Polio Drops Quotes

Sometimes Fazlullah appeared galloping in on a black horse. His men stopped health workers giving polio drops, saying the vaccinations were an American plot to make Muslim women infertile so that the people of Swat would die out.

The drops (polio vaccine) were designed,said these believers. Their intention and effect was genocidal. Nobody was to swallow them, or administer them to infants. Within months, polio was back...

It was a cruel world though. More than half of all children died before they could reach maturity, thanks to chronic epidemics and malnutrition. People dropped like flies from polio and tuberculosis and smallpox and measles. There probably weren't many people who lived past forty. Women bore so many children, they became toothless old hags by the time they were in their thirties. People often had to resort to violence to survive. Tiny children were forced to do such heavy labor that their bones became deformed, and little girls were forced to become prostitutes on a daily basis. Little boys too, I suspect. Most people led minimal lives in worlds that had nothing to do with richness of perception or spirit. City streets were full of cripples and beggars and criminals. Only a small fraction of the population could gaze at the moon with deep feeling or enjoy a Shakespeare play or listen to the beautiful music of Dowland.

1921, America had about 200,000 cases of diphtheria; by the early 1980s, with vaccination, that had fallen to just 3. In roughly the same period, whooping cough and measles infections fell from about 1.1 million cases a year to just 1,500. Before vaccines, 20,000 Americans a year got polio. By the 1980s, that had dropped to 7 a year.

Another huge boost can be attributed to vaccines. In 1921, America had about 200,000 cases of diphtheria; by the early 1980s, with vaccination, that had fallen to just 3. In roughly the same period, whooping cough and measles infections fell from about 1.1 million cases a year to just 1,500. Before vaccines, 20,000 Americans a year got polio. By the 1980s, that had dropped to 7 a year. According to the British Nobel laureate Max Perutz, vaccinations might have saved more lives in the twentieth century even than antibiotics. The one thing no one doubted was that practically all the credit for the great advances lay securely with medical science.

War means endless waiting, endless boredom. There is no electricity, so no television. You can't read. You can't see friends. You grow depressed but there is no treatment for it and it makes no sense to complain — everyone is as badly off as you. It's hard to fall in love, or rather, hard to stay in love. If you are a teenager, you seem halted in time. If you are critically ill — with cancer, for instance — there is no chemotherapy for you. If you can't leave the country for treatment, you stay and die slowly, and in tremendous pain. Victorian diseases return — polio, typhoid and cholera. You see very sick people around you who seemed in perfectly good health when you last saw them during peacetime. You hear coughing all the time. Everyone hacks — from the dust of destroyed buildings, from disease, from cold. As for your old world, it disappears, like the smoke from a cigarette you can no longer afford to buy. Where are your closest friends? Some have left, others are dead. The few who remain have nothing new to talk about. You can't get to their houses, because the road is blocked by checkpoints. Or snipers take a shot when you leave your door, so you scurry back inside, like a crab retreating inside its shell. Or you might go out on the wrong day and a barrel bomb, dropped by a government helicopter, lands near you. Wartime looks like this.

It was a cruel world, though. More than half of all children died before they could reach maturity, thanks to chronic epidemics and malnutrition. People dropped like flies from polio and tuberculosis and smallpox and measles. There probably weren’t very many people who lived past forty. Women bore so many children, they became toothless old hags by the time they were in their thirties. People often had to resort to violence to survive. Tiny children were forced to do such heavy labor that their bones became deformed, and little girls were forced to become prostitutes on a daily basis. Little boys, too, I suspect. Most people led minimal lives in worlds that had nothing to do with richness of perception or spirit. City streets were full of cripples and beggars and criminals. Only a small fraction of the population could gaze at the moon with deep feeling or enjoy a Shakespeare play or listen to the beautiful music of Dowland.

Kilimanjaro offered a diverse and riveting selection of ways to die: malaria, typhoid fever, yellow fever, hepatitis, meningitis, polio, tetanus, and cholera. Those, of course, could be vaccinated against. There was no injection to protect you from the fog, which could roll in fast and as dense as clouds. According to one hiker’s online testimonial, “At lunch . . . the fog was so thick, I did not know what I was eating until it was in my mouth. Even then, it was a guess.” With zero visibility, people wandered off the trail and died of exposure. Even on a clear day, one could step on a loose rock and slide to an exhilarating demise. Or sometimes the mountain just came to you. In June 2006, three American climbers had been killed by a rockslide traveling 125 miles per second. Some of the boulders had been the size of cars, and scientists suspected the ice that held them in place had melted due to global warming. On the other end, hypothermia was also a concern. Temperatures could drop below zero at night. Then there was this heartening tidbit I came across in my research: “At 20,000 feet, Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest peak and also the world’s tallest volcano. And although classified as dormant, Kilimanjaro has begun to stir, and evidence suggests that a massive landslide could rip open the side of the mountain causing a cataclysmic flow of hot gases and rock, similar to Mount St. Helens.” A volcano?! They’re still making volcanoes? But the biggest threat on Kilimanjaro was altitude sickness. It happened when you ascended too quickly. Symptoms could be as mild as nausea, shortness of breath, and a headache. At its worst it resulted in pulmonary edema, where your lungs filled up with fluid (essentially, drowning on land), or cerebral edema, where your brain swelled. Eighty percent of Kilimanjaro hikers got altitude sickness. Ten percent of those cases became life threatening or caused brain damage. Ten percent of 80 percent? I didn’t like those odds. Maybe this trip was too dangerous. My

Lodged deep in me, deep as muscle, bone, and blood, was the idea of myself as a cripple. I couldn't say the word aloud, but it was at the center of everything. Polio had plucked me out of an ordinary life, which gave me a sort of freedom. If I hadn't gotten sick, I might never have become a person who was happiest in a darkroom. And yet. Shame was in my drop foot. Loneliness was there. The constant fear of exposure and the burden of concealment -- it was all there in the drag of my leg.

dominated by the needs of the damaged child, but I don’t mind. Like many foster carers, I’m driven by a powerful need to ease their pain. I remember myself as a child, walking by our local newsagents on the way to school. Outside the shop stood a little wooden figure of a beggar boy with polio, both legs fixed in metal callipers and a forlorn expression painted on his face. He held up a sign saying ‘Please give’ and there was a slot in the top of his head for pennies. Undeterred by the bird droppings across his shoulders, I would give him a quick hug, longing to take him home and make him better. My pulse quickens as we pass over a deserted bridge lined with old-fashioned street-lamps. After seven years of fostering I still feel an intense excitement when taking on a new child. It’s only been a few days since my last placement ended and already I’m itching to fill the void. As we drive past the riverside council blocks I’m reminded of one of my previous charges – three-year-old Connor, a boy who spent a large part of his day roaming the