Making bad health policy depends on our short memory
Why did we let a clown car unload at the FDA and start making policy?
Our national memory is shorter than the first verse of the Star-Spangled banner, and that’s bad news if you’re trying to not repeat history.
Take vaccines. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen declining immunization rates in the U.S. There’s a measles outbreak in Texas, and our top federal health official is touting the use of vitamin A, which can be toxic in large doses.
Does anyone recall that measles used to kill an average of 400-500 people every year, put 48,000 into hospitals and 1,000 annually developed encephalitis, the swelling of the brain. That was before a vaccine was available in 1963, which had to be modified multiple times to bring us the measles shot we have today.
In 1964-65, 11,000 miscarriages were related to rubella and 2,100 newborns died. The 1969 vaccine caused a dramatic drop in rubella cases.
Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell.
The director of Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., doesn’t think much of vaccines. That’s why, last week, the top vaccine expert in the food and Drug Administration resigned.
“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” wrote Dr. Peter Marks in his resignation letter.
Why did we let a clown car unload at the FDA and start making policy? Can’t recall.
Republican Iowa lawmakers considered bills that would make it illegal to administer a gene-based vaccine in Iowa and a measure that would have required vaccine makers to shed all liability protection if they peddle vaccines here. Neither made it very far but always watch the dead bill pile for a resurrection in the session’s final hours.
Maybe it’s the loss of the generations who experienced outbreaks. We forgot their stories. Or never heard them.
Polio once struck fear into parents. In 1952, a U.S. polio outbreak killed more than 3,000 people, while many who contracted the disease were plagued by polio-related disabilities. Useless limbs left some unable to walk while others had to rely on a respirator to breath.
Some patients were placed in iron lungs, frightening, large metal tubes that swallowed up all but a patient’s head and helped them breathe.
It was not unusual in the early 1950s to see front page notices of new cases and deaths in The Gazette. On Aug. 18, 1952, The Gazette carried the story pf a “grief-stricken” mother with eight children.
She watched one of her children die of Polio and four others become “dangerously ill.” Another child was showing symptoms. Two of the family’s cases came as they were planning a funeral for Beatrice, 20, a daughter who died of polio.
The father of the family “stood vigil.”
“I don’t know how it could have happened. The children were healthy. They haven’t hardly been out of the house lately,” the father said. “Why did this happen to us?”
It would be three more years of fear before a vaccine was made available in 1955. It was an answer to the nation’s prayers. Polio cases nationwide dropped from thousands to just 161 reported in 1961.
Kennedy has questioned the effectiveness of the polio vaccine before backpedaling during his confirmation hearings.
Kennedy and his anti-vaxx allies are counting on our shrinking national memory. As I said at the top of this column … what was it I said? Never mind.
(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com
This column first appeared in The Gazette published in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Subscribe to our independent, employee-owned news outlet.
My columns are part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Many of Iowa’s best writers share their stories and thoughtful viewpoints. Somehow, they let me in.
As we first drove through the town where my dad was transferred, I told my parents that I could get polio if we moved there.
I was six years old. That was in 1950. The fear was such that even today, 75 years later, I remember.
They only think of themselves when they don’t get vaccinated. I remember getting shots at school, I don’t remember anyone opting out for any reason. People expecting “herd immunity” to keep them safe have been finding that doesn’t always work as well as they had hoped. The misinformation spewed out as fact has messed up so many, and RFK jr. worsens the problem. He’s pushing the nonsense into agriculture as well. Let the avian flu run its course in a flock, the survivors will have an immunity to pass on to others!