Martha Lillard, last US polio patient using iron lung, dies at 78 in Oklahoma

MajorTakeaway 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Drinking a beer for her, she went to the high school very close by. I'm far too young to remember polio but still remember my grandparents talking about it. They had died of Covid-19 before her.

Something to remember by her is that the determination to live is something that keeps us going.

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tonyhart7 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

its crazy that humankind can effectively end disease

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darth_avocado 17 minutes ago | parent [-]

We can, but if we’re not careful, it can come back.

After eradicating polio for decades, we saw a case for the first time in 2022. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9577438/

And given the drop in rates of immunization post covid, we can very expect more if the trend continues.

	▲	pfannkuchen 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> 20-year-old Hungarian traveller It’s weird that we require interventions that do have some documented risk to our own citizens so that foreigners can visit without restriction. If an illness is eradicated in our borders, why should we let in people who might have it? Odd tradeoff calculus.

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pwarner an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Perhaps we'll be great again soon.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-how-quickly...

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testingonetwo34 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Her optimism and creativity to overcome the disability and live her life is powerfully inspirational.

I wish I could apply that optimism to my perception of a societal shift away from disability accomodations and the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy... Enabling parents to foster unvaccinated children is a guarantee that we'll get a resurgence of this type of disease.

I recommend everyone educate themselves on our immune system: the book "Immune" (ISBN: 1529360684) introduces the vast complexity in a very approachable manner. Also the podcasts through MicrobeTV by Vincent Racaniello are excellent.

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selimthegrim 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Is he still doing TWIV?

	▲	testingonetwo34 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes! https://open.spotify.com/show/6GifipQkBOoRzOpMxw3Xix