My opinion - Anti-vaxxers who weren't alive when polio was rampant should STFU about vaccines

[MIButterfly]

Last edited Tue Jun 2, 2026, 07:19 PM - Edit history (2)

I was born in 1953 and I remember as a child how terrifying the prospect of getting polio was and how relieved people were when there was a vaccine. I distinctly remember when the sugar cube came out and people were lined up to get it. My mother took me right away. We had eliminated polio and smallpox with vaccines and other diseases, like measles, were almost completely eradicated as well. Now they're making a comeback.

As another poster wrote a few years back, go to an old cemetery and see how many children and babies died back in the day from diseases that are now prevented with vaccines.

I just don't get people that deny the value of vaccinations. If a vaccine really gave people autism, everybody would have autism. George Soros (or whatever liberal boogeyman they're afraid of) isn't putting a tracking device in vaccines; the cellphones they're on 24/7 is where the tracking devices are. Duh.

I'm no medical or scientific genius, but I'm no idiot either. To me, the only reason not to get vaccinated is if you have an allergic reaction or have a religious objection (which I don't understand why God wouldn't want you to be healthy and live your best life but it's not my place to question anyone else's religious beliefs). It's certainly not because you did your "research" on anti-vax websites or listen to idiots like RFK Jr.

[UpInArms]

1. My former brother in law had polio

It was not a good thing … he was only about 5 years older than me

[pfitz59]

2. My Grandfather had a bum leg from polio

My parents lined us up for the sugar cube and small pox needles as soon as they were able.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. My Uncle Otis had it as a kid

Born in 1936. Fully recovered with my Grandmama's old ways (Cherokee Medicine Women) . . . when that shot came out she drove to Birmingham with her three youngest kids (including my dad) to get that vaccine

About 10 years ago - paralysis showed up on Uncle Otis' left side. He's now having repeated moments from when he had Polio as a kid.

And so when Covid came around - he bullied and shamed every single one of us into getting the vaccine. Even those of us fully on board -he bullied. Because he KNOWS how you can recover from something - and it comes back to haunt you.

I can't believe Polio is going to become a 'thing' again.

[Ferryboat]

4. Pretty damn sure they'll have had a Tetanus shot.

Just saying

[Random Boomer]

100. You would think so, right? But...

Just yesterday I read an article for resurging diseases like measles and dropping vaccine rates. One of the doctors said they had even had patients refuse a tetanus shot.

That's some twisted thinking to risk dying of lockjaw. It's not an easy way to go.

[B.See]

9. In the Long Game, I think

most have benefitted from them.

[Emile]

15. LG

Lol

[niyad]

16. do enjoy your latest brief stay

[MustLoveBeagles]

20. I alerted

[niyad]

21. I knew that somebody had!

[Quiet Em]

24. That was some weird shit!

[MustLoveBeagles]

26. That it was

[MIButterfly]

27. I couldn't make any sense of it either

[ProfessorGAC]

12. One Of The Least Informed Posts I've Ever Seen

Take your pseudoscientific nonsense elsewhere, please.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Nobody Said It Was

Your answer is equally uneducated and disinformation.
I doubt you would know science if I fell on you. And yes, I was a scientist for 43 years.
I don't need you to tell me how science works.

[UpInArms]

104. Just purchased a sticker

Science doesn’t care what you believe

[MustLoveBeagles]

13. Are you sure you're in the right place?

I think we have a troll in the dungeon.

[niyad]

18. I see that our resident troll is busy today.

[littlemissmartypants]

44. We should probably have a regularly scheduled post on science and vaccines...

As a way to get its attention just so we can ban it again and again. Maybe, eventually, it might sink in that time needs to be spent with a psychiatrist and less time posting nonsense here.

[MIButterfly]

28. My first troll

I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later

[niyad]

14. What flavour pizza do you like?

[calguy]

6. When I was in grade school in the 1950's, we had a girl in our class who had polio.

She had a very difficult life ahead of her, as she couldn’t walk like the rest of us. Every class had at least one or two kids like that, until the vaccine became available to everyone, for free.

[twodogsbarking]

32. A child in our school about two years older had polio. Went from braces to a chair to the grave by age 14.

I was born in 1952. Vaccine was too late for Tommy.

[Magoo48]

110. We saw disabled everywhere, at school as well as in the neighborhoods.

They were ever present. My mother would say, “There but for the grace of God”.
Some were casualties from WWII, others victims of Polio.

[B.See]

7. Bottom line, the right wing MAGA mentality is

that of a cruel and malevolently contrarian mindset that places cult-war quackery above people's health and well-being.

The drawback being that their obstinance and willful ignorance places others, not of their sect, at risk as well.

Luckily for us (and for many reasons) my dad was career military, so we regularly had to get vaccinated up the yazoo just to travel and live on military bases.

Somehow we survived them.

[wnylib]

60. They're a death cult and proud of it.

[MustLoveBeagles]

8. I agree

That includes my generation. I'm 54.

[sheshe2]

19. You are just a youngster!

[MustLoveBeagles]

23. Mentally I'm in my twenties

I'm not sure if that is good or not.

[sheshe2]

31. It sounds good to me!

[MustLoveBeagles]

54. My husband once accused me of not acting my age

The funny thing is, I couldn't argue the point. He's right.

[Attilatheblond]

71. Didn't have time to be in my 20s when I was in my 20s

Sorta doing some of it now, in my 70s. But cannabis is not so much for fun now as it is for pain relief and a good night's sleep!

[anciano]

10. I remember getting an injection when the Salk vaccine came out.

I had a cousin who had polio and he had to be put into an iron lung. Fortunately though he eventually did recover.

[demosincebirth]

49. I remember those iron lungs, they scared the hell out of me.

[debm55]

86. Me too. My uncle and cousin had polio. I remember the long lines in the hot summer to get the sugar cube

[NNadir]

25. My mother-in-law was one of the last people in America to get polio.

Last edited Wed Jun 3, 2026, 01:22 PM - Edit history (1)

It was a lifetime of pain and disability, particularly after all of the doctors who knew about post polio syndrome retired or died, particularly after my father-in-law, a doctor himself, died.

My experience as a child was precisely the same as yours. We stood on lines to get, first, the Salk injection and then the Sabin sugar cubes. It was I remember- it must be one of my earliest memories- a long line.

The antivaxxers are awful people, just this side of murderers, if so at all.

[TBF]

35. My grandmother had it and survived -

at least as a child. She was born in 1917 and then died in 1990 - age 73 and physicians said it was the damage to her heart from polio.

I also remember the sugar cubes, and for the longest time I could still see the scrape on my upper arm from the smallpox vaccine. My mom was not messing around - we had all of our vaccines either through the county or at school.

[MustLoveBeagles]

37. I used to have to be tolerant of them when they were few in number an had no influence

COVID made me staunchly provaccine and very angry. Spoiled and selfish people who didn't care who they hurt. It's the reason why I gave up on getting Invitro done at my last window of opportunity. l hate them.

[Attilatheblond]

72. Where we lived, the shots then the sugar cube drew huge long lines of kids and adults

The adults then knew the horrors of polio all too well. Most of the adults when I was a kid personally knew someone who had been stricken.

Thinking too many of the anti-vaxxers live in a bubble of ignorance and they think they are smart because they listen to & believe the 'influencers' who are yanking their chains. It puts our population in serious danger.

[wcmagumba]

29. I worked with a lady in the late 80s whose husband wore braces on both legs from having had polio as a child...

He could get himself around but it wasn't easy...

[demosincebirth]

52. Check FDR.

[Chalco]

30. It was a scary time

I know several people who became paralyzed. One lost the use of his arm.
One lost the use of one of his legs.

Polio was horrific. We were all terrified, counting the days, minutes, seconds
until we could get the vaccine.

[Disaffected]

33. Or diphtheria.

Science & Lessons from a Graveyard

What an outbreak of diphtheria can teach MAHA moms today about nature:

More than a hundred years ago, in the quiet prairie south of Hartford, Kansas, a tragedy unfolded that still speaks today. In a small cemetery are markers: the final resting place of eight children that died in a 1903 diphtheria outbreak. Their names, etched in stone offers a warning and stark reminder of a time when medicine had few answers.

https://brianhmathison.substack.com/p/science-and-lessons-from-a-graveyard


Warning: It is heartbreaking to read their stories.

[bucolic_frolic]

34. Like polluters, they are unwilling to test their theories by putting their own skin in the game

Just more hot air.

[GiqueCee]

36. I was born in '47...

... and I knew a few kids in my neighborhood who were permanently crippled by polio. Unlike you, I am not so gracious as to grant forbearance to people who abjure vaccines on "religious grounds". The deaths of their children will be THEIR fault, and not "the will of Gawd".
RFK, Jr. is a flaming asshole with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Do a deep dive into his history and you'll come to the same conclusion. What he did to his first wife should earn him the undying contempt of every decent human being. And the malicious horse shit he spews about vaccines, with zero proof or any medical knowledge, has already cost a LOT of people their lives – Google what he did in Samoa – but every Republican that slithered out of the conservative sewer shares his malignant pathology to one degree or another, and they've done nothing to stop him. NOTHING. So they own that sonofabitch just as surely as they own Trump and his rampaging criminality.

[MIButterfly]

43. I agree with you 100% about RFK, Jr

I do know his background. Wasn't he the one who wanted an annulment from the Vatican so in the eyes of the Church he and his first wife were never married thereby making his children illegitimate in the eyes of the Church? And wasn't he the one who drove his second wife to suicide? Not to mention his serial philandering. Why any woman on the face of this earth would want to get mixed up with him, Kennedy name or money notwithstanding, is beyond me. He's a despicable human being. When he briefly ran for president, his entire family endorsed Joe Biden. Even his own family knows what a creep he is. As far as I'm concerned, he and DJT are equally loathsome disgusting creatures with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

[calimary]

94. VERY interesting (and most welcome) details!

I wonder if anyone in the greater Kennedy family will ever feel like talking…

[dedl67]

38. I had polio in 1952. I eventually regained the use of my arm and have had a normal life.

But when I was in the hospital, in a huge room jammed with beds, I could see a long line of iron lungs along the wall. Some of those kids likely didn't make it. Thank god, and Jonas Salk, that nobody has to experience that any more.

[Fil1957]

39. Just because someone remembers polio is no guarantee they support vaccination. My mother has a friend who was born in

1952. So she was acquainted with polio, measles and other diseases which were eradicated by vaccines. But she fell into the Alex Jones, alt-right hole, and became a virulent (no pun intended) anti-vaxxer hard core Trumper.

[MIButterfly]

45. How sad

[Fil1957]

65. Yeah it is. This is someone who was sending out images of Trump as Jesus back in '20. She's also into eastern

religions. She believes the most "enlightened" individuals to have walked the earth are: Buddha, Jesus, and Donald Trump. And not necessarily in that order. Go figure.

[MIButterfly]

70. Yikes! Trump as Jesus?

My former hairdresser who was a devout Christian was also an ardent Trump supporter. I always wanted to ask her as a Christian how she could support the most un-Christian person who has ever been in the White House but I never did. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. But then she also said she never watches the news, which begs the question, if you never watch the news, how do you know who to vote for? Her husband probably tells her who to vote for and she obeys without question just like "a good wife" should.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

40. I agree

[BeneteauBum]

41. From another Boomer

Agreed. We were the recipients of amazing medical advances…..

Peace ☮️

[czarjak]

42. 53'er here too.

Was always told how lucky WE were!

[patphil]

46. I was in grade school when the Salk Vaccine was introduced in 1955.

We were marched out of our class rooms, one room at a time, to the area where the vaccines were being administered. I don't think anyone objected to getting their kids being vaccinated, given the devastation polio was causing across the country.
I believe it was originally 3 doses over several months, with a booster dose coming later.
At the time it was seen as nothing less than a miracle.

Now, of course, so many people are Trump stupid and haven't got the consciousness needed to make intelligent, rational decisions for their kids when it comes to serious diseases.

Note, Trump stupid is a particular kind of stupid. It was born of Trump's ignorance and arrogance, and just naturally evolved into that special kind of stupid that his hard core base is so fond to call their own.

[paleotn]

47. Amen and amen!

My maternal aunt died of polio. As a kid, I remember people who were crippled by the disease. They're all gone now and not replaced by new victims because we beat the disease with science and good sense. Two things lacking in later generations.

I was a veritable pin cushion as a child. We all were. Vax for everything. We all lined up at school for rubella vaccination and there were not complaints. Not once did I ever hear my parents discuss whether I needed those vaccinations or not. They lived the bad old days. Pre widespread vaccines and antibiotics. They knew well the scourge of what's now preventable disease.

[canetoad]

48. A good friend

Who is nearing 80 had childhood polio which left her with ever worsening scoliosis. I'm a year younger than you are and remember well the kids and teens in leg and body braces during the 50s & 60s.

[MichMan]

50. I'm 68, so by the time I was born, the polio vaccine was pretty common

I never knew anyone who had polio.

Yet, according to the OP, I have no business commenting on the value of any vaccines produced since then, and just need to STFU.

[MIButterfly]

56. No, that's not what I meant at all and I'm sorry if it came out that way

That isn't what I was trying to say.

[MichMan]

67. Seems pretty clear. Not sure how else it could be taken

"My opinion - People who weren't alive when polio was rampant should STFU about vaccines"

[MIButterfly]

80. I'm sorry

What can I say or do that would appease you? I didn't mean to offend you.

I was using polio as an example. Many other diseases have been eradicated by vaccines.

What do you suggest I change the title to? Please help me out here because I want to fix this. I mean it.

[MichMan]

81. I would just change the title from "people" to "antivaxxers"

Otherwise you are telling everyone under the age of 70 to STFU on anything related to vaccines regardless of what it is

[MIButterfly]

83. Done

[yardwork]

101. Your OP was clear to me and I'm 66.

I appreciate this OP and most of the responses.

[cstanleytech]

51. What about those of us who support vaccinations and weren't born back in the 50s?

[MIButterfly]

57. I meant no offense by my post and I'm sorry if it came across otherwise

My post was only about anti-vaxxers. I apologize if that was unclear.

[cstanleytech]

58. Just wanted to make sure 😊

[nuxvomica]

53. My aunt had polio

She lived well into the 1990s and always wore leg braces. They were a part of her identity to us kids. So you don't need to convince me.

[SheltieLover]

55. I was born in mid-1955 and recall neighbors who walked with a limp from polio and considered themselves damned lucky!

[Attilatheblond]

73. One of my aunts was one of those neighbors who got off lucky with a limp & feet that were very different sizes

[SheltieLover]

74. ...

[Attilatheblond]

75. Do you remember when Dear Abby used to tell people about places where they could swap shoes

when they had to buy 2 pairs instead of one due to having polio as kids? I recall reading about that when I was 10 and asking mom if Aunt Janine knew about such organizations.

[SheltieLover]

76. No I'd never heard about that.

I believe Nieman Marcus will sell 2 different sizes as a pair. Just an aside in case you know anyone so afflicted.

[Attilatheblond]

77. My aunt would be in her 130s by now, so, no. But I will file that info away for anyone who needs such help

back at ya

[SheltieLover]

79. I had a friend whose 1 foot was a half size zmaller than her other foot

Nieman's qas the only place who would sell 2 diff size shoes as a pair.

[Bristlecone]

59. Vaccinations that worked so well, that people of later generations question

The actual reality that the disease existed, or a vaccine was needed to begin with.

[MIButterfly]

62. You speak the truth!

Just like all the rights women, workers, minorities and LGBT fought for and won that people took for granted and now they're all being taken away.

[BaronChocula]

61. I don't think it's about vaccines

At least with the highly politicized right-wing media-watching types who have been railing against common sense since Reagan convinced them to vote against their own interests on any number of issues. As the Democratic Party has become the party of competence with a bent towards common sense and good practices, they've been brainwashed to rebel against what was conventional wisdom. It's why they liked W's incompetence - "He's a mediocre guy who goes with his gut rather than all this liberal common sense."

It's why they rebel against climate mitigation, FEMA, Sesame Street, NATO, unions, vaccines, and so on. They've abandoned supporting everything that's right because they feel it's the only power they have left as members of their particular demographic, wink, wink.

[lostnfound]

63. My sweetheart of a mother caught it at age 3, in the late 1920s

She recovered but had a limp for the rest of her loving life.
I choked up, almost cried, when my son got his polio shot.
Gratitude for the all of the human beings that made that happen.

[NHvet]

64. I have the mark of the beast on my arm

I remember standing in line at school in the 60's to get vaccines and do TB testing. And no one's mother was outside the school or in the news having a hissy fit because of. There is generation that hasn't had to go thru that as a child in school because of what we endured. To regress back to that or worse is beyond belief.

[Evolve Dammit]

66. People in "iron lungs" were real. My sister had a relationship with one. Unsure of the extent. I was pretty young. nt

[NoMoreRepugs]

68. I'm guessing all the dead MAGAT anti-covid vaccine morons would be in the no need for polio vaccine camp.

[Vogon_Glory]

69. I was born in 1955. I had a sheltered childhood, but. I remember

that when the vaccines first came out, my parents made it a point to haul me and my sisters in for vaccinations..

I only heard the horror stories much later from older friends.

[Maninacan]

78. Survivors

I know and run into Polio survivors. One neighbor had arm and leg affected. I also know one person who cannot take any vaccines because of allergic reaction. We all take vaccines for the people who can't.

[CanonRay]

82. As a kid, nothing terrified me more

Than the thought of being in an iron lung.

[charliea]

84. You're so right

I was born in 1953 too. I remember when they came to the school to give every kid a shot. I remember not understanding why my parents were excited for me to get stuck. March of dimes was founded for that. Salk took seven years to create a polio vaccine, now with mRNA research a vaccine for Covid was created in less than two years, a medical miracle! Since it involved nothing but mRNA it's much less likely to cause an adverse reaction. This is research that the government (RFK jr) wants to end. I still can't believe that Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent claims of vaccines causing autism still holds sway with someone who used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.
Medical science has let me stay alive in the last decade with procedures and treatments that didn't exist when I was born. I want even more improvements for my grandkids.
Lastly to those people who think avoiding vaccines will prevent the government from following you with nanoparticle tracking devices, maybe you shouldn't have that cell phone on you either.

[The Wizard]

85. RFK Jr. is anti vax

That's all you need to know.

[FullySupportDems]

87. Alan Alda told his story of recovering from polio

I think he said his father got them a pool, so he could swim. And he credits that for his good recovery. I've always loved Alan Alda.

When my children got Chicken Pox, about 5 years before the vaccine for it was available, I learned how hard those childhood diseases could be. Temps of 104° and they were miserable. Not a minor illness. Makes me want to scream at dumb parents, Why the hell do you think we developed these vaccines in the first place? Because some children died and many more were injured, you friggin idiots.

[tavernier]

88. Amen.

Long story, enough said.

[republianmushroom]

89. Amen !

[highplainsdem]

91. I had polio as a child. Had braces on my legs for a while. Apparently hated the braces so much that I

completely blocked all memories of them, though I have memories from before and after needing them.

I was lucky, didn't have any lasting damage. Post-braces I was a very active tomboy, running everywhere, climbing trees, riding horses, playing basketball in school. Looked fine in miniskirts that stopped 12" above my knees (I'm tall). No post-polio syndrome. Haven't had to undergo the knee replacement surgery my sister and a cousin my age have needed (they didn't have polio; I was the only one in the extended family who did).

But I knew it could have been much worse. As I said, I was lucky.

I hate anti-vaxxers' ignorance and all the harm they're doing.

[The Conductor]

92. Every So Often

Tell a MAGAt that the Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun and they look at you blankly, because the sun doesn't seem that far away to them. Tell them that vaccines cure disease, and suddenly they are experts, having "done their own research." Well, so have I. One little bit of research we share is that distinctive scar, most often on the left arm, that was the result of getting a smallpox vaccination when we were infants. To the point that no infant born in the U.S. in this millennium has the scar, because smallpox was wiped out across the entire human population. In the winter of 1924, a smallpox outbreak in Minneapolis alone killed 360 people.

The only good news is that the anti-vax crap seems heavily centered on the Rethuglican gang, and so they will likely follow the precedent of COVID where people in Trump voting counties were twice as likely to die of COVID than those in counties that voted for Biden, on average. Maybe they should learn the lesson of the Shakers, who banned sex because they thought it was "unclean." That has long-term consequences; having more people die than are born. Last I checked, back in 2019, the last Shaker village in America was Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine. At last check, they had a population of just three left. And they aren't reproducing.

[Aussie105]

93. Bring back the pictures of polio kids in iron lungs.

Just to put the wind up anti-vaxxers.

Those who survived polio and didn't end up in an iron lung locked away from the public gaze face a lifelong list of complications.

Personal experience - wife, before she was my wife, adopted a Vietnamese orphan with polio.
Think end of Vietnam war baby/orphan flights.

[Bev54]

95. My sister's best friend from 6 years old had polio and we were all vaxed

with sugar cubes back then. Her children were all vaxed for everything as were her grandchildren. But comes the pandemic with the internet and she is anti vax all of a sudden, her and my brother. Now they are both anti government, anti LGBTQ ( My brother's son is gay) anti trans and just recently anti indigenous rights. They make me ill and I do believe the pandemic has caused far more than just physical illness, with the time on the internet it has caused a lot of mental illness as well.

[Betty Boom]

96. The baby graves were visible from my school playground

I attended a rural parochial school that sat next to the church. The graveyard was right behind the school. Those small headstones have stuck with me throughout my life. They were old and faded. Pre-vaccine era.

[Figarosmom]

97. My grandma was cribbled from polio.

[flashman13]

98. Hear Hear MIButterfly! I remember.

[COL Mustard]

99. I'm a few years younger than you...

But I remember getting the polio vaccine. I loved that sugar cube and wanted to go back again!

Vaccines work and so does fluoride in drinking water!

[Racygrandma]

102. I do remember

I knew people in grade school who had polio. They lined us up and we walked across the street to Junior High and went into the gymnasium and ate a sugar cube. No one complained.

[newruby]

103. vax nonsense

i was the first in my family to get polio, it was mild and first diagnosed as bels palsy until my father mother and sister got it my father almost died. it was a few years before a former du members father who was the one of the main scientists behind the salk vaccines product came out, shes the one who turned me on to DU many years ago and her father a wonderful human would be so flabbergasted at this incredibly senseless campaign against vaccines. its a tragedy

[Freddie]

106. The song "Save the Last Dance for Me"

A cute little ditty to sing along with, right?
The songwriter, Doc Pomus, was a “Brill Building” composer who generally wrote songs “to order”. He wrote a couple hits for Elvis (“Little Sister”) but this one was personal.
He wrote the song at his own wedding reception, watching his bride dance with other men all evening. He couldn’t dance with her, and never would, for he was in a wheelchair. Childhood polio.
“But don’t forget who’s taking you home”…makes me tear up every time I hear it.

[evolves]

107. The daughter of my grandparents' best friends

was the actual poster child for the March of Dimes in 1955, so you'd better believe that we all got every vaccine that came down the pike.

I'm in healthcare, so am at greater risk, and have done overseas medical missions, so I have had more vaccines than I can count. I've never had any any of reaction other than achiness.

Vaccines are the single greatest lifesaving measure ever in public health, in the company of sanitation and clean water.
To refuse them is generally insanity.

[dedl67]

108. I knew two twin girls, maybe 5 years old, who were March of Dimes poster children.

Cute as could be. Both had leg braces. I rode in the same bus with them to physical therapy. That was 1952 or 1953.

[Old Crank]

109. One of my HS classmates had polio

The only apparent issue was his one leg was remarkably smaller than his right.
Probably emphiside by using the good leg much more than the bad one.

Nasty stuff.