Beat Ebola Like Polio

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    Daryl Cagle / Cagle Cartoons
    My mother was 13 years old, the oldest child in her family, the day the health department nailed the quarantine notice on her front door.
    It was late in the summer of 1951. My mother’s younger sister, Cecelia, was just beginning the eighth grade when she came home from school with a high temperature, feeling very ill.
    The next morning, her legs gave out as she tried to get out of bed. By that evening, she was so weak she could barely move.
    She’d contracted polio.
    At the time, no one knew how the polio virus was spread. Many thought it spread through swimming pools, so the pools were shut down.
    The public was in such a panic, in fact, that an ambulance driver refused to take “Cece” to the hospital for fear other patients might become infected. Fortunately, my mother’s uncle had a car and he drove her.
    The public had reason to worry. In 1952, America would have its worst bout with the virus. More than 57,000 cases would be reported nationwide. Of those, 3,000 victims would die and 21,000 would suffer permanent paralysis.
    And so my mother’s home was quarantined for 14 days, the life of the virus. No one was to leave the house or visit during that time. Only her father could leave to go to work.
    Within two weeks, polio had ravaged Cece’s body. Her arms and legs were in various degrees of paralysis. She could barely lift her head. She was relocated to the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children in Sewickley. Her long, painful rehabilitation would just begin.
    It would be one year before she could move back home. Her rehab would continue for two years. She would need crutches for the rest of her life.
    Had polio not been cured, say the authors of “Freakonomics,” the United States would now be caring for at least 250,000 long-term patients at an annual cost of $30 billion. But we did cure it.
    The March of Dimes mobilized millions to raise money. A long line of researchers, including Dr. Jonas Salk, refused to accept defeat. Together, we won. On April 12, 1955, almost one year after the trial of Salk’s vaccine began, it was declared safe and effective.
    It’s easy to look with clarity at events that took place about 50 years ago, but harder to do so in current times — as Ebola is ravaging parts of West Africa and, in our transient, global economy, is a potential threat to other parts of the world.
    And just as we addressed polio in the U.S., we need to come together to stop Ebola from becoming a growing threat.
    Ebola knows no political party and all political pandering is a huge waste of time. What we need are commonsense measures that stop the Ebola virus dead in its tracks. Sorry, but a travel ban on affected regions needs to happen. Politics needs to stop. The government has to get its act together. And let’s redirect Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funds away from frivolous programs so we can create an Ebola vaccine that is effective.
    Do we really need the National Institutes of Health spending “$667,000 for a study on the health benefits of rerun television, $1 million on the sexual proclivities of fruit flies, $600,000 on why chimpanzees throw their poop, $350,000 on the importance of imagination while golfing, and $550,000 to determine that heavy drinking in one’s 30s can lead to feelings of immaturity,” as reported by National Review?
    Hey, we’re Americans. We came together to prevent polio. We must come together if we’re to have any hopes of clamping down on Ebola.
    ——-
    ©2014 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood” and “Comical Sense: A Lone Humorist Takes on a World Gone Nutty!” is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@cagle.com or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Purcell@caglecartoons.com.

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    18 COMMENTS

    2. 1countryidiot

      The level of your ignorance never ceases to astound me. The article and the cartoon are an embarrassing travesty, and the CCO should be ashamed for running it.

      First issue I have: This article is written by a “humor columnist”. Yeah, that ranks him way up there are the science and medicine credibility list. Why the hell should be listen to scientists and doctors from the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and the dozens of other respected and well-credentialed organizations who have expressly stated that the entire quarantine idea is ludicrous? Why should we trust the experts in disease when we can rely on a third-rate “humor columnist” hack who is stoking the fires of ignorance? Of course, that explains why you like the article.

      Furthermore, your reliance (and that of the hack who who the column) on the National Review is also a joke. The National Review is widely considered one of the most conservative publications in the world and as it explains in its “About” page, it constantly aims at providing the “right’s take” on political issues facing the world. So the partisan leanings of the website are crystal clear on this article, another hack piece that is stoking the fires of fear and ignorance.

      It’s interesting how the author cherry-picks his examples. Yes, NIH spending has increased by 3% (from 29 to 30 billion) from 2007 to 2014. But if he had gone back to 2003, he would have found that the budget was actually higher than it is today. This coming after years of steady NIH budget increases in the late 90s. Then he cites a number of studies he finds fault with, which add up to approximately 0.01% of the NIH’s budget. Read that again: 0.01% of the NIH budget! Waste is waste and should be eliminated, but show me another organization of any sort (public or private) with that degree of wasted spending and I’ll show you a very well run organization.

      Top epidemiologists and health care professionals at the CDC and elsewhere say not only would travel restrictions fail to protect Americans from Ebola, they would likely make the situation worse.

      A travel ban would hinder our ability to monitor the 100 to 150 people who enter the U.S. from “hot zones” in Africa every day. Right now, we know who’s coming in. If we try to restrict travel, they might come in overland, making potential disease carriers harder to track.

      The CDC and U.S. Customs and Border Protection has layers of entry screening at five U.S. airports that receive over 94 percent of travelers from the Ebola-affected nations. Being able to trace individuals who may be infected with the virus is one of the most useful tools at the CDC’s disposal for stopping the disease’s spread.

      Enacting a travel ban would make it harder for the international community to fight the disease in West Africa. Health care workers need to be able to get into West Africa if they are to fight the disease. And they need to know they will be able to come home again when they’ve finished their work. Forcing health care workers to sit in quarantine before they can return home is likely to decrease the number of workers who go to help in the first place.

      A travel ban won’t work because it would actually make stopping the outbreak in West Africa more difficult. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, “To completely seal off and don’t let planes in or out of the West African countries involved, then you could paradoxically make things much worse in the sense that you can’t get supplies in, you can’t get help in, you can’t get the kinds of things in there that we need to contain the epidemic.”

      I think the fact that the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Red Cross, and the World Health Organization (WHO) (and the above listed Director from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) have all specifically NOT advocated for a blanket travel ban shows the informed opinions from medical and scientific experts.

      The best thing we can do right now is what we are already doing, which is help through infrastructure. Some 4,000 American troops are in Africa helping to build field hospitals and bring the desperate people who are infected the medicine and equipment they need. This has had a significant impact on fighting the disease, as healthcare workers are able to treat their patients in clean, safe environments as opposed to unsanitary tents in the wilderness.

      That’s how we keep Ebola out of America and end this outbreak: not a travel ban, but raised awareness and an increased desire to help. Republicans are the ones going on the attack with Ebola and blaming the administration for it coming to American shores. However, Obama is still doing far better than the GOP hero, Reagan, who allowed thousands of people to die from Aids before doing anything significant.

      • Time Will Tell,,,,,Notice that I did not revert to rule #5 of the evil dirtbag handbook like you and yours always do when confronted with reality. You need to get off that kool-aid.

        • Sure you did. Rule 5 is manipulation, and your blatherings (and those of the author) are exactly that, an attempt to fear-monger the public and manipulate the discussion.

          Typical tea-bagger logic (or lack of logic)

            • You’re correct, but I (and others) have expected your radical nonsense for a long time. It is good for a sad laugh

          • ClasslessEvillePolitics, your a plagiarizing POW,,,, right from Newsweek;

            “But top epidemiologists and health care professionals at the CDC and elsewhere say not only would travel restrictions fail to protect Americans from Ebola; they would likely make the situation worse.”

            I used to pity you for being and educated imbecle but now I know your just an empty suit just like your fearless leader. Get Lost !

        • When I was leaving the Bull Island rock fest years ago, I heard something behind me and I turned around to see a woman who I thought was urinating but was actually squirting out a kid who would never have an English teacher but would be raised by two Great Uncles named Matt Drudge and Rush Limpballs.

          I could tell immediately when this kid was born he was destined for failure because (unfortunately,) his birth landed on a cow paddie (aka bullshit.)
          l
          Just for curiosity I tried to follow this young brats path through life but I lost track (forcefully) when his newest uncle David Duke put a gun to my head and told me to scat. And I immediately took him up on the idea.

          But now I know tommyromo, aka al sharpie, better known as dumbass is this creature squirted out on that cow paddy at Bull Island because the first thing I heard the little bastard say on that day of infamy was “blahhhhhhhh blahhhhhhh blahhhh.

          Welcome home dumbass………

          • Thanks I need that.

            BTW my Aunt in Henderson says that Mitch McConnell is a space alien and that Michelle Bachman and John Boehner have a secret love child..

            It is a FACT, ….. well she did say that!

          • Yep ole al sharpies comments sometimes leaves one wondering which side of his heritage or linage was the stump broke entity. Whatever that rendition was, the verbal scat produced forth by those rants is observed commonly as, bovine in its natural bents.

      • When the RWnuts bleat about THEIR FACTS upon closer inspection it is ALWAYS, cherry picked data, personal experience/anecdotal evidence/hearsay, red herrings, myth, demagoguery or conclusion based upon facts but twisted into misleading conclusions lies or full of other logical fallacies.

        ALWAYS

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