I had the good luck not to come down with polio that terrible summer of 1954 when so many kids succumbed to the scourge. I had nightmares of paralysis and of ending up in an iron lung.
I lucked out even more later that year when I became a card-carrying Polio Pioneer as a result of the successful Salk vaccine trial at my school in the Bronx.
My gratitude to Dr. Salk as a kid turned into hero worship when I met him at a conference in Vancouver in 1993. I worked as a speechwriter for UNICEF at the time. My 20-year stint with UNICEF turned me into a true believer – we called immunization the greatest single public health intervention in human history, a veritable miracle of science and medicine.
So I was delighted to read this article emphasizing the role of grandparents in transmitting to new generations what the pre-vaccine era was like – especially now when Trump and RFK Jr. are undermining trust in vaccines and science in general and vaccine-preventable diseases are making a comeback as coverage rates fall.
And how great to read in this article that there’s now a “Grandparents for Vaccines” initiative to resist the dangerous antivaxxers. Count me in.