Polio virus left local mark - Monroe Evening News
Polio virus left local mark - Monroe Evening News |
- Polio virus left local mark - Monroe Evening News
- Hermiston History: Residents raise money for polio treatment - Hermiston Herald
- 'We are so fortunate' | Polio survivor gets COVID-19 vaccine - KHOU.com
- 1955: Parents feel relief and hope after Salk Polio vaccine found to be ‘safe and effective’ - syracuse.com
| Polio virus left local mark - Monroe Evening News Posted: 26 Jan 2021 11:05 AM PST Richard Holcomb of Milan was 13 in the summer of 1954 when his parents rushed him to the hospital with polio. Polio left its mark on Milan families in the early 1950s. Richard Holcomb of Milan was 13 in the summer of 1954 when his parents rushed him to the hospital with polio. Richard was quickly provided with the best medical treatment available, which was an iron lung. While in the iron lung, Richard could not speak. He could only blink his eyes once or twice to indicate yes or no. A mirror allowed him to see around the room while lying on his back. His father, Paul Holcomb, was a professional photographer in Milan, and managed to get one last photo of the boy before his death. Richard was smiling up at his mother through the mirror. The boy lived only a few more days. A year before, Paul Holcomb took a cute picture of Richard on a bike with his little sister, Carolyn, now Carolyn Olds. She recalls that when her big brother went to the hospital, another boy was admitted at the same time with polio, and the other boy lived. Just a few years before Richard's death, Don Harkness of Milan was having his high school senior picture taken. He was looking forward to graduating from Milan High School with the class of 1951. Harkness was struck by the polio virus during the summer before his senior year. He visited a local hospital and tried out the iron lung, he told me, but didn't like it, so he walked away. Harkness struggled to keep up with his academics but he had exercises to do, he explained, and some surgeries, so he had to leave school. He still treasured his senior picture. After the polio treatments, he attended a private college, then landed a good job. In 1959, I was herded into the cafeteria at my elementary school. All of us were lined up by grade, and each of us was vaccinated for polio. I don't remember polio. It's history. Martha A. Churchill is a Milan area historian and regular contributor to The Monroe News.  |
| Hermiston History: Residents raise money for polio treatment - Hermiston Herald Posted: 20 Jan 2021 01:00 PM PST  25 YEARS AGO Jan. 16, 1996 The Hermiston Chamber of Commerce is giving local residents a chance to dance their way to a better library. The first annual Mayor's Ball comes to Hermiston on Feb. 3. The event will be held at the Hermiston Community Center from 7 p.m. to midnight. Proceeds from the evening will benefit the Hermiston Public Library. 2) A new post office for Irrigon is one step closer to reality. The city council last week authorized Mayor Don Eppenbach to contract survey services to evaluate a proposed site for the new building. The survey, which is set to begin this week, will evaluate the one and three-tenths of an acre site of city-owned former railroad land along Highway 730. Eppenbach said the U.S. Postal Service wants to build a 5,200 square foot building for the new post office. 50 YEARS AGO Jan. 21, 1971 Residents of Umatilla and Morrow counties are more receptive than persons elsewhere in Oregon to proposals for locating nuclear power parks in their areas, according to a Bureau of Reclamation area engineer. John Mangan, speaking Monday at the annual meeting of the Columbia-Blue Mountain Resource Conservation and Development Project, showed the approximately 70 persons in attendance diagrams of ways in which nuclear power and irrigation could be made to work together. Harold Cantrell, Walla Walla area manager for Bonneville Power Administration, told the meeting the need for power in the Pacific Northwest will increase by one million kilowatts each year for the next 10 years. Mangan mentioned the Cold Springs Reservoir as a possibility for a nuclear plant. 75 YEARS AGO Jan. 17, 1946 The annual polio drive started this week in Umatilla County. Once again we have an opportunity to share in the unrelenting battle against infantile paralysis, the dread crippler that annually attacks America's children. We can hope that the children of our community will be spared in the years before us. We cannot be sure. No one can predict where, when or how severely the Great Crippler will strike. It therefore behooves us to be prepared. The Umatilla County chapter of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis is arming now against the possibility of an outbreak in the summer ahead. They must have the necessary funds to help our health officials, physicians and hospitals provide the finest available care and treatment for infantile paralysis patients. When a polio outbreak occurs, no one knows how much special equipment and appliances, or how many physical therapists and nurses, may be needed. 100 YEARS AGO Jan. 21, 1921 The Willamette Glee Club will be in Hermiston for a concert on Wednesday, Feb. 2, under the auspices of the high school student body. This organization was billed here last year, but the flu interfered and they passed us by. This season the club is better than last year and the music lovers of the project can look for a rare treat. Mr. Adams of the Play House has canceled his picture for that evening and the concert will be given there, where all can be seated comfortably. 2) A small train wreck occurred in the Hermiston yards Thursday morning after the local had departed for Portland. While switching with a freight engine, four box cars jumped the track and tore up four lengths of rails. The accident was caused by a switch point giving way. It was necessary to call for a helper from Umatilla and a section crew before the damage could be repaired and the cars put back on the track.  |
| 'We are so fortunate' | Polio survivor gets COVID-19 vaccine - KHOU.com Posted: 14 Jan 2021 12:00 AM PST  Rhonda Young contracted polio in 1953, but the first vaccine was not available until 1955. But now she's not missing out on the COVID vaccine. HOUSTON — Receiving the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine is taking a Kingwood woman back to her childhood. She contracted polio during the outbreak in the 50's just two years before a vaccine was developed. Now during the COVID-19 pandemic doctors want to make sure she and other polio patients are not left behind. "My dad said I was about 22 months old," Rhonda Young said. Young said she contracted Polio in 1953, and in 1955 Dr. Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine against polio. That was a little too late for Rhonda, but she said she was fortunate polio only affected the muscles in her legs. Now she has other issues to deal with. Polio is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus. It spreads from person to person and can infect a person's spinal cord and can cause paralysis. "Because of polio many of them have developed chronic medical conditions among others," Dr. Gerald Francisco, chief medical officer at TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital, said. And in the 1950's, a Houston doctor established one of the first polio treatment centers here in Houston. Later that center would rehab other injured patients and turn into TIRR Memorial Hermann. But now TIRR Memorial Hermann wanted to make sure their polio patients didn't miss the COVID-19 vaccine. "We are so fortunate that now we have an opportunity to give them something. The vaccine that they missed in the 1950's," Francisco said. And for Young, getting the COVID vaccine meant everything for her, because she didn't get the polio vaccine. "Had the vaccine been out. When I was younger I wouldn't have had polio but it wasn't. and it took so long and so many people died from that," said Young. Now she says she's happy to be one of the first people to get the first round of the COVID vaccine. It is a sigh of relief for this survivor. "And now with this one being developed so quickly, and not get COVID, I am elated to be able to get it and be ahead of this one," Young said.  |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2021 09:13 AM PST News of the approval and effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines stirred feelings of optimism in Americans, fueling hopes of a return to normal life. The emotions were similar to those felt in Syracuse, and across the United States, when another vaccine promised to eradicate a horrible disease. Polio was terrible. The disease was easily transmissible and attacked a person's nervous system. In its most severe cases, polio caused paralysis. Infants and children were affected the most. Polio epidemics were common in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. Treatment was generally limited to quarantines, leg braces and the "iron lung," which aided with respiration.  Spinal taps from suspected polio victims at City Hospital in Syracuse were used by Dr. Otto Muller, of the Medical College, who was working on a new test for polio. The tap was performed by injecting a needle into the proper spot in the back and collecting a sample of spinal fluid. Photo was taken in 1952. Syracuse Post-StandardSyracuse Post-Standard In 1952, the worst polio epidemic in American history happened. It affected 57,000 people, leaving 21,000 paralyzed and 3,145 dead. Movie theaters and swimming pools were closed, and terrified parents began keeping in their children indoors. On March 26, 1953 Dr. Jonas Salk gave the world some hope. On a national radio show, he announced that he had successfully tested a vaccine against polio. A history.com article explained the national reaction to his vaccine: "The American public was deeply invested in fighting polio, with 300,000 volunteers from all walks of life helping to complete the Salk vaccine trial in 1954, a massive and unprecedented undertaking. At over 200 test sites nationwide, volunteers inoculated nearly 2 million children, some with the real vaccine and others with a placebo as part of the first double-blind vaccine trial in American history." In Syracuse, hundreds of children took part in the trials and people gave money to the March of Dimes. For months, the world waited for news of the vaccine's approval.  FILE - In this Oct. 7, 1954, file photo, Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, holds a rack of test tubes in his lab in Pittsburgh. Peter Salk still remembers the trepidation he felt when his father came home from work one day in May 1953 and promptly began boiling a set of needles and syringes on the kitchen stove. With several years of research and promising results in monkeys fueling high hopes, Dr. Jonas Salk had brought from his lab at the University of Pittsburgh a still-experimental vaccine candidate to their Pine home. His family would become among the first humans in the world to test a shot against the mysterious polio virus crippling and killing children. (AP Photo, File)AP On April 9, 1955, representatives from University of Michigan and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis announced they would release a report on the Salk vaccine at Ann Arbor on April 12 at precisely 10:20 a.m. In anticipation of good news, Syracuse Mayor Donald Howe Mead issued a proclamation, calling for a day of citywide celebration. "I ask that a prayer of thanksgiving be sent heavenward by every resident of the city to express appreciation to God for bestowing on us the means of conquering one of our most frightful diseases," he wrote. When it was announced that the Salk vaccine was "safe, effective and potent," the news "set off a demonstration of exultation," the Herald-Journal said. Mayor Mead proclaimed it "Victory Over Polio Day." The bells on churches and fire departments were rung and the Civil Defense and factory whistles wailed. On city streets, traffic lights turned red and cars stopped in their tracks so drivers could hear the good news on their car radios. Syracuse newspapers did not record the reactions of people on the street, but we can get a sense of how the news was received by reading the words of the Herald's Journal's medical reporter Cathy Covert, who was in Ann Arbor that day.  Sitting at her typewriter, Herald-Journal reporter Cathy Covert was at the announcement about the effectiveness of the Salk polio vaccine. Syracuse Post-StandardSyracuse Post-Standard The parent of a daughter, Carolyn, her front-page article that afternoon was written with the feelings of relief and joy being felt by parents all over the world: "I plowed through 150 struggling, grappling newsmen to get a copy of the release. TV cameras whirred, radio men barked, reporters shoved to get to phones. I needed only one look at the first line. 'The vaccine works.' I broke for my typewriter. There it was. My Carolyn was safe. So were millions of other children all over the world." "Most of the country's usually stolid science writers here had the same double stake in the release. They wanted a story. But most of them were parents with a parent's concern for the results." The Herald-Journal called the Salk vaccine the biggest scientific achievement since the Manhattan Project. A Post-Standard editorial called it the "climax of 17 years of endless effort by scientists" and said that "every father and mother in the land and in every other country where polio is present, will breathe a sigh of relief" at the news.  A portion of the front page of the Syracuse Herald-Journal on April 12, 1955, when the city's church bells pealed and sirens wailed at the news the Salk polio vaccine was declared safe and effective. (Post-Standard archives) That night, more than 500 physicians and newsmen went to the Onondaga County War Memorial for a closed-circuit television program hosted by Dr. Salk himself. They were told how the vaccine was prepared and how it should be injected. But much like the Covid-19 vaccines, the rollout was not a smooth one. The first 450 vials of Salk vaccine arrived in Syracuse on April 16 and it was expected that schools would start administering the vaccine to first through fourth graders by the end of the month. But that was not enough for a widespread immunization plan. The federal government relied on private pharmaceutical companies for vaccine production and they were slow to deliver. When the vaccine was approved, the government did not have a single injection available. Then tragedy struck after a defective vaccine manufactured at the Cutter Laboratories in California was injected in 200,000 children, leaving 200 paralyzed and 10 dead. Known as the "Cutter Incident," the death and illness from it dampened confidence in the Salk vaccine. On May 8, the Surgeon General halted all vaccinations until the cause could be determined. One desperate Syracuse father was undaunted, writing in a letter to the editor, "Well, I haven't changed my mind. It still looks like the best insurance." A Herald-Journal editorial urged patience, reminding readers that vaccines for smallpox, diphtheria and rabies needed "refinements" before it was totally effective. Finally, on May 17, 950 Syracuse parochial students in Syracuse received the Salk vaccine. Dubbed "Operation Inoculation," the vaccinations went off without a hitch.  The Herald-Journal front page from May 17, 1955 when the first 950 children received the Salk Polio vaccine. "They lined up patiently in the school halls, turned in their parental consent slips, and bravely rolled up their sleeves," the Herald-Journal's Liz Dwyer and Malcolm Alama reported. "After a once-over with rubbing alcohol came the needle, and the cherry-colored vaccine which has made headlines for weeks. Last, but not-least, each child got his choice of a lollipop, and permission to eat it right in school." "It didn't hurt a bit," most admitted. By 1957, polio cases in the United States had dropped to fewer than 6,000 and today the disease has been nearly eradicated. Jonas Salk was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. Read more 1918: Syracuse bans all public gatherings for 17 days to halt the spread of influenza 1925: To halt the spread of disease, Syracuse declares a war on spitting Cholera, smallpox, scarlet fever: Epidemics that swept through 19th Century Syracuse This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at jcroyle@syracuse.com or call 315-427-3958.  |
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