Three sides of the (polio) story

Jan 31st, 2011 6:35 PM UTC
By Malaka Gharib

Earlier today, Brooke Riley and I went all the way to the Big Apple from our nation’s capital to attend the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s huge polio event, “Polio Eradication and the Power of Vaccines.” Not only did we get to attend the event, we also had the opportunity to speak with some of the panelists about the disease: Dr. Peter Salk, son of polio vaccine founder Dr. Jonas Salk; Mr. James Roosevelt Jr., grandson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (who contracted polio at age 39); and Dr. David Oshinsky, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Polio: An American Story.”

Although these amazing individuals offered very unique perspectives to the story of polio, their mission to end the disease is the same. Read on to find out what they had to say:

Mr. James Roosevelt, Jr.
“My grandfather [FDR] was living in this house [the Roosevelt House where the event was located] when he was learning first to crawl again and then to walk again because of polio. And I grew up in the era when we were terrified as children to go to movie theaters in the summer, to go to swimming pools in the summer. And then the work of the March of Dimes that my grandfather founded brought about the discovery of these vaccines that could not just prevent but completely eradicate polio. And we’re now down to four countries in the world [where polio cases still exist], so we still have danger as long as it exists at all.”

Dr. Peter Salk
“[My father Dr. Salk] was very busy and often absent for trips. He would go to work early in the morning and come back late at night. It was a period when we lived outside of Pittsburgh and he would drive me to school in the morning, so we would have that time together in the car. Having the example of what he had done in his life made it feel as though it would be an important thing to continue on that kind of endeavor.”

“To be able to pursue this effort this effort to eradicate this second disease – smallpox being the first, and now polio – that’s going to be a boost to our confidence of being able to do much more.”

Dr. David Oshinksy
“There is no better way to really support the health of children around the world than through worldwide vaccination. Economically, politically, socially, medically, it is by far the best tool that we have. We are so close now to eradicating polio with vaccination. We are using vaccination against measles, mumps and we’re starting to develop the malaria vaccine. And what you really need to know is that…vaccines have proven itself over the years to be extremely safe and remarkably effective.”

TAGS: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ONE, Polio, vaccines