The anti-vax movement's wildest claim yet: "Polio wasn't so bad."

[red dog 1]

The anti-vax movement's wildest claim yet: Polio wasn't so bad www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

— Silvija (still) stands with Ukraine (@svecrumba.bsky.social) 2025-11-19T21:54:11.059Z

[B.See]

1. BATSHITERY knows no bounds.

[montanacowboy]

2. Unless you died

My 13 yr old cousin died - we played together
He was a super athlete

[Biophilic]

3. Those people are despicable.

It would be unconscionable if polio was allowed to come back. Awful, awful people who are making those claims. How the heck did I miss that there were so many evil people in the world?

[Norbert]

4. Wait til Neil Young sees this

He is a polio survivor that has no patience for this nonsense.

[Crunchy Frog]

7. Joni Mitchell is too. I only learned about that recently.

Probably a hell of a lot of people in that generation who we don't know about.

[RockRaven]

5. In the US, while Salk was developing his vaccine, polio killed more annually than 9/11.

Salk developed the vaccine in 1952, testing was done in 1953-4, licensing and rollout in 1955.

1952 was a notably bad year, yes, but only about twice recent annual averages. 3145 died and 21,000+ were left paralyzed to some degree that year. And the population of the US was much smaller then (about 150M).

But think about those numbers for a second. A totally avoidable 9/11, disproportionately children, annually is "not so bad" according to these ghouls.

[Sparkly]

6. Much as some people have a penchant for blaming "Boomers" for everything in life,

many people seem determined to relearn all the lessons of the past in the hardest ways possible.

Hard-won fundamental rights? Meh.
Equal representation? Oh, if it's not straight cis white men, it's "identity politics," "CRT," and "feminization of men."
Labor as power and ownership vs. bowing to "The Man?" "Hey, I never got a job from a poor person!"

And diseases we eradicated years ago, not to mention those we have yet to cure? Surely there's another reality and some "one weird trick" out there, like ivermectin. It can't be what generations experienced and know.

[viva la]

8. I knew someone whose mother got polio as an adult--

She was in an iron lung until she died. It was catastrophic for the whole family, of course. She used to be wheeled up to the front window so she could see (in the mirror above her head) her kids go off to the bus stop in the morning.

[Boomerproud]

9. How horrible.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Ask Mitch McConnell if he thought polio "wasn't so bad".

Or Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[MrsCheaplaugh]

11. Back in the early 1950's...

my mother was living in Tisdale, Saskatchewan during a polio outbreak. She said young people were dying like mayflies all around her. Very shortly afterwards, the vaccine became available. People lined up for blocks to receive it.

In my goober province now, I have to pay $100 for a covid booster. If I get covid I will sue these nitwits to hell and back.