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Speaker 1: Pushkin. There's a place in our world where the known

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Speaker 1: things go. A corridor of the mind, lined with shelves,

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Speaker 1: cluttered with proof, stalked like a biological laboratory, with microscopes,

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Speaker 1: stacks of slides, trays of glass vials, each topped with

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Speaker 1: a black rubber stopper. This label says live virus. Oh God.

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Speaker 1: There's a storage closet here, crowded with crutches and splints

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Speaker 1: and braces, lined up by size down to the tiniest,

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Speaker 1: fitted for toddlers. Nor Here a terrifying machine looks like

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Speaker 1: something between a steel coffin and an MRI. It's an

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Speaker 1: iron lung. This place, this laboratory, stores the facts that

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Speaker 1: matter and matters of fact. It lies in a time

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Speaker 1: between now and then. A sign on the door reads

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Speaker 1: the last archive. Step across the threshold to an elementary

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Speaker 1: school classroom in the year nineteen fifty five. It's time

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Speaker 1: for health class. Kids seated in wooden desks, lined up

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Speaker 1: in rows on squeaky linoleum floors. The teacher in an

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Speaker 1: a line skirt and pumps draws the blinds and wheels

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Speaker 1: out of projector. Today they're watching a film. The symptoms

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Speaker 1: are quite familiar, they as it looks like a cold.

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Speaker 1: Scientists think that most colds are caused by extremely small

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Speaker 1: micro organisms called viruses viruses. This film is called Sniffles

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Speaker 1: and Sneezes. It was made by McGraw hill Book Company.

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Speaker 1: The first time I listened to it a few months ago,

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Speaker 1: before the coming of the coronavirus, I thought it was quaint,

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Speaker 1: sort of cute, sort of sweet, even a little silly.

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Speaker 1: But now, honestly, now it's haunting. You. See what you

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Speaker 1: think is a simple cold could really be the first

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Speaker 1: symptoms of some other disease, such as measles, infantile paralysis, diphtheria,

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Speaker 1: whooping cough, scarlet fever, influenzia, and others. Kids had to

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Speaker 1: sit through films like this a lot in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifties because of the incredible revolution in the biomedical sciences

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Speaker 1: in the first half of the twentieth century. Diseases had

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Speaker 1: once been mysteries, but these mysteries began to yield to

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Speaker 1: facts in the seventeenth century after the invention of the

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Speaker 1: first microscopes, one scientists discovered micro organisms. Then came the

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Speaker 1: germ theory of disease, and by the twentieth century modern vaccination.

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Speaker 1: By the nineteen thirties, there were vaccines for a lot

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Speaker 1: of deadly diseases diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus. But people had

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Speaker 1: to show up to get vaccinated or to get their

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Speaker 1: children vaccinated, and that required believing in something you couldn't

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Speaker 1: see except with a microscope or in a health class film.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just fourth graders who had to sit through

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Speaker 1: films about viruses. Grown ups did too, because everyone needed

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Speaker 1: to understand the nature of disease in order to understand

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Speaker 1: the need for a vaccine. And in nineteen fifty five,

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Speaker 1: a very scary disease was still going around, polio. In

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Speaker 1: the spring of that year, Vicky Merrick's brother Chris came

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Speaker 1: home sick. He was three years old. He came down

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Speaker 1: with something and he had a fever and he had

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Speaker 1: cramps in his legs. And my father came home and

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Speaker 1: I remember him telling or somebody telling me he was

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Speaker 1: lying on the landing, you know, just sickly, and of

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Speaker 1: course everybody was freaking out. And Chris told me that

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Speaker 1: he daddy told him he was sick for like a

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks. I heard. It was much shorter that

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Speaker 1: it passed, and then my mother came down with it.

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Speaker 1: I met Vicky when we were working on the first

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Speaker 1: episode of this podcast. She's a voice coach and she'd

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Speaker 1: come to help me out. We got to talking about

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Speaker 1: all the other episodes I was trying to write, including

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Speaker 1: this episode about polio, and Vicky said, oh, my mother

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Speaker 1: had polio. There was a time in the United States

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Speaker 1: when everyone had a polio story about their family, or

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Speaker 1: their neighborhood, or someone they knew. Polio struck a whole generation.

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Speaker 1: Vicky's father was a doctor. He and his wife had

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Speaker 1: nine kids. First, little Chris got sick, and then Chris

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Speaker 1: and Vicki's mother, Helen got sick. Heilen was thirty eight.

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Speaker 1: She got it in the spring of fifty five. I

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Speaker 1: think one day you'd be fine. Then you'd come home

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Speaker 1: with a fever, a feeling of lightness, dizziness, weakness, and

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Speaker 1: within days you might have lost the use of your

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Speaker 1: legs and your arms, even your lungs, depending on how

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Speaker 1: far up the spinal column the virus took hold. You

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Speaker 1: are looking at a killer at work. These are healthy

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Speaker 1: living cells under attack by the virus of poliomyelitis. The

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Speaker 1: virus itself is not visible. Its lethal effect is infection,

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Speaker 1: reduced activity, abnormal rounding, and death. Polio was the most

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Speaker 1: feared disease in the United States. Cancer killed more people,

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Speaker 1: but polio attacked children, especially very little children. The disease

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Speaker 1: often left them crippled for life. The search for cure

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Speaker 1: was one of the most important public health crusades in history.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Last Archive, the show about how we

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Speaker 1: know what we know, how we used to know things,

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Speaker 1: and what it seems lately as if we don't know

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Speaker 1: anything at all. I'm Jillipour. This season, we're trying to

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Speaker 1: solve a who'd done it? Who killed truth? In this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're following the path of a pathogen, not just viruses,

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Speaker 1: but something They spawned fear of vaccination. In the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: the federal government opened a new department. At its center

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Speaker 1: was a door with gilt letters that read Office of

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Speaker 1: the Secretary. The woman inside liked to be called missus Secretary.

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Speaker 1: Her name was a Vita Kulpe Hobby, the US's first

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Speaker 1: Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. She was tiny. She

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Speaker 1: was known for her glamorous hats. On a list of

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Speaker 1: the world's Best dressed Women. She was number eleven. When

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Speaker 1: she took out a cigarette, ten men would jump to

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Speaker 1: light it for her. She came from Texas. A reporter

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Speaker 1: from Time magazine visited her once in that office. She

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Speaker 1: looked small and feminine behind her broad mahogany esque but

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Speaker 1: she moved with the poison competence of a successful business

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Speaker 1: executive as she checked yes and no on a long

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Speaker 1: list of requests for appointments and telephone priorities. Now and

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Speaker 1: then she paused reflectively and puffed on a parliament then

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Speaker 1: turned back to work outside. Down through the mazes, corridors

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Speaker 1: and channels of health, education, and welfare. The news was

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Speaker 1: spreading that Avida Hobby was a lady in complete command.

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Speaker 1: The lady in command had a lot on her to

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Speaker 1: do list, including polio. The President really believed in her.

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Speaker 1: She'd run the campaign Organization's Citizens for Eisenhower and had

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Speaker 1: helped the General win Texas. But Hobby had never been

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Speaker 1: involved in medicine, or teaching, or social services. She was

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Speaker 1: pretty much opposed to the federal government playing a role

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Speaker 1: in any of those arenas. That was a plus, though,

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Speaker 1: because Eisenhower felt the same way. He couldn't do the

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Speaker 1: new deal because the public supported it, but he wanted

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Speaker 1: to keep all the government programs he created as small

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Speaker 1: as possible. He wanted to stop it from becoming a newer,

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Speaker 1: bigger deal. But a public health crisis like polio, that

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Speaker 1: is a big deal. Let's those start from the beginning,

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Speaker 1: back to the beginning of Hobby's life, which was also

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Speaker 1: around the beginning of the polio epidemic in America and

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Speaker 1: the beginning of vaccination, because those three stories are all

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Speaker 1: tangled up together. Avida Kulp was born outside of Austin

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Speaker 1: in nineteen oh five. She was the second of seven children.

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Speaker 1: Her mother named her Avida because it rhmed with her

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Speaker 1: sister's name, Juanita. As a kid, Avida read the Congressional

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Speaker 1: record for fun. She came from a political family. Her

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Speaker 1: father was a Democrat, her mother a suffragist. They lived

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Speaker 1: in the segregated South, where everything was segregated, including doctor's

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Speaker 1: offices and hospitals. At the time, a lot of states

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Speaker 1: had compulsory vaccination program especially for smallpox. Because of that,

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Speaker 1: over the course of Avida's lifetime, smallpox all but disappeared.

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Speaker 1: That disappearance, though, led to a paradox, the more successful

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Speaker 1: the vaccine, the lower the incidents and virulence of the disease.

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Speaker 1: With a disease on the wane, more people start to

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Speaker 1: doubt that the vaccines necessary. This is what always happens.

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Speaker 1: It's as if when people can't see children dying the

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Speaker 1: smallpox anymore, they decide that smallpox doesn't actually exist. The

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Speaker 1: American Anti Vaccination League was founded in nineteen o eight.

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Speaker 1: When Avita was three, organizations like it were popping up

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Speaker 1: all over the place. Then, early anti vaxxers thought that

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Speaker 1: they spied a vast conspiracy, a well laid plan to

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Speaker 1: medically enslave the nation. Soon the Anti Vaccination League was

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Speaker 1: handing out pamphlets like this, one called the Crime against

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Speaker 1: the school Child. All compulsory vaccination law is based on

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Speaker 1: a triple falsehood that compulsory vaccination on a heart or

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Speaker 1: the whole of the population is necessary to prevent small

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Speaker 1: pots epidemics, That nothing else prevents small pots epidemics but

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Speaker 1: general vaccination, and that vaccination is perfectly safe and harmless

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Speaker 1: and never causes injury or death. All of these propositions

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Speaker 1: are absolutely and demonstrably false, and therefore any law based

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Speaker 1: on them is absolutely invalid. A century ago, the same

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Speaker 1: Americans who railed against compulsory vaccination also railed against what

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Speaker 1: they called compulsory insurance. In nineteen fifteen, when Avida was ten,

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Speaker 1: it looked as though the US was finally about to

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Speaker 1: pass legislation establishing a national health insurance program like most

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Speaker 1: of the rest of the world, but conservative critics argued

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Speaker 1: that it would be Unamerican, unsafe, uneconomic, unscientific, unfair, and unscrupulous. Then,

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Speaker 1: around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, and a master

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Speaker 1: stroke that's still kicking around today, they decided to call

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Speaker 1: it socialized medicine, and with that the plan was defeated.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixteen, when Avita was eleven, the first major

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Speaker 1: polio epidemic hit the US. It came mainly to New York.

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Speaker 1: The most reliable statistics suggest that in the epidemics first

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Speaker 1: year alone, twenty seven thousand Americans got infected and six

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Speaker 1: thousand died. It hit kids hardest. More than three quarters

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Speaker 1: of those who died were children under the age of five.

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Speaker 1: For a long time, polio, which is also called infantile paralysis,

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Speaker 1: was known heartbreakingly as the baby plague in Texas, newspapers.

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Speaker 1: Ivida's parents would have read all sorts of advice about

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Speaker 1: how to protect her. The disease is extremely infectious and contagious,

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Speaker 1: particularly in the homes of the careless and the slovenly.

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Speaker 1: Keep your house clean, keep the children clean, keep their

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Speaker 1: bowels open, keep them away from crowds, and put them

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Speaker 1: to bed early. But this advice, it turns out, probably

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Speaker 1: wasn't much good. The pattern with other diseases had gone

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Speaker 1: like this. The cleaner conditions got with the end of

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Speaker 1: open air, sewers and privies, the lower the incidents of

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Speaker 1: infectious disease. But polio didn't follow that pattern. The better

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Speaker 1: the hygiene, it seemed, the worse the polio. At the time,

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Speaker 1: no one understood why. But it turns out that babies

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Speaker 1: and young children exposed to the poliovirus while they're still

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Speaker 1: breastfeeding or not long after weaning, they developed antibodies strong

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Speaker 1: enough to ward off an infection for life. Babies and

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Speaker 1: young children most vulnerable were those who had never been

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Speaker 1: exposed to the virus because they lived in antiseptic, hygienic places.

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Speaker 1: Avida grew up picking cotton in Texas. She had the

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Speaker 1: kind of not super spic and span childhood. That probably

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Speaker 1: spared her. When Avida grew up, she decided to go

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Speaker 1: into politics. She went to college for a couple of years,

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Speaker 1: then left to sneak into law school classes at the

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Speaker 1: University of Texas. In nineteen thirty, she ran for the

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Speaker 1: state legislature as a Democrat, but lost to a candidate

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Speaker 1: who was a member of the KKK. The next year,

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Speaker 1: when she was twenty six, she married a man twice

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Speaker 1: her age, former Governor of Texas, William Pettis Hobby. She

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Speaker 1: always called him Governor. He was the publisher of the

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Speaker 1: Houston Post. She worked there as a writer when she

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Speaker 1: married him, Then she became an editor. Later she took

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Speaker 1: over altogether. The Hobbies had two children, who were sixteen

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Speaker 1: and eleven. During a particularly bad year for polio in Texas,

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Speaker 1: somehow Vida's kids didn't get infected. Maybe she'd kept them inside.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, boys and girls. Looks like Blondie and Dagwood

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Speaker 1: are going to go out in a fishing party. Toby,

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Speaker 1: you got any fishing music over there? Here as mine?

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Speaker 1: That's Hubert Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis. On WCCO radio

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six. You think stay at home campaigns

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Speaker 1: are new, they're not. We've been through this before. During

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Speaker 1: bad years for polio, American cities and towns ran campaigns

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Speaker 1: urging kids to stay indoors every day all summer long

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Speaker 1: in order to avoid catching polio. Radio stepped in to

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Speaker 1: help kids fight the boredom. Humphrey read the funnies out

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Speaker 1: loud over the radio with his two kids at his side.

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Speaker 1: There's Dagwood, kids, and there's Dagwood right along. There's right

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Speaker 1: alongside the lake shore there, and he says, I don't

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Speaker 1: know why it is, I can't catch a fish. But

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Speaker 1: Dagwood wasn't enough. Polio kept getting worse worse every year. Adults,

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Speaker 1: of course, sometimes got it. Two Franklin dellan Or Roosevelt

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Speaker 1: had gotten it in nineteen twenty one. Determined to find

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Speaker 1: a cure, FDR helped found what became the March of Dimes.

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Speaker 1: It's called that partly because kids would march around collecting

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Speaker 1: dimes in ten cans for polio research. Avida Hobby and

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Speaker 1: her husband had supported FDR when he ran for president

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty two. They were longtime Democrats, Southern conservative Democrats,

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Speaker 1: so they opposed a lot of FDRs social programs. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty two, Avida Hobby became a head of the

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Speaker 1: Women's Army Corps. She was among the first woman ever

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Speaker 1: to earn the rank of colonel. For her salary, she

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Speaker 1: accepted a dollar a year. That's how she knew Dwight Eisenhower.

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Speaker 1: He was the highest ranking man in the military. She

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Speaker 1: was the highest ranking woman. By nineteen fifty two, Hobby

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Speaker 1: had abandoned the Democratic candidate. She'd grown tired of the

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Speaker 1: new Deal she liked ike. On the campaign trail, Eisenhower

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Speaker 1: announced a proposal that many Democrats supported the establishment of

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Speaker 1: national health insurance. Instead of the patient getting more and

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Speaker 1: better medical care for less, he will get less and

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Speaker 1: poor medical care or more. In nineteen fifty two, the

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Speaker 1: United States witnessed the worst polio epidemic in its history.

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Speaker 1: Fifty eight thousand Americans got infected everywhere. There were stories

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Speaker 1: about suffering in interviews on the radio. But could you

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Speaker 1: remember want to keep in mind, but all of these

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Speaker 1: families that we're talking to today are just playing common

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Speaker 1: ordinary American families. There isn't anything outstanding about them. You

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Speaker 1: don't have to be the president of the United States

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Speaker 1: or the President of Republic in order to get polio.

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Speaker 1: You can be just a plain common, ordinary person like

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Speaker 1: me and you. Ordinary people, including really little kids, had

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Speaker 1: ended up living in iron lungs. It's that machine you're

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Speaker 1: hearing right now, a machine that could breathe for polio

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Speaker 1: victims who couldn't breathe on their own. It must have

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Speaker 1: been like living in a coffin. Little Richard Basil knew

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Speaker 1: what that felt like. Hi, what you know, Richard Basil?

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you a good question. How did

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Speaker 1: you like bringing that iron one like them? And you

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Speaker 1: didn't like it? A bill? Who did you feel like

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Speaker 1: they're really feeling to it at all? I felt cool,

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Speaker 1: you felt air, and that era sort of did lots

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Speaker 1: of things for this little two right, How do you

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Speaker 1: certainly do look healthy? How old are you? Seven years old?

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Speaker 1: And and here's a little seven year old guy that's

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Speaker 1: going to go on to be president of the United

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Speaker 1: States maybe or a ball player? How do you want

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Speaker 1: to be a ball player? A little fellow that's seven

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Speaker 1: years old and he's going to be a baseball player,

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Speaker 1: and of course he's going to be able to do

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Speaker 1: that too if he wants to if he has the ability,

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Speaker 1: it's up to him. But he's going to be able

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Speaker 1: to do it because of this big guy in lunch

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Speaker 1: to that we were talking about this big guy in lung,

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Speaker 1: the thing that breathed into him, the breath of life.

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Speaker 1: How are you feeling that it pretty good? Well, that's

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Speaker 1: really well, thank you very much, Richard Basil and a

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Speaker 1: feminess is Basil. Well, I don't know about that interview.

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Speaker 1: We sounds so heartless to me. That kid isn't going

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Speaker 1: to grow up to play baseball. At the end of

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Speaker 1: that terrible epidemic year nineteen fifty two, Eisenhower won the presidency,

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Speaker 1: and he appointed the inimitable Evita Hobby to head what

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Speaker 1: would become the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the

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Speaker 1: department that would be charged with handling the polio crisis.

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Speaker 1: Hobby was a dynamo. She oversaw one of the biggest

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Speaker 1: budgets of any department of the federal government. She was

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Speaker 1: only the second woman ever to serve in the cabinet,

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Speaker 1: and reporters found her irresistible. She works six days a week,

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Speaker 1: with time off every Saturday afternoon for a hair due

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Speaker 1: at Elizabeth Ardens. Her day begins at six thirty a m.

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Speaker 1: With a thorough perusal of the newspapers, and she arrives

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Speaker 1: at the office a little after nine. As a rule,

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Speaker 1: work continues through lunch, invariably cottage, cheese or fruit salads,

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Speaker 1: with missus Secretary issuing orders as she eats. Most nights,

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Speaker 1: Ovida hobby is hard at work until midnight. Someone else

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Speaker 1: was hard at work that year. The man who would

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Speaker 1: perfect a vaccine for polio a young, brilliant and ambitious virologist,

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Speaker 1: doctor Jonas Salk. The story of the polio vaccine became

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Speaker 1: a legend even as it was being reported. Working at

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Speaker 1: Pittsburgh University's virus Research Laboratory, a forty year old doctor

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Speaker 1: Salk labored three years, often sixteen hours a day, six

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Speaker 1: days a week, till painstakingly perfect a vaccine. Jonas Salk

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Speaker 1: developed the polio vaccine in nineteen fifty two. The problem

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Speaker 1: was how to prove that it worked. Incredibly in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty four, he ran a field trial on millions of children,

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Speaker 1: starting with his own. Some of the kids in the

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Speaker 1: study would get the vaccine, others would get a fake shot,

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Speaker 1: and still others no shot at all. Even so, it

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Speaker 1: was the largest such medical test ever attempted. Four hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty thousand youngsters in forty four stays were inoculated

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Speaker 1: with the Salk vaccine, two hundred and ten thousand received

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Speaker 1: dummy shots, and more than a million other children were observed.

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Speaker 1: In comparison, not a single child who completed the Salk

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Speaker 1: vaccinations died of paralytic polio. People who lived through this

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Speaker 1: time remember the vaccine announcement like it was yesterday. It

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Speaker 1: was a public health triumph of victory for science the

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Speaker 1: world truly, the world celebrated. Poliomyolitis or infantil paralysis is

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Speaker 1: no longer the scourge it once was. Thanks to the

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Speaker 1: killed virus vaccine developed by doctor Jonas Sack and first

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Speaker 1: he was in nineteen fifty five, thousands have been spared

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Speaker 1: death and crippling. That's the storybook version of the Stock vaccine.

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Speaker 1: The legend and much of that story is true, but

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Speaker 1: it leaves out a few things, things that turn out

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Speaker 1: to have to do with race, and especially with the

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Speaker 1: federal government's authority to make decisions about health, education, and welfare.

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Speaker 1: The kids in the field trial to test whether they'd

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Speaker 1: contracted polio, they'd have their blood drawn, but to tell

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Speaker 1: whether that blood contained the virus, it had to be

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Speaker 1: tested on sales that Laboratories involved in the field trial

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Speaker 1: used cells that had been grown from a sample taken

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Speaker 1: from a woman named Henriette Alas Jonah Sax. Field trial

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have succeeded without those cells. This is where the

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Speaker 1: story about polio becomes a story about race. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty one, Henriet Alas went to the doctor. She was thirty,

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Speaker 1: a black woman with five children. She had a terrible pain.

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Speaker 1: She described it as a knot in her womb. She

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Speaker 1: had cervical cancer, a very aggressive cancer. You might know

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Speaker 1: about Henriette Alas if you've read a book by Rebecca

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Speaker 1: Sclute called The Immortal Life of Henriette A. Lax. Sclute,

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Speaker 1: with a lot of help from one of LAX's daughters,

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Speaker 1: tells the story of how a cell biologist in Baltimore,

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Speaker 1: George Guy, scraped some cells from LAX's tumor. Then he

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Speaker 1: kept those cells in his lab at Johns Hopkins without

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Speaker 1: the knowledge or consent of Henriette Lacks. A few months later,

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Speaker 1: a surgeon took still more cells from her tumor. They

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Speaker 1: were unlike any cells anyone had ever seen before. Usually

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Speaker 1: cells don't last long, but LAX's cancer cells lived and

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Speaker 1: kept growing, and they grew fast, incredibly fast. Guy called

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Speaker 1: the cell line the HeLa strain, after the first two

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Speaker 1: letters in each of her names. They became part of

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Speaker 1: the fight against HIV AIDS. They're being used to study

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. They've revolutionized medical research, but the ways they've

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Speaker 1: been used have also raised all kinds of medical ethics issues.

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Speaker 1: It also turned out that the HeLa cells were very

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Speaker 1: susceptible to the poliovirus. Doctors had long believed that African

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Speaker 1: Americans were immune to polio because it seemed to hit affluent,

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Speaker 1: white family's hardest, maybe because of their affluence. One theory

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Speaker 1: was that wealthier families kept cleaner houses, which made their

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Speaker 1: children less likely to be immune. But black children did

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Speaker 1: get polio, and when they got sick, they were barred

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Speaker 1: from the best treatment centers. So the Tuskegee Institute, a

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Speaker 1: historically black college, founded its own polio research and treatment center,

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen fifty three Tuskegee started a cell factory

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Speaker 1: producing HeLa cells to be used in socks field trial.

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Speaker 1: The Tuskegee Institute cell factory. The first cell factory ever

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Speaker 1: was staffed by a team of black women's scientists, eventually

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Speaker 1: thirty five of them. They worked in specially outfitted, air

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Speaker 1: conditioned laboratories. They used binocular microscopes. They pioneered the development

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Speaker 1: of rubber screw tops for test tubes that they stacked

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Speaker 1: in special stainless steel racks. At the peak of the project,

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Speaker 1: they shipped twenty thousand cultures a week in boxes marked

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Speaker 1: perishable biological material. The Black women at Tuskegee, growing cells

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Speaker 1: from the cell line of Henrietta Lacks, eventually shipped some

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Speaker 1: six hundred thousand test tubes of HeLa cells. This part

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Speaker 1: of the story wasn't entirely left out of the legend

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Speaker 1: of Jonas sock I did find one mention of it

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five from a New York Times your

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Speaker 1: story about twenty five Negro scientists and technicians are participating

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Speaker 1: in the production of HeLa cells. About half of the

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Speaker 1: laboratories are using HeLa cells prepared on Tuskegee's campus. The

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Speaker 1: Times described the HeLa cells as cells taken from a

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Speaker 1: single human cancer which resulted in the death of a

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Speaker 1: woman in Baltimore. They're protecting her anonymity, But the Times

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Speaker 1: never mentioned that the cells came from a black woman.

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Speaker 1: I have a theory about that particular silence. The Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court had just ruled in Brown v. Board of Education

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Speaker 1: that segregation is unconstitutional, which had led to a resurgence

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Speaker 1: of white nationalism. That was the state of the nation

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Speaker 1: at the time of Jonah Socks Field trials, trials that

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Speaker 1: mixed the blood of white children with cells taken from

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Speaker 1: a black woman. Probably that was just not a story

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Speaker 1: the Times was willing to tell in nineteen fifty five.

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Speaker 1: They wouldn't have wanted white people to not take the

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00:25:01,956 --> 00:25:05,436
Speaker 1: vaccine because it had come, even indirectly from a black woman.

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Speaker 1: The results of the Field trial finally came in on

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Speaker 1: April twelfth, nineteen fifty five, and historic victory over a

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Speaker 1: dread disease is dramatically unfolded at the University of Michigan. Here,

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Speaker 1: scientists ush're in a new medical age with the monumental

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Speaker 1: reports that prove the Salk vaccine against crippling polio to

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00:25:24,076 --> 00:25:27,956
Speaker 1: be a sensational success. It doesn't take any historical imagination

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00:25:27,996 --> 00:25:30,636
Speaker 1: these days to understand the relief the public must have

397
00:25:30,676 --> 00:25:34,156
Speaker 1: felt hearing the news that day. We all know what

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Speaker 1: it feels like to wait for that day, for that news.

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Speaker 1: The anticipation of getting everyone immunized, the prospect of ending

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Speaker 1: the long days of staying at home. A vaccine. A vaccine,

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Speaker 1: Thank god, a vaccine. It's a day of triumph for

402
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Speaker 1: forty year old doctor Jonas Salk, developer of the vaccine.

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Speaker 1: Hundreds of reporters and scientists from all over the nation

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00:26:04,916 --> 00:26:07,956
Speaker 1: gather for the momentous announcement. Proudly on hand too or

405
00:26:07,996 --> 00:26:11,116
Speaker 1: missus Salk and the sun who received the first injections.

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00:26:11,596 --> 00:26:14,396
Speaker 1: Reporters flooded a building at the University of Michigan to

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00:26:14,396 --> 00:26:16,676
Speaker 1: hear the announcement of the results of Sak's field trial

408
00:26:17,036 --> 00:26:19,556
Speaker 1: to field trial that had been made possible by Tuskegee

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Speaker 1: and the HeLa cells. They stampeded to get a hold

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Speaker 1: of copies of the press release, and the entire world

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Speaker 1: heralded the discovery, which assured an end to one of

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Speaker 1: mankind's most dread diseases. That night, Jonas Salk appeared on

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Speaker 1: CBS's See It Now, interviewed by Edward R. Murrow, who

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00:26:38,196 --> 00:26:42,716
Speaker 1: owned the pattern on this vaccine well the people. I

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00:26:42,756 --> 00:26:46,076
Speaker 1: would say, there is no pat is. Could you patent

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Speaker 1: the sun? Well, doctor sal what about the priorities? Who

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00:26:50,356 --> 00:26:55,356
Speaker 1: should determine who gets what in this limited supply situation? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think it's unfair really to let everyone decide for

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Speaker 1: himself who gets what. It would be as if everyone

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Speaker 1: on your show decided what he wanted to do, if

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00:27:07,996 --> 00:27:09,996
Speaker 1: and when he wanted to do it. It seems to

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00:27:09,996 --> 00:27:13,076
Speaker 1: me there ought to be some central intelligence that would indicate,

423
00:27:13,876 --> 00:27:19,076
Speaker 1: at least suggest what should be done, if not specify.

424
00:27:19,276 --> 00:27:22,196
Speaker 1: The scientists had done their part to protect kids from polio.

425
00:27:22,636 --> 00:27:25,276
Speaker 1: Now the government needed to step up with its central

426
00:27:25,316 --> 00:27:27,836
Speaker 1: intelligence a way to get the vaccine out to the public.

427
00:27:28,316 --> 00:27:31,596
Speaker 1: The Congressional record shows that Secretary Hobby did express a

428
00:27:31,636 --> 00:27:36,556
Speaker 1: lot of excitement. It's a great day. It's a wonderful

429
00:27:36,676 --> 00:27:41,436
Speaker 1: day for the whole world. It's a history making day.

430
00:27:42,476 --> 00:27:45,476
Speaker 1: In parts of the world. With compulsory national insurance, the

431
00:27:45,556 --> 00:27:49,236
Speaker 1: polio vaccine was rolled out right away. Ontario, Canada committed

432
00:27:49,276 --> 00:27:52,356
Speaker 1: to provide free vaccines for all citizens between six months

433
00:27:52,356 --> 00:27:56,036
Speaker 1: and twenty years old. Things went differently in the United States.

434
00:27:56,556 --> 00:27:59,956
Speaker 1: The day after Sauk announced his vaccine, Avida Hobby appeared

435
00:27:59,996 --> 00:28:04,156
Speaker 1: before Congress. She struck down any suggestion that the distribution

436
00:28:04,196 --> 00:28:06,836
Speaker 1: of the vaccine should be regulated by the federal government,

437
00:28:07,276 --> 00:28:10,916
Speaker 1: or that vaccination should be compulsory if we were to

438
00:28:10,916 --> 00:28:14,556
Speaker 1: try to put this on a regulatory basis, because of

439
00:28:14,596 --> 00:28:17,556
Speaker 1: the length of tom it would take to achieve the

440
00:28:17,676 --> 00:28:22,916
Speaker 1: regulatory basis, it is entirely possible that many children would

441
00:28:22,916 --> 00:28:28,756
Speaker 1: thereby have been denied the shots. Okay, making regulations takes time,

442
00:28:28,796 --> 00:28:31,716
Speaker 1: and we don't have the time. Summer was coming, but

443
00:28:31,796 --> 00:28:35,196
Speaker 1: the field trial had been going on for nearly two years.

444
00:28:35,996 --> 00:28:38,676
Speaker 1: Why wasn't there a plan already set up ready to go.

445
00:28:39,636 --> 00:28:43,436
Speaker 1: As a lady in command, Hobby could be famously, terrifyingly effective.

446
00:28:43,836 --> 00:28:47,636
Speaker 1: Why had she dropped this ball? Eisenhower was getting frustrated.

447
00:28:48,196 --> 00:28:51,796
Speaker 1: Kids were clamoring to go outside. Everyone knew the rate

448
00:28:51,796 --> 00:28:54,996
Speaker 1: of polio infections rose with the heat. The clock was ticking.

449
00:28:56,396 --> 00:28:58,876
Speaker 1: The President asked Hobby to report on her plan to

450
00:28:58,876 --> 00:29:03,396
Speaker 1: distribute the vaccine. It was just around this time, spring

451
00:29:03,476 --> 00:29:06,756
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty five, that Vicky Merrick's mother got sick.

452
00:29:07,396 --> 00:29:10,116
Speaker 1: Vicky's mother, who had nine kids and new husband, was

453
00:29:10,116 --> 00:29:13,556
Speaker 1: a doctor. Vicky was just a baby. Not yet one

454
00:29:13,796 --> 00:29:18,356
Speaker 1: the littlest. Their father noted the progress of the disease

455
00:29:18,836 --> 00:29:21,876
Speaker 1: in a tiny notebook that VICKI still got. I was

456
00:29:21,916 --> 00:29:26,156
Speaker 1: searching for one of my dad's little notebooks because I

457
00:29:26,196 --> 00:29:29,956
Speaker 1: know I've seen that that marking of his, like saying

458
00:29:29,996 --> 00:29:33,396
Speaker 1: at ten fifty two lungs. You know, like when Napolio

459
00:29:33,516 --> 00:29:36,196
Speaker 1: was moving through her body before she went to the

460
00:29:36,196 --> 00:29:40,076
Speaker 1: iron lung I remember seeing this, you know, rundown of

461
00:29:40,116 --> 00:29:44,836
Speaker 1: like hily fever lungs something, and you know, it was

462
00:29:44,916 --> 00:29:48,036
Speaker 1: kind of like running through the evening. I mean, I

463
00:29:48,076 --> 00:29:51,756
Speaker 1: think it moved through her pretty quickly, and they finally said,

464
00:29:51,796 --> 00:29:56,596
Speaker 1: all right, we gotta go to the iron lung. Well,

465
00:29:56,716 --> 00:30:00,716
Speaker 1: Vicky's mother lay in a breathing machine in Massachusetts. Eisenhower

466
00:30:00,756 --> 00:30:04,596
Speaker 1: in Washington convened to cabinet meeting. I've got them minutes

467
00:30:04,596 --> 00:30:07,196
Speaker 1: to that meeting here in the last archive. There is

468
00:30:07,196 --> 00:30:11,116
Speaker 1: no transcript, just the minutes. Here's what went down. Eisenhower

469
00:30:11,116 --> 00:30:13,476
Speaker 1: wonted Hobby to come up with a national plan for

470
00:30:13,556 --> 00:30:16,356
Speaker 1: the federal government to distribute the vaccine free of charge.

471
00:30:16,516 --> 00:30:19,796
Speaker 1: He wanted that plan yesterday, but Hobby had just sat

472
00:30:19,876 --> 00:30:22,956
Speaker 1: on this request because she wanted the states to distribute

473
00:30:22,956 --> 00:30:27,596
Speaker 1: the vaccine, or corporations, pharmaceutical companies, or charities, anyone but

474
00:30:27,676 --> 00:30:32,276
Speaker 1: the federal government, because she didn't want socialized medicine. Listen in,

475
00:30:33,156 --> 00:30:36,916
Speaker 1: Eisenhower turns to a presidential medical advisor named Chester Keefer.

476
00:30:37,636 --> 00:30:40,996
Speaker 1: How much would it cost to provide the vaccine to

477
00:30:41,116 --> 00:30:44,956
Speaker 1: children who could not afford four dollars and twenty cents

478
00:30:44,996 --> 00:30:48,476
Speaker 1: for three ccason enough for three shots? How much would

479
00:30:48,516 --> 00:30:51,956
Speaker 1: it cost for a national program to provide the vaccine

480
00:30:51,956 --> 00:30:55,676
Speaker 1: to every child whose family could not afford it. Ah, well,

481
00:30:56,036 --> 00:30:59,516
Speaker 1: mister President, that's five states have already enacted laws to

482
00:30:59,556 --> 00:31:02,636
Speaker 1: provide these funds, and thirteen more are doing so. My

483
00:31:02,796 --> 00:31:07,276
Speaker 1: department is now considering alternative proposals for financing shots for

484
00:31:07,396 --> 00:31:11,436
Speaker 1: poor children, rather than announce a program of matching grants. Now,

485
00:31:11,636 --> 00:31:14,236
Speaker 1: I want to see how many of the states will

486
00:31:14,276 --> 00:31:18,676
Speaker 1: provide this themselves. The government's program should probably be limited

487
00:31:18,716 --> 00:31:21,476
Speaker 1: to assist in those states who cannot do this. The

488
00:31:21,636 --> 00:31:26,236
Speaker 1: government must ensure that, if necessary, federal funds will be

489
00:31:26,316 --> 00:31:29,436
Speaker 1: forthcoming to cover the cost of the vaccine for children

490
00:31:29,436 --> 00:31:32,636
Speaker 1: who cannot afford it. No child must be denied the

491
00:31:32,716 --> 00:31:36,876
Speaker 1: vaccine for financial reasons. If necessary, we should use the

492
00:31:36,876 --> 00:31:41,196
Speaker 1: President's emergency fund, but some source must be found. It

493
00:31:41,276 --> 00:31:44,756
Speaker 1: is not clear. We have not decided who would be

494
00:31:44,956 --> 00:31:51,316
Speaker 1: the proper distributing agents, the Public Health Service, the Children's Bureau.

495
00:31:52,356 --> 00:31:56,236
Speaker 1: There are only so many excuses hobby could come up with. Meanwhile,

496
00:31:56,516 --> 00:31:58,716
Speaker 1: not only did the President presser for a plan, but

497
00:31:58,796 --> 00:32:01,276
Speaker 1: the governors of every state ask for a department to

498
00:32:01,316 --> 00:32:07,076
Speaker 1: take charge. Then tragedy film. Hobbyhead licensed six pharmaceutical companies

499
00:32:07,116 --> 00:32:10,596
Speaker 1: to manufacture the vaccine, but one of those companies failed

500
00:32:10,596 --> 00:32:15,116
Speaker 1: to inspected samples was sufficient care. They prepared vaccines that

501
00:32:15,236 --> 00:32:20,556
Speaker 1: actually caused polio. Vaccinated children became infected, some were crippled,

502
00:32:20,836 --> 00:32:24,236
Speaker 1: and some died. At first, parents had rushed to get

503
00:32:24,236 --> 00:32:28,236
Speaker 1: their kids vaccinated. Now, with this news overnight, a lot

504
00:32:28,316 --> 00:32:33,036
Speaker 1: of parents were terrified of the vaccine. That summer nineteen

505
00:32:33,076 --> 00:32:36,076
Speaker 1: fifty five, Vicky Merrick's mother, Aileen, was still in the

506
00:32:36,116 --> 00:32:39,476
Speaker 1: hospital in the Iron Lung Ward. She'd made a good

507
00:32:39,516 --> 00:32:42,316
Speaker 1: friend there, a woman about her age named Lily Manning.

508
00:32:43,116 --> 00:32:47,196
Speaker 1: Lily's husband, like Aileen's husband, was a doctor. He actually

509
00:32:47,236 --> 00:32:50,356
Speaker 1: had the vaccine, had it at home in their fridge,

510
00:32:50,516 --> 00:32:53,396
Speaker 1: ready to go, but at the last minute, he decided

511
00:32:53,436 --> 00:32:55,556
Speaker 1: not to give it to his wife because he was

512
00:32:55,596 --> 00:33:00,076
Speaker 1: worried about that bad batch, the bad batch that caused polio,

513
00:33:01,316 --> 00:33:06,076
Speaker 1: and then she got sick. Her story was very similar

514
00:33:06,116 --> 00:33:08,516
Speaker 1: to my mother's anyway. So there's this batch waiting, and

515
00:33:08,556 --> 00:33:12,276
Speaker 1: then this woman contracted it while she had the vaccine

516
00:33:12,316 --> 00:33:21,196
Speaker 1: in the refrigerator. Was the Secretary Hobby's fault, Jesus? I

517
00:33:21,276 --> 00:33:25,196
Speaker 1: think so? Anyway, she had to answer for it before

518
00:33:25,236 --> 00:33:29,956
Speaker 1: the Senate. Now, I wonder why it was necessary to

519
00:33:29,996 --> 00:33:34,156
Speaker 1: delay action in making the survey until two days after

520
00:33:34,196 --> 00:33:37,156
Speaker 1: the public announcement was made by doctor Salk and the

521
00:33:37,236 --> 00:33:42,116
Speaker 1: Evaluating Committee, when there was every indication a long time

522
00:33:42,196 --> 00:33:45,276
Speaker 1: in advance of that that this vaccine would at least

523
00:33:45,276 --> 00:33:48,836
Speaker 1: be reasonably effective. A Democrat from New York press Hobby

524
00:33:48,876 --> 00:33:51,396
Speaker 1: and why she'd failed even to make an initial survey

525
00:33:51,436 --> 00:33:54,236
Speaker 1: of the problem until it was nearly already too late.

526
00:33:54,556 --> 00:33:58,876
Speaker 1: I would like to have some explanation, you would, well,

527
00:33:58,916 --> 00:34:02,156
Speaker 1: I can give you part of it now. I would

528
00:34:02,196 --> 00:34:06,516
Speaker 1: assume that this is an incident unique in medical history.

529
00:34:06,676 --> 00:34:10,516
Speaker 1: I think no one could have foreseen the demand. I

530
00:34:10,556 --> 00:34:13,876
Speaker 1: don't think the Senator need be troubled too seriously about

531
00:34:13,916 --> 00:34:18,596
Speaker 1: this may I say, I am very sorely troubled. Finally,

532
00:34:18,796 --> 00:34:21,716
Speaker 1: Hobby put together a plan. She declared that the federal

533
00:34:21,756 --> 00:34:26,036
Speaker 1: government would not take charge of vaccination or make it compulsory. Instead,

534
00:34:26,036 --> 00:34:28,356
Speaker 1: it would allocate grants to the states to be used

535
00:34:28,356 --> 00:34:31,916
Speaker 1: to distribute the vaccine to poor children. By then, Democrats

536
00:34:31,956 --> 00:34:34,556
Speaker 1: had begun to call for Hobby's resignation. How could the

537
00:34:34,636 --> 00:34:37,396
Speaker 1: United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare not have

538
00:34:37,516 --> 00:34:40,236
Speaker 1: made a plan sooner? This is about as glaring an

539
00:34:40,236 --> 00:34:43,276
Speaker 1: example of how a secretary of a government department should

540
00:34:43,316 --> 00:34:45,956
Speaker 1: not act, because I have ever seen in the administration

541
00:34:45,956 --> 00:34:50,196
Speaker 1: of our government. The Senate called Hobby back for another grilling.

542
00:34:50,476 --> 00:34:52,996
Speaker 1: But now some Republicans were ready to make this a

543
00:34:53,036 --> 00:34:57,036
Speaker 1: bigger argument, a political argument about public health. Now, I

544
00:34:57,076 --> 00:34:59,516
Speaker 1: think this gets down to the thing that both you

545
00:34:59,716 --> 00:35:03,956
Speaker 1: and I are afraid of that where we have federal provisions,

546
00:35:03,996 --> 00:35:07,036
Speaker 1: we have federal control. Is that not true? Well, they

547
00:35:07,116 --> 00:35:10,716
Speaker 1: go hand in hand, or they walk very closely together,

548
00:35:10,796 --> 00:35:14,476
Speaker 1: I should say. Senator Goldwater, the arch conservative Barry Goldwater

549
00:35:14,556 --> 00:35:20,396
Speaker 1: of Arizona, saw things Hobby's way. Compulsory vaccination, compulsory health insurance.

550
00:35:21,116 --> 00:35:24,756
Speaker 1: It all led in one direction. If this situation ever

551
00:35:24,836 --> 00:35:28,076
Speaker 1: came about in this country, and let us pray that

552
00:35:28,156 --> 00:35:31,516
Speaker 1: it never does. Is there any other term for it

553
00:35:31,556 --> 00:35:37,116
Speaker 1: than socialized medicine, that is, socialized medicine by the back

554
00:35:37,196 --> 00:35:41,356
Speaker 1: door and knock by the front door. Missus Secretary, you

555
00:35:41,476 --> 00:35:45,636
Speaker 1: have just said what constitutes my greatest fear about this approach.

556
00:35:47,476 --> 00:35:50,276
Speaker 1: By July of nineteen fifty five, more than four million

557
00:35:50,276 --> 00:35:54,396
Speaker 1: American children had received a polio vaccination, and it worked.

558
00:35:55,316 --> 00:35:57,996
Speaker 1: Polio would never again plague the country the way it

559
00:35:58,036 --> 00:36:01,196
Speaker 1: had plagued it for so many years. Later that month,

560
00:36:01,356 --> 00:36:05,196
Speaker 1: Avida Hobby resigned from Eisenhower's cabinet. She said she was

561
00:36:05,276 --> 00:36:10,636
Speaker 1: leaving to care for her elderly husband. That summer, Vicky

562
00:36:10,716 --> 00:36:13,436
Speaker 1: Merrick's mother, Aileen, was still in the Iron Lung Ward.

563
00:36:13,756 --> 00:36:16,196
Speaker 1: All the patients had mirrors at the ends of their beds,

564
00:36:16,756 --> 00:36:19,196
Speaker 1: so that even while lying down, they could look a

565
00:36:19,196 --> 00:36:22,516
Speaker 1: little bit around the room. Lily Manning, the friend she'd

566
00:36:22,516 --> 00:36:25,956
Speaker 1: met there, was later interviewed by a newspaper about their

567
00:36:25,996 --> 00:36:28,876
Speaker 1: time on that ward. When I went to see VICKI,

568
00:36:29,076 --> 00:36:32,996
Speaker 1: she read that interview to me. One after another of

569
00:36:32,996 --> 00:36:35,556
Speaker 1: the days came when a nurse would walk by each lung,

570
00:36:35,636 --> 00:36:38,196
Speaker 1: turning each mirror down. They lowered the mirrors whenever a

571
00:36:38,276 --> 00:36:40,676
Speaker 1: body had to be passed between us. Manning says, they'd

572
00:36:40,716 --> 00:36:43,156
Speaker 1: roll it by to get to work cleaning the lung,

573
00:36:43,236 --> 00:36:45,716
Speaker 1: and a little while later another patient was put in.

574
00:36:45,996 --> 00:36:48,596
Speaker 1: Lily Manning and Aileen Merrick were realists. They would not

575
00:36:48,756 --> 00:36:51,796
Speaker 1: dance again, but they would go home, and Marek was

576
00:36:51,836 --> 00:36:54,596
Speaker 1: determined not to spend her life in an iron lung.

577
00:36:58,156 --> 00:37:00,996
Speaker 1: In December of that year, Vicki and her eight brothers

578
00:37:00,996 --> 00:37:03,076
Speaker 1: and sisters went to see their mother in the hospital.

579
00:37:03,476 --> 00:37:07,236
Speaker 1: Vicky has a photograph the boys with their crew cuts,

580
00:37:07,556 --> 00:37:10,356
Speaker 1: the girls in beautiful dresses. Is everybody in their Sunday

581
00:37:10,356 --> 00:37:14,836
Speaker 1: clothes and then a priest, a cardinal standing by. So

582
00:37:14,956 --> 00:37:19,236
Speaker 1: this is I think it was like a Christmas Eve

583
00:37:20,036 --> 00:37:22,916
Speaker 1: something where Cardinal Cushing like set a mass for the

584
00:37:22,996 --> 00:37:26,436
Speaker 1: family and came in and they let us into the

585
00:37:26,476 --> 00:37:31,836
Speaker 1: hospital to sit with my mom. So yeah, there is

586
00:37:31,876 --> 00:37:38,316
Speaker 1: everybody and my dad wow, and this is your yeah, oblivious.

587
00:37:39,716 --> 00:37:42,276
Speaker 1: Vicky's mom would joke about it that visit from the cardinal,

588
00:37:42,516 --> 00:37:45,596
Speaker 1: and she had a pretty you know, classic Irish you know,

589
00:37:45,716 --> 00:37:49,596
Speaker 1: Gallows sense of humor. She goes, no, no, seriously, where

590
00:37:49,596 --> 00:37:52,596
Speaker 1: can you read the newspaper, listen to the radio, eat

591
00:37:52,596 --> 00:37:55,756
Speaker 1: your lunch, move your bowels, and visit with his eminence

592
00:37:55,756 --> 00:38:00,036
Speaker 1: all at the same time. Finally, on Mother's Day nineteen

593
00:38:00,116 --> 00:38:02,796
Speaker 1: fifty six, Vicky's mom got to come home. When she

594
00:38:02,916 --> 00:38:05,436
Speaker 1: came home and she was in a wheelchair, she was

595
00:38:05,516 --> 00:38:08,756
Speaker 1: ripping through the house and just like breathless, but going

596
00:38:08,836 --> 00:38:11,596
Speaker 1: this places a pig sty and you know, like yelling

597
00:38:11,636 --> 00:38:15,356
Speaker 1: at everybody about whatever, and and so I think that

598
00:38:15,396 --> 00:38:18,556
Speaker 1: there was this fake out, like maybe my brothers and

599
00:38:18,596 --> 00:38:22,236
Speaker 1: everybody thought, oh, she's back. Just a few days later,

600
00:38:22,636 --> 00:38:25,556
Speaker 1: she got pneumonia, but she wouldn't go back to an

601
00:38:25,596 --> 00:38:29,596
Speaker 1: iron lung. She was determined. And for a long time,

602
00:38:29,716 --> 00:38:32,396
Speaker 1: I think maybe I was mad at her because I

603
00:38:32,436 --> 00:38:35,316
Speaker 1: thought that she chose not to go back in time

604
00:38:35,436 --> 00:38:38,236
Speaker 1: into an iron lung. But I think that she was

605
00:38:38,396 --> 00:38:41,996
Speaker 1: just like I can't go back into an iron lung,

606
00:38:42,116 --> 00:38:47,876
Speaker 1: Like I can't live my life like that. I don't know.

607
00:38:50,276 --> 00:38:56,276
Speaker 1: Eileen Merrick died that May nineteen fifty six. The wake

608
00:38:56,436 --> 00:38:59,796
Speaker 1: was held at their house. Vicky remembers as a little

609
00:38:59,836 --> 00:39:03,516
Speaker 1: girl being confused. They were making all these sandwiches and

610
00:39:03,636 --> 00:39:06,356
Speaker 1: I could tell everybody was like bustling around, like as

611
00:39:06,356 --> 00:39:08,636
Speaker 1: if we were having a party. And there she is

612
00:39:09,196 --> 00:39:12,996
Speaker 1: in the room, in her open coffin, and I kept saying,

613
00:39:13,196 --> 00:39:16,596
Speaker 1: why is mummy taking a nap? If we're having a party,

614
00:39:16,636 --> 00:39:38,956
Speaker 1: why is she resting? Now, you know, it could strike

615
00:39:39,076 --> 00:39:43,756
Speaker 1: anybody anywhere. It was so devastating that many of its

616
00:39:43,836 --> 00:39:49,076
Speaker 1: victims were paralyzed in spirit, as well as Bonnie. When

617
00:39:49,116 --> 00:39:53,076
Speaker 1: Avida Hobby resigned, Eisenhower said he greatly regretted her departure.

618
00:39:53,516 --> 00:39:56,236
Speaker 1: He agreed with the Secretary of the Treasury, who told her,

619
00:39:56,636 --> 00:40:00,956
Speaker 1: you're the best man in the cabinet. Hobby left Washington,

620
00:40:01,396 --> 00:40:04,676
Speaker 1: but the political schisms she'd help make only grew wider.

621
00:40:05,836 --> 00:40:08,916
Speaker 1: One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or so

622
00:40:09,116 --> 00:40:12,276
Speaker 1: sism on a people has been by way of medicine.

623
00:40:12,356 --> 00:40:16,596
Speaker 1: It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a

624
00:40:16,676 --> 00:40:20,276
Speaker 1: humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose

625
00:40:20,316 --> 00:40:24,156
Speaker 1: anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't

626
00:40:24,156 --> 00:40:26,956
Speaker 1: afford it. That's the actor Ronald Reagan, just a few

627
00:40:27,036 --> 00:40:30,156
Speaker 1: years later, in nineteen sixty one, turning himself into a

628
00:40:30,196 --> 00:40:33,676
Speaker 1: political candidate by setting out his agenda, he would wage

629
00:40:33,716 --> 00:40:37,916
Speaker 1: a war against creeping socialism by fighting against socialized medicine,

630
00:40:38,356 --> 00:40:41,156
Speaker 1: by which he meant at the time Medicare. But he

631
00:40:41,196 --> 00:40:43,356
Speaker 1: also set out to fight public trust in the idea

632
00:40:43,396 --> 00:40:47,836
Speaker 1: that big government can solve big problems. Avidahabi went back

633
00:40:47,836 --> 00:40:51,116
Speaker 1: to Texas and ran the Houston Post for years. She

634
00:40:51,196 --> 00:40:54,316
Speaker 1: died in nineteen ninety five at the age of ninety. Three.

635
00:40:54,396 --> 00:40:57,836
Speaker 1: Years later, a claim started circulating that the measles, mumps,

636
00:40:57,876 --> 00:41:02,236
Speaker 1: and rubella vaccine causes autism. That set in motion a

637
00:41:02,316 --> 00:41:05,916
Speaker 1: new anti vaccination movement. In the year two thousand, the

638
00:41:05,956 --> 00:41:09,036
Speaker 1: Centers for Disease Control declared that measles had been eliminated

639
00:41:09,156 --> 00:41:12,596
Speaker 1: in the United States, sparing thousands of children and early death.

640
00:41:13,836 --> 00:41:18,436
Speaker 1: It turned out that announcement was premature. By twenty nineteen,

641
00:41:18,516 --> 00:41:22,796
Speaker 1: the government was battling multiple outbreaks of measles. Nearly ninety

642
00:41:22,876 --> 00:41:27,196
Speaker 1: percent of those infected had never been vaccinated. A quarter

643
00:41:27,396 --> 00:41:30,956
Speaker 1: of the world's population is now living under some form

644
00:41:30,996 --> 00:41:34,836
Speaker 1: of lockdown due to coronavirus. More than three billion people

645
00:41:34,876 --> 00:41:38,396
Speaker 1: in almost seventy countries and territories have been asked to

646
00:41:38,436 --> 00:41:42,836
Speaker 1: stay at home. The worldwide pandemic of COVID nineteen the contagion,

647
00:41:42,956 --> 00:41:45,916
Speaker 1: the deaths, the isolation, the economic shock, the race for

648
00:41:45,996 --> 00:41:50,996
Speaker 1: a vaccine, iron lungs replaced by ventilators. All that was

649
00:41:51,116 --> 00:41:53,636
Speaker 1: not lurking in my mind as I researched this episode,

650
00:41:53,996 --> 00:41:57,596
Speaker 1: because it hadn't happened yet. Instead, I'd been thinking about

651
00:41:57,636 --> 00:42:01,356
Speaker 1: long ago viruses and about other older patterns that kept

652
00:42:01,396 --> 00:42:05,276
Speaker 1: the United States from adopting universal health insurance. I'd been

653
00:42:05,316 --> 00:42:08,956
Speaker 1: investigating a crime, the killing of truth. It had felt

654
00:42:08,956 --> 00:42:12,196
Speaker 1: like a metaphor when I began, before people started dying.

655
00:42:13,316 --> 00:42:15,836
Speaker 1: Researching this episode. I wanted to find out the mechanism

656
00:42:15,836 --> 00:42:18,156
Speaker 1: by which people had come to be suspicious of vaccines,

657
00:42:18,556 --> 00:42:20,196
Speaker 1: and it seemed to me that it has something to

658
00:42:20,196 --> 00:42:23,836
Speaker 1: do with the opposition to universal healthcare. But there was

659
00:42:23,876 --> 00:42:28,476
Speaker 1: something else going on too, a forgetting. I called an expert.

660
00:42:28,556 --> 00:42:30,276
Speaker 1: You see him in the news all the time these days,

661
00:42:30,356 --> 00:42:34,356
Speaker 1: talking about the coronavirus, doctor William Schaffner, a professor at

662
00:42:34,436 --> 00:42:37,756
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt and the medical director of the National Foundation for

663
00:42:37,836 --> 00:42:40,796
Speaker 1: Invectious Diseases. It must be now about ten years ago.

664
00:42:40,836 --> 00:42:43,076
Speaker 1: I was just speaking. Asked to speak to a group

665
00:42:43,076 --> 00:42:48,756
Speaker 1: of parents, largely moms, who were vaccine skeptical they wanted information,

666
00:42:49,236 --> 00:42:53,036
Speaker 1: so they gathered about. There were somewhere between twenty or

667
00:42:53,076 --> 00:42:56,436
Speaker 1: thirty of them, and I decided that I wasn't trying

668
00:42:56,436 --> 00:42:58,876
Speaker 1: to persuade anybody of anything, but I would tell them

669
00:42:58,916 --> 00:43:01,836
Speaker 1: first about the diseases. And I was talking about one

670
00:43:02,076 --> 00:43:06,676
Speaker 1: or another and began then to talk about poliomyelitis polio,

671
00:43:07,756 --> 00:43:10,676
Speaker 1: and one of the ladies there got a very quizzical

672
00:43:10,676 --> 00:43:13,356
Speaker 1: look on her face, and I said, let's stop for

673
00:43:13,396 --> 00:43:18,316
Speaker 1: a moment, missus Jones, and as you seem confused about something,

674
00:43:18,396 --> 00:43:20,796
Speaker 1: ask a question and then we can go on. And

675
00:43:20,876 --> 00:43:29,476
Speaker 1: she said, why are you suddenly talking about shirts? So

676
00:43:29,676 --> 00:43:34,596
Speaker 1: she mixed up polio with of course the manufacturer polo

677
00:43:35,836 --> 00:43:40,636
Speaker 1: vaccination provides what's called herd immunity. Everyone needs to do it,

678
00:43:40,796 --> 00:43:44,796
Speaker 1: the whole herd. It's about trusting science, but it's also

679
00:43:44,796 --> 00:43:49,516
Speaker 1: about having a sense of commonweal, the common good. That's

680
00:43:49,516 --> 00:43:52,836
Speaker 1: what we don't have. I kept hearing in my head

681
00:43:52,876 --> 00:43:55,436
Speaker 1: something Vicky Merrick told me about a letter she'd written

682
00:43:55,436 --> 00:43:58,116
Speaker 1: to her father, the physician, while she was trying to

683
00:43:58,156 --> 00:44:01,356
Speaker 1: come to terms with the loss of her mother. He

684
00:44:01,396 --> 00:44:04,596
Speaker 1: wrote me back on a prescription piece of paper which

685
00:44:04,596 --> 00:44:07,516
Speaker 1: he would do sometimes, and he just wrote on the

686
00:44:09,756 --> 00:44:13,276
Speaker 1: pad on the prescription pad was like PS, regarding your

687
00:44:13,276 --> 00:44:19,116
Speaker 1: motherless childhood. It's crippling, but not paralyzing. Love Dad. I

688
00:44:19,156 --> 00:44:22,596
Speaker 1: guess I sometimes feel that way about American history. The

689
00:44:22,636 --> 00:44:27,316
Speaker 1: burdens of this past, the beauty, the horror, the gift,

690
00:44:28,316 --> 00:44:32,356
Speaker 1: the loss, the people who lived through it remember the

691
00:44:32,396 --> 00:44:36,036
Speaker 1: rest of us only think we're immune, or at least

692
00:44:36,876 --> 00:44:44,196
Speaker 1: we used to think that. The Last Archive is produced

693
00:44:44,196 --> 00:44:47,356
Speaker 1: by Sophie Crane mccabbon and Bennette of Haaffrey. Our editor

694
00:44:47,436 --> 00:44:50,356
Speaker 1: is Julia Barton and our executive producer is Mia Lobell.

695
00:44:50,956 --> 00:44:54,796
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrell and Martin Gonzalez are our engineers. Fact checking

696
00:44:54,836 --> 00:44:58,236
Speaker 1: by Amy Gaines. Original music by Matthias Bossi and John

697
00:44:58,236 --> 00:45:01,476
Speaker 1: Evans of Stellwagens Infinett. Many of verse oun effects are

698
00:45:01,476 --> 00:45:05,836
Speaker 1: from Harry Janett Jr. And The Star Jenette Foundation. Our

699
00:45:05,876 --> 00:45:09,916
Speaker 1: full proof players are Barlow Adams and Daniel Burger Jones,

700
00:45:10,076 --> 00:45:14,676
Speaker 1: Jesse Henson, John Kuntz, Becca A. Lewis and Maurice Emmanuel Parent.

701
00:45:15,556 --> 00:45:18,036
Speaker 1: The Last Archive is brought to you by Pushkin Industries.

702
00:45:18,756 --> 00:45:21,676
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Ryan McKittrick in the American Repertory Theater,

703
00:45:22,196 --> 00:45:26,236
Speaker 1: Alex Allenson in the Bridge Sounding Stage, Philip Brush, The

704
00:45:26,276 --> 00:45:30,116
Speaker 1: March of Dimes, and the w NYC Archives at Pushkin.

705
00:45:30,356 --> 00:45:34,436
Speaker 1: Thanks to Heather Fane, Maya Kanig, Carly mcgliori, Emily Rostick,

706
00:45:34,636 --> 00:45:39,156
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, and Jacob Weisberg. Our research assistants are Michelle Gaw,

707
00:45:39,356 --> 00:45:44,436
Speaker 1: Olivia Oldham, Henrietta'reilly, Oliver Riskin Kutz and Emily Spector. I'm

708
00:45:44,516 --> 00:45:45,076
Speaker 1: Jill Lapoor