I was born in the late 1950s, just when vaccines were being developed for a number of diseases we hardly ever hear of now. The Salk polio vaccine came out in 1953, consigning that terrifying disease to history. When I was a child, virtually everyone got the vaccine—the ounce of prevention that saved us from paralysis or death. But I knew people only a few years older whose deformed limbs served as a permanent reminder of the disease. And they were the lucky ones: 20,000 people died in the polio epidemic of 1952.
The inspiration for the lyrics of “A spoonful of sugar” was the Sabin vaccine (1961). The attenuated live polio virus was dripped onto sugar cubes for easy administration.
Childhood diseases
At that time, measles, mumps, and rubella were known as childhood diseases. Of course it’s possible to contract them as an adult. But the consequences are much more severe in adults than children. For example, measles and mumps are more likely to be fatal for adults. And measles or rubella may cause a pregnant woman to miscarry, or her baby may develop birth defects.
With no way to prevent these diseases, it was best to contract them as a child. My mother caught measles when she was in her late teens and was ill for the whole summer. To make matters worse, her older sister, just home from nursing school, took care of her. (Aunt Karen had a good heart, but she was something of a bully.) The memory stayed with my mother, and she determined to spare us kids that experience. So whenever one of the neighborhood kids caught a childhood disease, we’d all play at their house. Before vaccines, our ounce of prevention was early exposure.
My brother, two years younger than I, was able to take advantage of the new vaccine technology. The measles vaccine came out in 1963, followed by the mumps vaccine in 1967 and the rubella vaccine in 1969. Since 1971, these three comprise the MMR shot.
Vaccine hesitancy
With the memory of these diseases fresh in mind, people were eager to get the vaccines. But memory fades, and many people alive today have never seen how devastating the diseases could be.
Since the 1998 publication of a paper by Andrew Wakefield falsely attributing autism to the MMR vaccine, some people have been reluctant to vaccinate their children. When they realized Wakefield had falsified his data, 10 of his coauthors retracted the paper. The publication, The Lancet, later retracted the paper as well, and Wakefield lost his medical license. Unfortunately, the damage had been done. Even today, nearly 30 years later, people still believe these false claims. It doesn’t help that the US Secretary of Health and Human Services perpetuates them.
As a result, so far this year (data through the first three weeks of January 2026) there have been 416 cases of measles in the US. There were more than 2000 cases in 2025. Nearly all were in people who did not receive vaccines. That ounce of prevention would have saved lives.
Worse still, the chair of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee has begun to question whether the polio vaccine is still necessary. Only if you’d rather prevent tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.