Please explain, Mike S upstateNY, what you are trying to express:
The vaccine against Polio became available to the public in 1955. The USA has been polio-free since 1979.
Only two countries in the world are still categoized by the WHO as polio-endemic: Pakistan and Afghanistan (there has been a flare-up in Nigeria recently).
One polio v…
Please explain, Mike S upstateNY, what you are trying to express:
The vaccine against Polio became available to the public in 1955. The USA has been polio-free since 1979.
Only two countries in the world are still categoized by the WHO as polio-endemic: Pakistan and Afghanistan (there has been a flare-up in Nigeria recently).
One polio vaccine dose costs about 2 USD (the supply chain has to be temperature-controlled, however, and causes more costs). As the vaccination is part of public health plans for small children and as its costs are covery by universal health care insurance in all civilized countries but the USA, neither cost nor economic standing play a role (dark religion still does, however). Rotary International, with its more than 46,000 clubs and more than 1,4 million members, has played an important grass roots level role in countries like Pakistan in fighting the crippling disease.
So what do you mean with your reference to "...make sure all rich people stay Republican"?
I believe Mike is saying that the polio vaccine removed one more potential humbling experience from the upbringing of rich people. (It removed it from the upbringing of poor people as well, of course, but they didn't really need the lesson.) Without that experience, it's unlikely FDR would have grown up to be the person he was, and both global and American history of the mid-20th century would likely have been very different.
I'm old enough to know people of multiple economic classes who contracted polio as children, before the vaccine was developed. For all of them, it was a defining part of their childhood. We as children learned the lesson that privilege and wealth could not insulate us from the darker turns life could take. I learned that lesson again when a childhood friend died of leukemia at 14, another disease that today can be treated with the application of large amounts of money. Back then we took the March of Dimes seriously because most of us knew people who had had polio. I still think about it when I look at FDR's image on our 10-cent coin.
Another dark turn that was also eliminated, this one man-made, was the military draft. The volunteer army gave young rich folk yet one more way to reduce their risk and live the lives they and their parents had planned for them.
The constant shift of risk from rich to poor over the past 70 years or so has echoed the increase in wealth inequality to give the people who won the genetic lottery less and less reason to identify with those less fortunate than they. It is too bad that FDR got polio, but that twist of fate ultimately made our country a better place. I like to hope that he felt it made him a better person, as well.
Anyway, that's my take on the defeat of polio giving rich people one less reason to empathize with others. Mike, I hope I got your position right, but that's mine, anyway.
In Dr. Richardson's notes she makes the observation that Roosevelt's compassion, likely, emitted from his tough experience with polio. Now, perhaps he would have had compassion without that tough experience which resulted in him being different, disabled.
But, nobody will have that experience, rich nor poor, in America, anymore to build humility and build understanding.
Because the vaccine keeps us all healthy and well and, if we are born rich, as was Roosevelt, then, that opportunity to learn by being bent, is no more.
Please explain, Mike S upstateNY, what you are trying to express:
The vaccine against Polio became available to the public in 1955. The USA has been polio-free since 1979.
Only two countries in the world are still categoized by the WHO as polio-endemic: Pakistan and Afghanistan (there has been a flare-up in Nigeria recently).
One polio vaccine dose costs about 2 USD (the supply chain has to be temperature-controlled, however, and causes more costs). As the vaccination is part of public health plans for small children and as its costs are covery by universal health care insurance in all civilized countries but the USA, neither cost nor economic standing play a role (dark religion still does, however). Rotary International, with its more than 46,000 clubs and more than 1,4 million members, has played an important grass roots level role in countries like Pakistan in fighting the crippling disease.
So what do you mean with your reference to "...make sure all rich people stay Republican"?
Please, dear Mike, let me know. Thank you!
-Peter-
Mike S, this is why the /s tag is so necessary.
I believe Mike is saying that the polio vaccine removed one more potential humbling experience from the upbringing of rich people. (It removed it from the upbringing of poor people as well, of course, but they didn't really need the lesson.) Without that experience, it's unlikely FDR would have grown up to be the person he was, and both global and American history of the mid-20th century would likely have been very different.
I'm old enough to know people of multiple economic classes who contracted polio as children, before the vaccine was developed. For all of them, it was a defining part of their childhood. We as children learned the lesson that privilege and wealth could not insulate us from the darker turns life could take. I learned that lesson again when a childhood friend died of leukemia at 14, another disease that today can be treated with the application of large amounts of money. Back then we took the March of Dimes seriously because most of us knew people who had had polio. I still think about it when I look at FDR's image on our 10-cent coin.
Another dark turn that was also eliminated, this one man-made, was the military draft. The volunteer army gave young rich folk yet one more way to reduce their risk and live the lives they and their parents had planned for them.
The constant shift of risk from rich to poor over the past 70 years or so has echoed the increase in wealth inequality to give the people who won the genetic lottery less and less reason to identify with those less fortunate than they. It is too bad that FDR got polio, but that twist of fate ultimately made our country a better place. I like to hope that he felt it made him a better person, as well.
Anyway, that's my take on the defeat of polio giving rich people one less reason to empathize with others. Mike, I hope I got your position right, but that's mine, anyway.
Exactly correct. Many thanks. I just got back in from working.
Can’t ❤️ this!
❤️
Thank you, Peter. Dr. Albert Bruce Sabin did some excellent vaccine creation work as well. As a kid, I got the Sabin Vax in a pink sugar cube.
Thank you, Peter.
Hi Peter,
In Dr. Richardson's notes she makes the observation that Roosevelt's compassion, likely, emitted from his tough experience with polio. Now, perhaps he would have had compassion without that tough experience which resulted in him being different, disabled.
But, nobody will have that experience, rich nor poor, in America, anymore to build humility and build understanding.
Because the vaccine keeps us all healthy and well and, if we are born rich, as was Roosevelt, then, that opportunity to learn by being bent, is no more.