Polio has been nearly eliminated worldwide. In the six-and-a-half decades since my Salk vaccination, I have been unaware of any “socialized medicine” controversy clouding the effort to eliminate the terror of polio. I did some research.
In 1955, the secretary of President Eisenhower’s brand-new Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Texas millionaire Oveta Culp Hobby, said regarding Dr. Salk’s vaccine, “The ultimate purpose all of us have, of course, is to confer the greatest good on the greatest number of people to whom polio presents the greatest threat.”
Then she commented on a Democrat-sponsored bill to do exactly that: provide free Salk vaccines for all American schoolchildren. “That’s socialized medicine by the back door, not the front door.”
So much for conferring “the greatest good on the greatest number of people to whom polio presents the greatest threat,” schoolchildren. It hasn’t changed. Rich Republicans say, in the wealthiest economy on the planet, healthcare is for those who can afford it.
America no longer has wards full of children in iron lungs, or kids wearing the leg braces that were so common in those days. American science was the best. We knew it and were grateful for it.
So was the rest of the world. There were not enough test subjects in the U.S. for Dr. Sabin’s vaccine because so many had already received Dr. Salk’s vaccine. Dr. Sabin’s vaccine was successfully tested and distributed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Neither vaccine was patented so there were no profit obstacles to worldwide distribution.
This was the America of my childhood, an America that “can do anything.” America has devolved from “can do anything” to “can’t do nuthin’.”
“Can’t do nuthin’” characterizes the responses of our elected representatives to recent healthcare cutbacks at Bradford Regional Medical Center. Marty Causer’s petition was fatuous. Rep. Glenn Thompson alleges to have healthcare expertise. He also did nothing.
Why should they? They know they don’t have to do anything to win re-election, so they don’t do anything. Their constituents are businesses and corporations, not rural Pennsylvanians and their families.
If only there was a solution.
Eugene Johnson Hazel Hurst
