Growing Up with Polio

In the late 1930's, many adults and children were suffering with polio. It ended up affecting millions of people, symptoms ranging from mild to severe. There were many that did not survive and many that suffered paralysis.

The United States government held debate hearings as to the cause of such a major polio epidemic. Dr. Morton S. Biskind did numerous studies on the human and animal side-effects from pesticides. Biskind's findings were published in 1953 after the U.S. had just endured its greatest polio epidemic. Between 1945 and 1953, Biskind observed the pesticide DDT and its link to polio incidence. The use of DDT showed a large instance of polio. Here I would like to include some of Biskind's writings from a 10-page 1953 article in the American Journal of Digestive Diseases:

In 1945, against the advice of investigators who had studied the pharmacology of the compound and found it dangerous for all forms of life, DDT was released in the U.S. and other countries for general use by the public as an insecticide.

Since the last war there have been a number of curious changes in the incidence of certain ailments and the development of new syndromes never before seen. A most significant feature of this situation is that both man and all animals have been affected at the same time.

In man the incidence of poliomyelitis has risen sharply.

It was even known by 1945 that DDT is stored in the body fat of mammals and appears in the milk. With this foreknowledge the series of catastrophic events that followed the most intensive campaign of mass poisoning known in human history, should not have surprised the experts. Yet, far from admitting a causal relationship so obvious that in any other field of biology it would be instantly accepted, virtually the entire apparatus of communications, lay and scientific alike, has been devoted to denying, concealing, suppressing, distorting and attempts to convert into its opposite the overwhelming evidence. Libel, slander, and economic boycott have not been overlooked in this campaign.

Early in 1949, as a result of studies during the previous year, the author published reports implicating DDT preparations in the syndrome widely attributed to a "virus-X" in man, in "X-disease" in cattle and in often fatal syndromes in dogs and cats. The relationship was promptly denied by government officials who relied solely on the prestige of government authority and sheer numbers of experts to bolster their position.

The disease remained epidemic year after year. Before 1950 DDT was hailed as a great progress that was virtually non-toxic to humans in spite of FDA's warnings and attempts to keep it off the market. Between 1940 and 1954 DDT use was extensive and the polio epidemic skyrocketed. Once a public governmental debate was held in 1949-51 there were many policy and legislative changes put into effect. Biskind had a part in bringing awareness of the dangers DDT. Interesting enough, the U.S. production of DDT increased greatly and this harmful pesticide was being shifted out of use in the U.S. and instead distributed into developing nations.

There were actually four major chemicals used in pesticides during the last major polio epidemic. They were DDT, BHC, arsenic, and lead. They were dumped onto and into human food at dosage levels way above that approved by the FDA. They are directly linked with the incidence of neurological diseases called polio before 1965. According to Biskind, this was the "most intensive campaign of mass poisoning in known human history."

Polio is highly infectious and invades the nervous system. It can cause total paralysis in only a few hours. It affects mainly children under three in over 50% of all cases. First symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting, fatigue, stiff neck, and pain in the limbs. Among those who become paralyzed, 5%-10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.

I have a good friend, Bruce, who suffered this horrible virus during his childhood. He was born in 1940. The early stages of his treatment began when he was 1 ½ years old before 1942. His mother and grandmother thought he had pneumonia because he had a very high fever and was very sick. He was taken to the hospital. Instead of having pneumonia, they concluded he had polio. At the hospital, nurses had a stainless steel bin with steam rolling out of it. They used forceps to remove towels from it. The towel was too hot for her hands, but she proceeded to wrap the towel around baby Bruce's legs thinking they would "burn" the virus out. This went on for 6-7 months. It took two nurses to hold Bruce down in order to be able to wrap the hot towels around his legs because he fought them with all the strength he could muster. These burning towels were torturous.

The second treatment during the same time at a year and a half included a time period of 24/7 when a nurse would wake him up, roll him over, and give him a shot in the rear end with hard penicillin. These shots were given every hour, 24/7 during this 6-7 month time frame.

In time he became unable to breathe. He spent time in an iron lung. An iron lung was a huge metal cylinder that operated like a pair of bellows to regulate the breathing and keep people alive. Today, this has been mostly replaced by the positive pressure ventilator. Later he was placed on a rocking bed that was supposed to promote his breathing. There were hundreds of these beds in the hospital at this time. Children and adults were dying so they were taking out corpses and bringing in new polio patients every day.

Bruce's back and legs had to be massaged regularly. He spent much time crying excessively due to lack of sleep and constant treatment that felt more like torture than something that would make him better.

Between the ages of 2-16 Bruce had nine corrective surgeries due to the effects of the polio. The first surgery was on his right leg, the leg that was considered his good leg. They opened both sides to stunt the growth of the good leg so the left leg (bad leg) could catch up in its growth. Bruce says they did something to the bone to stunt the growth in the good leg. His body should've grown to stand 6'4 and ended up 6'1, leaving his upper torso long and him feeling like he has ape arms.

His second surgery was on the left foot that had suffered greatly from the polio. His toes could only go down so they cut ligaments to shorten them so that the toes would stay straight. This was supposed to keep his toes from dragging when he tried to walk. This surgery did not work because the muscles were destroyed.

Bruce had a third and fourth surgery on this same foot. The doctor sawed off a piece of his left hip, opened up the back of his heel on his left foot, and grafted that piece of bone to the heel so the foot would stay straight and not drop.

The fifth surgery was needed because of calcium build-up on that heel bone. It had become so painful that they had to re-open the foot to scrape the calcium build-up off. He endured a sixth surgery on this heel to remove calcium build-up again.

Bruce recollects a friend he made while in the hospital in 1944. Even though they were weak and ill, they used to race around the hospital in wheelchairs and Bruce once nearly went down an elevator shaft that was being repaired and had been left open. He could've gone down 7 stories! A nurse had reprimanded him before he had raced to the opening. His little friend's name was Joanne. She had tuberculosis and died in the hospital during his stay. A lot of kids had tuberculosis and were dying from it during this time.

Bruce unfortunately had a poor home-life and had been placed in various foster homes while he had polio.

While all this was taking place, he wore a brace on his left leg. This brace came up to hip-level, and he walked with crutches until just before his 16th birthday. Even though he endured all the pain of all of the surgeries up until this point, doctors said he would never walk on his own without mechanical devices. 2/3 of his life up until he was 16 was spent institutionalized in hospitals with little schooling or education offered to him. Through all of this, he says he refused to accept he was a cripple.

Because of the polio in his left leg, a future work accident would claim this leg. When his leg suffered a major injury it was impossible to repair because of the breakdown of this limb. This was the first time he had ever felt handicapped. This accident occurred in 1992.

As a child with polio, Bruce had problems arise besides his physical issues. He was not very social as he was not taught social skills. He feels that others' lack of understanding and education of children and people with polio kept them from accepting him as a person. He says he felt like a freak and was treated like a freak.

His limited school memories are not happy ones. In his 5th grade year he was on crutches and his walk home from school every night was frightful as his peers, the ruffians, would push, poke, make fun of, and beat him up because they said he was a cripple. They ridiculed him and stared at him. He had not chosen this life and all the difficulty he had experienced and felt bad that others blamed him for being different.

As a child, he had to learn to fight in order to defend himself. By the 6th grade he refused to go to school. He spent most of his time on the streets and was picked on by a juvenile detective in his hometown. He was taken to youth centers, taken to jail, and accused of crimes just because they knew he was out there. Even though he hadn't done anything wrong, his mere presence seemed to make him guilty by association. This all took place for Bruce in the early 1950's.

Today Bruce is reminded of his childhood polio by post-polio muscular atrophy (PPMA). This affects polio victims and can affect breathing. It results in muscle cramping and weakness. Bruce can't overwork or over exercise. He was tested in 1985 for PPMA. This test was done by taking long skinny rods with wires hooked up to electrical machines and sticking the rods deep into the leg muscles. They give an electrical charge to determine how the polio has affected certain muscles and nerves within the muscle system of the area that was not affected. Because of over-use, the "good" muscles and nerves would start weakening. The government will not use much money on research for this because they feel polio is a thing of the past and the victims of this epidemic are a dying generation anyway.

Because of polio and lack of education, dreams of becoming an airplane pilot did not come to fruition for Bruce. What he had needed all along was to be given hope; hope for an enjoyable and prosperous future. Instead, as he was growing up, people refused to believe he could do anything or become what he wanted because of this tragedy. They did not let him grow into his dream.