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Letter to the Editor:
I'm writing to explain why Webster City Rotarians are inviting you to participate in Saturday morning's World's Largest Polio Walk at Wilson Brewer Park. All ages and fitness levels are welcome to join us at 9:30 am for the walk beginning at 10:00 am. Stop in anytime between 10:00 am and noon.
Your freewill offering will be donated to Rotary International to help fund PolioPlus, the organization's mission to eradicate polio from the world. A donation of just $20 will buy 133 doses of the oral vaccine.
Rotary's PolioPlus program began in 1985. The World Health Organization, UNICEF, and CDC joined us in 1988 and pledged to make the 122 countries around the globe polio free. In 2007 the Gates Foundation pledged $355 million to the cause and GAVI, a vaccine alliance, joined in 2019. To date, over $3 billion has been raised and over one billion doses of vaccine have been given.
The world is currently 99.9% polio free. Only two countries remain endemic: Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have 56 cases. There are no cases of polio in the United States. So why should you care about just 56 cases in countries half a world away?
Because polio anywhere is a threat to children everywhere. Global travel and the anti-vaxing movement can lead to an unwanted polio epidemic.
Some of you may remember the polio epidemics of the 1950's and know people who contracted the disease. In 1952 there were 21,000 cases of polio in the United States. It took the lives of 3,000, most of them children. Some were left with paralyzed limbs and wore cumbersome braces. Some lived in wards filled with iron lungs to help them breathe.
Two brothers in my hometown were afflicted. One walked with a crutch, his withered leg held off the ground with a leather strap connecting his shoe to his belt. A girl in our band could play the bass drum with her "good" arm. A doctor in town closed his office so he could be with his daughter who was hospitalized in Sioux City with too many other children suffering from polio. I will never forget the look of fear in my father's eyes when he told us our neighbor's daughter had been diagnosed. It was very contagious. Several polio survivors had to endure polio syndrome symptoms later in life.
Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921 when he was 39 years old. He sought hydrotherapy at Warm Springs, GA. Few people realized he was paralyzed from the waist down when he served as president from 1933-1945. Heavy steel leg braces that allowed him to stand at podiums and a wheelchair were kept hidden from public view until 1939 when he helped found the March of Dimes organization to raise money for polio research.
Another famous adult who had polio as a child is Alan Alda. He was seven years old. His parents applied the scalding hot packs of wool to his limbs used to treat the illness. Alda said he thought the torture was harder on them than on him. The 90-year-old Alda is now coping with Parkinson's Disease.
Polio, aka as polio myelitis or infantile paralysis, is caused by a virus. Contaminated water entered the body and grew in the gut, eventually moving through the blood to the nervous system. It is spread by contaminated water or food, coughs, sneezes, and feces.
The vaccines, developed in the mid-fifties by Jonas Salk and in 1961 by Albert Sabin, keeps the virus from growing in the gut. Older adults may remember the mass immunization at schools where they were fortunate to be injected with the vaccine or received the oral dosage on a sugar cube.
There is no cure for polio. Only the vaccine. Children today receive a four-phase Sabin immunization by injection at 2 months, 4 months, 6-18 months, and 4-6 years. If we stopped vaccinating children today, within ten years, polio would paralyze as many of 200,000 children a year!
It needs to be noted that there were no cases of measles in the United States for over 30 years, thanks to the MMR vaccine. As of October 16, 2026, the CDC reports that there are 4,410 confirmed cases of measles in 47 states so far this year. It is very contagious and causes respiratory problems, dehydration due to diarrhea, pneumonia, encephalitis, and even death. Herd immunity occurs at a 95% vaccination rate. The 2025-2026 rate is 92.4%. This is what happens when children do not receive vaccinations.
Small pox was the first disease to be eradicated from our world. Help us make polio the next one to disappear. Come walk with us Saturday morning!
Loween Getter
Webster City
A Webster City Rotarian since 1992