The school that pioneered polio shots will give kids the covid vaccine, too

[demmiblue]

Through the long tunnel of time, Jackie French Lonergan still remembers the day very clearly. It was April 26, 1954, and she was a second-grader at Franklin Sherman Elementary in McLean, Va., a little girl with a brown pageboy haircut and a gap-toothed grin.

Lonergan lined up with her classmates in the school’s multipurpose room, and when she got to the front, she recalls glancing over briefly as her family doctor, in white lab coat with lollipops at the ready, jabbed her upper arm with a hypodermic needle. Nearby, cameras flashed, capturing the historic moment for posterity.

Lonergan’s parents had quickly signed the permission slip, worrying little or not at all about the fact that their daughter and 81 other second-graders at Franklin Sherman were about to be guinea pigs — the very first children in the country to receive the polio vaccine as part of a massive national trial to test the immunization before offering it to the general public.

“You never questioned anything,” Lonergan, now 75, said last week from her home in Bryn Mawr, Pa., fresh from receiving her booster shot against the coronavirus. “We were very patriotic then. The war was over and the country was booming. It was a very optimistic time. … It’s really hard to understand what is happening today.”

On Monday, Franklin Sherman will reprise its historic role as a vaccination site for Fairfax County schoolchildren. And first lady Jill Biden is scheduled to be on hand at the elementary school as another mass pediatric vaccination campaign — this one aimed at protecting children from 5 to 11 years old from covid-19 — gets underway.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/07/kids-polio-covid-vaccine-franklin-sherman/

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[Walleye]

1. My best friend who was born in 1946 says she was a Polio Pioneer here in Delaware

I was in first grade in 1955 and I remember very well lining up in the auditorium waiting one row a at time for our shots. Our parents were happy, we could see them stop worrying right away. And we were happy because we got to go swimming again. I don’t remember anybody being against the vaccine. We have regressed a lot in our progress

[3catwoman3]

2. I remember the oral version on sugar cubes being...

…given in my kindergarten class, which would have been the 1956-57 school year.

[yellowdogintexas]

3. Must have been a test then which is pretty cool.

I remember my baby sister who was born in 1961 getting that version in 1962. My mom said it was brand new. I looked it up just now and it was released here for commercial use in 1961.

I don't think I ever got that one. I did stand in line in 1955 to get my first shot. Our county had a massive immunization program, bringing in every student in every school to the hospital. Busloads from the schools to the hospital and back. It was very well done and probably took over a week.

[msfiddlestix]

4. My Elementary school in California did too

I remember getting my polio sugar cube, and another time other vaccinations shots at my elementary school in Orange County back in the 50's. We had a school nurse and I think I recall other nurses (but not sure who those other people were) administering.

We formed a line and one by one when our class would be called to the nurses office (lining up in the hall) or another time when it was in the Gymnasium. Never did I see parents protesting.

Nobody wanted Polio. It was a pandemic I later learned. My Father in Law who was an Air Force officer and pilot had fallen ill in Germany. He thought it was bad case of the flu, next thing he knew he was paralyzed from the neck down.

Took a long time for him to recover the use of his arms and upper torso. He remained paralyzed from his hip down. Needless to say he had to leave service on a medical discharge. He eventually started a new career as a CPA.

But Polio was just as much a real thing as Covid. I don't know for sure, but I don't believe even the John Birch Society pronounced it as fake news.