 200 million) - and WHO's successful resolution of the problem - has been quite interesting, in light of the Covid vaccine boycotts. This is as good a summary as I can make of it -
Not only did local polio cases in Nigeria rise dramatically, it then spread to 8 other countries which were previously polio free.
In most parts of the world, 3 to 4 doses of the vaccine are enough to confer protection to an infant. However, in Nigeria, with the large viral exposure of multiple wild strains, infants need to receive 8 or more doses to obtain effective immunity. Infants which do not receive sufficient dosing fall victim to infection, replicating vaccine resistant strains even further. In the aftermath of the boycott, Nigeria accounted for 80% of the global polio disease burden.
In the wake of such a failure, there has been intense interest in investigating the reasons behind the vaccine boycott and measures taken to overcome it.
1. The northern states in Nigeria were previously ruled by Islamic Jihadists, while the southern states were a British colony. Nigeria went from a military dictatorship led by the north to what is today a democracy led from the south.
2. In the 1980s the government set a policy limiting women to 4 children. There was fiercer resistance in the North to such a policy (as Islam encourages large families) and the rumour started that the government was enforcing its edict through anti-fertility agents introduced to young girls via childhood vaccinations. It is, after all, the only thing that the government agents "put in" to you that could plausibly further their agenda. Their official statement on boycotting the vaccine in 2003 also refers to this -- “…a lesser of two evils, to sacrifice two, three, four, five even ten children to polio than allow hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of girl-children likely to be rendered infertile”
3. Very poor levels of healthcare in the north with lack of basic lifesaving medicine and material led to distrust of the mass immunization effort. Clinics often lacked basic rehydration liquids to prevent people dying of dehydration from dysentery or antibiotics to prevent people dying of infections. The idea that someone would give out "free" vaccines for a disease that wasn't at the top of their list of concerns was viewed with suspicion the same way you would view someone if they showed up at your house and asked you for your bank details so they could wire you a free $100.
4. Pfizer was accused of running a drug trial on children in Nigeria in 1996 without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Half the children got the gold standard meningitis treatment ceftriaxone, while the other half got their experimental drug. They eventually settled the case for $75 million. One of the interesting facts of the case was that in the trial, Pfizer "low dosed" the control group with just 1/3 of the FDA recommended dosage for ceftriaxone, and compared it with the full dose of their experimental drug, in an attempt to skew the results to show their experimental drug as more effective. This further led to distrust of Western led medical interventions.
5. Eventually this was solved through dialogue with the religious leaders in the north: they agreed that Indonesia, being the world's most populous Muslim country, would be a trusted source of the vaccine. Biopharma, an Indonesian pharmaceutical company, manufactured and supplied the vaccine: and it was tested independently in other Muslim communities in India, South Africa and Indonesia and verified by the representatives from Nigeria. Only then was WHO permitted to resume vaccinations, and Africa is now free of wild polio.
posted by xdvesper at 9:35 PM on November 29, 2021 [85 favorites]
Not only did local polio cases in Nigeria rise dramatically, it then spread to 8 other countries which were previously polio free.
In most parts of the world, 3 to 4 doses of the vaccine are enough to confer protection to an infant. However, in Nigeria, with the large viral exposure of multiple wild strains, infants need to receive 8 or more doses to obtain effective immunity. Infants which do not receive sufficient dosing fall victim to infection, replicating vaccine resistant strains even further. In the aftermath of the boycott, Nigeria accounted for 80% of the global polio disease burden.
In the wake of such a failure, there has been intense interest in investigating the reasons behind the vaccine boycott and measures taken to overcome it.
1. The northern states in Nigeria were previously ruled by Islamic Jihadists, while the southern states were a British colony. Nigeria went from a military dictatorship led by the north to what is today a democracy led from the south.
2. In the 1980s the government set a policy limiting women to 4 children. There was fiercer resistance in the North to such a policy (as Islam encourages large families) and the rumour started that the government was enforcing its edict through anti-fertility agents introduced to young girls via childhood vaccinations. It is, after all, the only thing that the government agents "put in" to you that could plausibly further their agenda. Their official statement on boycotting the vaccine in 2003 also refers to this -- “…a lesser of two evils, to sacrifice two, three, four, five even ten children to polio than allow hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of girl-children likely to be rendered infertile”
3. Very poor levels of healthcare in the north with lack of basic lifesaving medicine and material led to distrust of the mass immunization effort. Clinics often lacked basic rehydration liquids to prevent people dying of dehydration from dysentery or antibiotics to prevent people dying of infections. The idea that someone would give out "free" vaccines for a disease that wasn't at the top of their list of concerns was viewed with suspicion the same way you would view someone if they showed up at your house and asked you for your bank details so they could wire you a free $100.
4. Pfizer was accused of running a drug trial on children in Nigeria in 1996 without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Half the children got the gold standard meningitis treatment ceftriaxone, while the other half got their experimental drug. They eventually settled the case for $75 million. One of the interesting facts of the case was that in the trial, Pfizer "low dosed" the control group with just 1/3 of the FDA recommended dosage for ceftriaxone, and compared it with the full dose of their experimental drug, in an attempt to skew the results to show their experimental drug as more effective. This further led to distrust of Western led medical interventions.
5. Eventually this was solved through dialogue with the religious leaders in the north: they agreed that Indonesia, being the world's most populous Muslim country, would be a trusted source of the vaccine. Biopharma, an Indonesian pharmaceutical company, manufactured and supplied the vaccine: and it was tested independently in other Muslim communities in India, South Africa and Indonesia and verified by the representatives from Nigeria. Only then was WHO permitted to resume vaccinations, and Africa is now free of wild polio.
posted by xdvesper at 9:35 PM on November 29, 2021 [85 favorites]
I can’t believe this article doesn’t even mention the Cutter scandal - a batch of vaccines that were improperly created gave a bunch of kids polio. The author of The Cutter Incident, review linked above, is Paul Offit, who created the rotavirus. Fascinating book.
posted by bq at 9:56 PM on November 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by bq at 9:56 PM on November 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
I recently read a 1922 PG Wodehouse novel called The Adventures of Sally, which is set in the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. I was struck by this speech by a character called Gerald Foster & how closely it matches our own era's battles over Covid-19.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:41 PM on November 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 11:41 PM on November 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
Thanks for this discussion. In the last year, I've had three covid vaccinations, two shingles vaccinations, and a flu shot (and a partridge in a pear tree). Now I'll look into getting a tetanus and Dtap update.
My parents took me to get SO many vaccinations as a toddler, but once in school, they assumed all these hillbilly kids didn't have their shots. They lined us up two or three times a year and vaccinated all of us for something or other, they never bothered to tell us what ("I hope it's the sugar cube this time!"). I don't know if we had parental permission on file or what. Still, my kids were shocked I never got a varicella shot. Let's assume the shingles vaccine made up for that.
posted by Miss Cellania at 4:28 AM on November 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
My parents took me to get SO many vaccinations as a toddler, but once in school, they assumed all these hillbilly kids didn't have their shots. They lined us up two or three times a year and vaccinated all of us for something or other, they never bothered to tell us what ("I hope it's the sugar cube this time!"). I don't know if we had parental permission on file or what. Still, my kids were shocked I never got a varicella shot. Let's assume the shingles vaccine made up for that.
posted by Miss Cellania at 4:28 AM on November 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
...of course he was a Florida Man.
Not that that's a pre-requisite. One of my g-g-grandfathers, a New York lawyer, was member of the Anti-Vaccination League back in the day. Also the Society of Medical Jurisprudence. Makes you think.
posted by BWA at 4:52 AM on November 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Not that that's a pre-requisite. One of my g-g-grandfathers, a New York lawyer, was member of the Anti-Vaccination League back in the day. Also the Society of Medical Jurisprudence. Makes you think.
posted by BWA at 4:52 AM on November 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
"Live vaccine" is a phrase that scares the crap out of everyone .
Let's go with replication competent attenuated virus rather than "live".
posted by atrazine at 4:54 AM on November 30, 2021
Let's go with replication competent attenuated virus rather than "live".
posted by atrazine at 4:54 AM on November 30, 2021
Duon Miller is gladly forgotten, but he sure knew how to astroturf with his "Polio Prevention Inc.". Beware the world of the self-made man.
Mind you, that "Mr Glucose" in the first PPI flyer: i love himb ...
posted by scruss at 5:21 AM on November 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Mind you, that "Mr Glucose" in the first PPI flyer: i love himb ...
posted by scruss at 5:21 AM on November 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Whiskey or Polio, indeed.
posted by chavenet at 5:29 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 5:29 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
There are few people I have a burning hated for; even The Cheeto doesn't really rate. But boy howdy do the assholes from the CIA who corrupted hepatitis B vaccinations in Pakistan just to get Bin Laden qualify for making truth out of crazy conspiracy leading directly to a resurgence in polio just as we were on the verge of eradication.
posted by Mitheral at 5:54 AM on November 30, 2021 [22 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 5:54 AM on November 30, 2021 [22 favorites]
My dad was USAF, so in addition to all the shots we all get in the US, I got a bunch of extra shots when we went to Germany and Spain in my early years. And I'm thankful I did!
posted by COD at 6:11 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by COD at 6:11 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
I recall getting my Sabin vaccine as a kid. It was in a local high school gymnasium, one of the few places big enough to handle the volume of parents bringing their kids to get immunized. It's hard to imagine anyone not not wanting to save their kids from polio. Or at least it was until the whole anti-vax movement started up.
posted by tommasz at 6:30 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 6:30 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
I stopped reading the local what's-happening-around-town supermarket newspaper when it printed a long column from one of it's regular writers (i.e. old white guys who know the publisher and get a platform for whatever grinds their gears) about how sunburns are caused by a Vitamin D deficiency and how using sunscreen actually causes skin cancer.
I honestly don't know what the motivation was. To take down Big Sunscreen? To feel special while waking up the sheeple? To be always be contrarian? To feel in control of reality?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:57 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
I honestly don't know what the motivation was. To take down Big Sunscreen? To feel special while waking up the sheeple? To be always be contrarian? To feel in control of reality?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:57 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
He lived long enough to see the introduction of the live, attenuated Sabin vaccine, which was administered on a sugar cube.
Not at my school. They just dropped it directly onto our tongues. And let me tell you that sucker tasted terrible.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:12 AM on November 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
Not at my school. They just dropped it directly onto our tongues. And let me tell you that sucker tasted terrible.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:12 AM on November 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
Can't help noticing that Miller's claim that polio was actually caused by poor diet is nearly identical to Bill Maher's repeated ad nauseam assertion that Covid deaths are actually the result of weakened immune systems caused by poor diet.
posted by Devoidoid at 9:19 AM on November 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Devoidoid at 9:19 AM on November 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
I honestly don't know what the motivation was. To take down Big Sunscreen? To feel special while waking up the sheeple? To be always be contrarian? To feel in control of reality?
People will say, and do, and believe literally any crazy bullshit if the only alternative they can see is to feel powerless over something they care about.
posted by mhoye at 9:59 AM on November 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
People will say, and do, and believe literally any crazy bullshit if the only alternative they can see is to feel powerless over something they care about.
posted by mhoye at 9:59 AM on November 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
I honestly don't know what the motivation was. To take down Big Sunscreen? To feel special while waking up the sheeple? To be always be contrarian? To feel in control of reality?
My assumption is "purity" as an avenue of control. Jesus didn't have no Coppertone.
posted by rhizome at 12:33 PM on November 30, 2021
My assumption is "purity" as an avenue of control. Jesus didn't have no Coppertone.
posted by rhizome at 12:33 PM on November 30, 2021
I honestly don't know what the motivation was. To take down Big Sunscreen? To feel special while waking up the sheeple? To be always be contrarian? To feel in control of reality?
posted by RonButNotStupid
I think the big piece for lots of people is the control bit. I mean for sure the other stuff comes into play for some people too. But among all the anti vaxxers or vaccine hesitant I know personally, that is the common thread: a feeling that at least one aspect of their life was out of their control prior to COVID (partner blindsided them by leaving them suddenly, they or family member had sudden life threatening illness), and gaining back that control in some way is really important to them. They all seem to have found what they’re looking for in the anti vax community.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:27 PM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid
I think the big piece for lots of people is the control bit. I mean for sure the other stuff comes into play for some people too. But among all the anti vaxxers or vaccine hesitant I know personally, that is the common thread: a feeling that at least one aspect of their life was out of their control prior to COVID (partner blindsided them by leaving them suddenly, they or family member had sudden life threatening illness), and gaining back that control in some way is really important to them. They all seem to have found what they’re looking for in the anti vax community.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:27 PM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
There are few people I have a burning hated for; even The Cheeto doesn't really rate. But boy howdy do the assholes from the CIA who corrupted hepatitis B vaccinations in Pakistan just to get Bin Laden qualify for making truth out of crazy conspiracy leading directly to a resurgence in polio just as we were on the verge of eradication.
And they were just so incompetent too. Ok, the found Bin Laden, they could have kept funding the real vaccinations, and then how they found him would have been a mystery.
posted by Iax at 1:17 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
And they were just so incompetent too. Ok, the found Bin Laden, they could have kept funding the real vaccinations, and then how they found him would have been a mystery.
posted by Iax at 1:17 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:16 PM on November 29, 2021 [5 favorites]