The Death Of The Polio Vaccine Essay

Poliomyelitis was a highly infectious disease that spread through many Americans in the early 20th century. As a matter of fact, over 3,000 Americans died of the disease each year. Families were overwhelmingly desperate for doctors to find a cure. When one suffered from polio, they generally experienced painful symptoms which included not only fatigue and muscle weakness, but even death. Therefore, when the polio vaccine was introduced by scientist Jonas Salk in 1953, it greatly contributed to Americans in numerous positive ways. Environmentally, the vaccine saved countless young American lives affected by the disease thus decreasing American mortality rates. Socially, the polio vaccine convenienced families who were either directly afflicted

Poliomyelitis (polio) is a disease that attacks the nervous tissue in the spinal cord and the brain stem resulting in paralysis (Document One). Polio is caused by the poliovirus, but it is unknown how this virus is acquired. The virus enters the digestive tract and stays in the intestines for up to eight weeks, and then attacks the lymphatic system, the blood stream and eventually travels to the brain and spine (Document Four). Once it is infected in one’s body, the disease is highly contagious and can be spread through contact of saliva, food, germs, or feces (Document Two). “The poliovirus causes most of its infections in the summer and fall. At one time, summer epidemics of polio were common and greatly feared” (Document Four). This may

Through the rise of technological advances in medicine, the vaccine has changed the world for the greater good of the human race. Making a great triumph and virtually eliminating an array of life-threatening diseases, from smallpox to diphtheria, thus adding approximately thirty years to many humans’ life spans. Although, a new complication has arisen, possibly linking neurological digression with this rise of new vaccines. Such a digression has forced parents to exempt their children from receiving vaccinations and brought forth mental anguish affecting the minds of many.

In order to properly explore and answer the question that has been posed, the term mental illness must first be defined. Mental illness is the inability to properly control or express behaviors, emotions, or the person’s beliefs. This can affect any individual for any number of reasons. For instance, the illness may be contracted later in life due to stress, physical or even emotional damage. Treatment for these disorders today might seem practical, efficient and humane. This was not always the case for patients suffering from mental disorders. In the earliest forms, treatment for mental illnesses could be deemed barbaric, morbid and morally misguided. Patients who were admitted to mental institutions would be given shelter. This was an opportunity to observe the symptoms and to diagnose the problem that had been presented to the medical experts. Surely while being kept in these institutions the shelter that was provided to the patients were healthy and deemed acceptable right?

Rumors of malpractice contribute to the belief of supernatural occurrences in the hospital. Originally, The Ridges was supposed to feel like home to patients, “The main building’s design centers around the idea that it was very therapeutic for patients to live in a home environment.” (Robinson). The man who designed the hospital was attempting to make the hospital a safe place, where patients can feel at home. This can be compared to hospice care in modern hospitals (for patients who are most often physically ill, rather than mentally). At the time, mental illnesses were not as embraced as they are in today’s world, so the mental care system was not as developed. People with mental illnesses were seen as foreign,

Misinformation about polio vaccine and political unrest has been cited as the main challenges holding back the global goal of achieving a polio-free world, a study has revealed.

The novel describes the inner workings the the mental institution of how the patients are emasculated and mistreated by terrifying big nurse Ratched, who will go to any length to control them. “We do not impose certain rules and restrictions on you without a great deal of thought about their therapeutic value…….for your own good that we enforce discipline and order.” (page 171) The patients are unaware of their surroundings and they all depend on the big nurse for their well-being’s. Beginning of the novel when

David Oshinsky's 2005 Polio: An American Story, is a history of the fight to eradicate polio in the 20th century. Polio became one of the most, if not THE most, feared diseases of the century due to the influence and example of President Franklin Roosevelt, who was stricken with the disease as an adult in 1921. Owner of a Warm Springs, GA resort dedicated to polio rehabilitation(where he died in 1945), Roosevelt needed to raise funds to keep the resort operational. In 1934, he allowed planners to throw a nationwide series of birthday parties (over 6,000) for him to raise money for the care of polio survivors and for the upkeep of Warm Springs. The success of these parties and recognition that the key to raising money during the Great Depression

Some people do not prefer hospital care because they deem it as untrustworthy or fear the expensive bills that follow. To battle this problem, many result to caring for the individual in a dedicated room at home. This dedicated room, or sick-room, is essentially a bedroom that has been converted into an area to care for the ill. This particular sick-room is assumed to exist between the mid 1800’s to the early 1900’s. At this period time, a typical room for hospitalization would not contain the current technologies that monitor the patient’s vitals. Instead, it would look much like a simple bedroom. “The aunts and the culprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.” (Twain 3).

Should children’s health be at risk for the greater good of community health? The news today is full of tragic stories about complications of vaccine use and there have been injuries from the beginning of vaccine use due to incomplete data on the side effects. The injuries have also brought about changes in the way vaccines are manufactured. The Georgia State Government requires citizens to receive vaccines in order to attend day care, go to school, and work at certain jobs and each state has its own mandates as well. The only way to get around the vaccine is to claim religious or medical exception. For either of these exceptions, one has to have a notarized affidavit for religious exception or a

Not everything is perfect in hospitals. People who go there are either sick, dying, or mentally insane. At Fairfield Hills there were suicides and mysterious deaths that occurred. Unsurprisingly there was electric shock treatment, therapy, hydrotherapy, psycho-surgery, and frontal lobotomies. In fact, Fairfield Hills was one of the first hospitals to use lobotomy. The buildings were not connected from above the ground, but it does not mean they weren't connected from beneath. Underground tunnels connected every building that made up Fairfield Hills. The utility tunnels feel like long concrete coffins. You're so far underground, when you stopped walking, you could still hear the echoes of your footsteps behind you. Plymouth Hall was a recreational

The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.

“A 1916 Polio epidemic in the United States killed 6,000 people and paralyzed 27,000 more” (“Polio Vaccine”). This lead to the creation of the polio vaccine that has helped to prevent polio for a very long time. The IPV and OPV vaccines played a huge role in all of this. Jonas Salk, who created the IPV vaccine and Albert Sabin, who created the OPV vaccine saved millions of people all around the world from polio (Petersen, Jennifer B). The IPV and OPV polio vaccine helped eliminate polio from the United States and helped prevent polio in other parts of the world (“Polio Vaccine”).

When children are born and for the first two years of their lives, they receive multiple shots and drops of vaccines. These vaccines protect them from getting diseases that were deadly and common in children many decades ago. Vaccine is one of the greatest achievement in medicine history. There were thousands of lives lost in the battle with some of the terrifying diseases like smallpox and polio. Now, after years of vaccine invention, vaccination spread in many countries which helped in eradicate several illnesses. In the United States, each family is required to show their children's immunization chart in order to get accepted in many educational institutes. Parents usually face the decision whether to vaccinate

The similarity between the poliovirus and already solved plant virus’s led to a better understanding of how the poliovirus can regenerate within a host. Although the virus was similar to other plant viruses. The poliovirus was covered with more elaborate loops that are the site of monoclonal antibody escape mutations (Hogle, Chow and 229: 1358-1365Filman, Science). Individual proteins of the virus particle are produced by proteolytic cleavages from a larger precursor, yet the amino and carboxy-termini produced by proteolysis are very distinct. By noting this, Hogle and his team were able to conclude that proteolysis was not just making a lot of proteins from one gene, it is also controlling the timing of assembly (Hogle, Chow and Filman, Science 229: 1358-1365).