Note: this blog post was started a couple of weeks ago, when RFK and vaccines were the “health” news of the day–before Tylenol and autism. It’s hard to keep up, among other hardships wrought by this crowd.
Eli and I recently visited the Renwick Gallery, a small gem that is part of the Smithsonian Institution and located across the street from the White House.
The exhibit we saw was “State Fairs: Growing American Craft.” Exhibits ranged from the expected quilts, paintings, and knitwear to a pyramid of preserved food jars, giant cowboy boots (from guess where?), and a specially built butter cow, a signature feature of the Iowa State Fair. Not exactly a heavy intellectual outing, but fun and a relief to see positive Americana on display in that neighborhood. (Photos below).
State fairs had been on my mind. This outing was two days after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., testified in Congress, downplaying the value of vaccines.. The connection? During much of my childhood my family never went to the hometown Wisconsin State Fair due to fear of polio. We didn’t go to Lake Michigan beaches for the same reason. We avoided crowds.
My dad had polio when my brother was nearly two and I was three. He had to be treated at home, as hospitals were overcrowded. The only people allowed into his room were my mother, the doctor, and a physical therapist. We stood at the doorway to talk to him, and were confined to our backyard with no playmates. For a month.
Fortunately, my dad recovered with no after-effects. It was still at least five years before the Salk vaccine. When I was in first grade, we started school late, due to the epidemic, forfeiting spring break.
The Salk vaccine was considered a miracle!
Before the rubella (German Measles) vaccine, the risks of birth defects to kids whose mothers caught it during pregnancy were so prevalent in people’s minds that girls who got it “hosted” other girls, whose parents were anxious for their daughters to get it over with. I remember sitting on the bedroom floor of my best friend’s older sister, along with about ten or twelve girls of various ages sent over for the same purpose.
I never got either measles, though my brother had both. I did get mumps, which was considered dangerous for boys. Hard as my parents tried to expose us, we weren’t contagious to each other. Of course, we got the respective vaccines when they appeared. Some took longer than others. As a senior at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!), I participated in a research study of two different potential rubella vaccines strains. I got the “good one.” Those in the other group were vaccinated with it before the study ended.
My family and I were extraordinarily lucky. But these memories–from a very long time ago–reflect how these diseases affected people’s lives. We knew people who had polio with lasting effects keeping them on crutches or canes or in wheelchairs throughout their lives. We knew women who had rubella during pregnancy and gave birth to deaf babies.
Today, when there are shots to ward off, or diminish the severity of, measles, mumps, chickenpox, pneumonia, shingles, flu, and Covid, why roll the dice? Prevention is a godsend.
A recent Washington Post piece reported that now one in six families shuns vaccines. https://bit.ly/42wCQXY Vaccine avoidance as policy or even recommendation reverses progress, taking us back decades. We already see the resultant rise in measles.
Are these same families avoiding crowds, like fifties parents did? Does RFK counsel such precautions? Likely not. Yet, he doesn’t seem like a fun guy who goes to the fair.
And can you imagine his reaction to the butter cow?
Roald Dahl wrote a moving letter urging parents to get their children measles vaccine. His daughter died of measles encephalitis before there was a reliable vaccine. You can find the letter on the internet.
When I was in 3rd grade all of the students in my grade in my public school (Maybe others; I don’t know.) were in the test group for three rounds of the Salk vaccine. Can you imagine that happening now?
Linda…You tell it like it is! I remember much of what you do. Were we in that room together??? It is truly
a terrifying time and so disturbing to see our health measures being stomped on, cut off and stymied.
I am a little older than my wife (the author of the above). By the time I was in high school and had a driver’s license, the scare was over. We went to the State Fair, but of course, with dates. Our biggest fear was getting sick on one of the rides. If you get sick, no goodnight kiss. As Archie & Eidth Bunker sang, “Those were the days.”