"IamA 58 year old woman who contracted polio because my mother didn't vaccinate me as a child. AMA"

teacozy · Mar 25, 2014

This is on the front page of reddit right now and getting a lot of attention. I thought I would share. I really honestly believe that vaccines are a "victim of their own success". Television producers have messaged and contacted this woman and I hope she gets further publicity. Her mother had her when she was young (19) and didn't vaccinate her against Polio. She has said in the AMA that she believes she got it from a swimming pool, as 20 other children in her same neighborhood all came down with polio around the same time. Suffice it to say, she's not very sympathetic to the anti-vaccine movement. Here are a couple pictures she posted of herself. 
 
<a href="http://www.mothering.com/community/content/type/61/id/327729/"><img alt="" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="327729" data-type="61" src="http://www.mothering.com/community/content/type/61/id/327729/width/200/height/400" style="; width: 200px; height: 400px"></a>
 
<a href="http://www.mothering.com/community/content/type/61/id/327730/"><img alt="" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="327730" data-type="61" src="http://www.mothering.com/community/content/type/61/id/327730/width/200/height/400" style="; width: 200px; height: 400px"></a>
 
Here are some of the Qs and Answers: 
 
Q: Have you ever thought of "going public"? I say Reddit should lobby for you to be a guest on The View.
A: I would for sure, haha! The situation needs to have some more attention brought to it. I don't think parents completely understand the consequences of not vaccinating.
 
Q: In what year, at what age did you contract the disease?
A: I was 4-5 and contracted it in 1959-1960. I remember the day that I first came down with the virus, and I had to walk home from school for an hour. When I got home I couldn't stand up anymore, and my mother was in tears begging me to stand up and try to walk. Times were different..
 
Q: If it's not too intrusive or sad: what is the one thing you wish you could have done if it wasn't for your polio (or the results of it)?
A: I wish I could run. I wish I could ride a bicycle. I wish I could take my dogs for a walk. I wish I could walk without crutches. Most of all, I wish that people would see me for the person I am inside, rather than see me for my prior-disease.
 
Q: How does your mum feel about this now anyway?
A:My mother is dead now. But she carried the guilt for the rest of her life. It truly broke her heart. It was like a prison sentence.. Because she was a 23 year old single mother, she was shunned from the community, and seeing as though the area we lived in was really devoutly Catholic it didn't help. Other childrens' parents refused to let them hang out with me because I was a bastard and because of the polio (after it was gone, mind you).. It just broke her heart that she put me through that inadvertently.
I miss her more than anything.
 
Extremely interesting yet sad AMA. 
<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/21a0si/iama_58_year_old_woman_who_contracted_polio/" target="_blank">http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/21a0si/iama_58_year_old_woman_who_contracted_polio/</a>

Dakotacakes · Mar 25, 2014

Honestly, I am not loving this one. I think that her tone will distract from the message at best, or it will turn out to be a hoax at worst. For one thing I dislike the connotation that "her mother chose not to have her vaccinated" and that she lived around the anti-vaccine movement in Sydney at the time. That her mother wasn't part of it but that she was blind to the consequences of not vaccinating. I dislike the mother blaming that runs through this especially since when she contracted it it appears that vaccination was not common place yet (as 20 neighborhood children also contracted it) Then she says that neighborhood children weren't allowed to play with her because of her single mother status (which I totally believe) and also the polio (which seems less believable because she said that 20 other kids had it and there was an anti-vaccine movement around her). 
 
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dalia · Mar 25, 2014

Sorry! Thought it was debate section.

teacozy · Mar 25, 2014

<div class="quote-container" data-huddler-embed="/community/t/1399446/iama-58-year-old-woman-who-contracted-polio-because-my-mother-didnt-vaccinate-me-as-a-child-ama#post_17596183" data-huddler-embed-placeholder="false">Quote:
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by Dakotacakes <a href="/community/t/1399446/iama-58-year-old-woman-who-contracted-polio-because-my-mother-didnt-vaccinate-me-as-a-child-ama#post_17596183"><img alt="View Post" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style=""></a> 

Honestly, I am not loving this one. I think that her tone will distract from the message at best, or it will turn out to be a hoax at worst. For one thing I dislike the connotation that "her mother chose not to have her vaccinated" and that she lived around the anti-vaccine movement in Sydney at the time. That her mother wasn't part of it but that she was blind to the consequences of not vaccinating. I dislike the mother blaming that runs through this especially since when she contracted it it appears that vaccination was not common place yet (as 20 neighborhood children also contracted it) Then she says that neighborhood children weren't allowed to play with her because of her single mother status (which I totally believe) and also the polio (which seems less believable because she said that 20 other kids had it and there was an anti-vaccine movement around her). 
 
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Hmm I must have missed some responses. I heard her say that there wasn't an anti vaccine movement at the time that she was aware of. Did she say something different later? I must have missed it. For instance "My mother didn't agree nor disagree with it. I don't even think it was an issue at the time where I grew up (Sydney, Australia) with an anti-vaccine crowd, but I'm not sure. " 
 
I'm not sure how much of the AMA you read, but I got the impression from her answers about her mother that she doesn't blame her and was really close to her. Again, I could have missed something, but she stated that her mother was just unaware/uninformed about the vaccine, as opposed to being "anti vaccine" and doing it for that reason. Someone asked her"Do you know why your parents decided not to vaccinate you?" Her response "I think my mother (single parent) just had no idea about it. " 
 
Her son is the one actually writing the responses. From the tone and language it sounds like he is asking her the questions, and she is responding, and he's more or less writing her answers down in his own words. Could be wrong, but the tone/language doesn't sound like a 58 year old woman and it does say at the top of the AMA that her son is writing them for her. 
 
I don't think it's a hoax, or at least I hope not. The pictures taken have the screen name used to do the AMA written on a piece of paper.

"IamA 58 year old woman who contracted polio because my mother didn't vaccinate me as a child. AMA"

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