12 ms·

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

96 points by daniel_iversen 2mo ago

toomuchtodo 2mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Lillard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Lillard
testingonetwo34 2mo ago
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.
- selimthegrim 2mo ago
  Is he still doing TWIV?
  - testingonetwo34 2mo ago
    Yes! https://open.spotify.com/show/6GifipQkBOoRzOpMxw3Xix https://open.spotify.com/show/6GifipQkBOoRzOpMxw3Xix
MajorTakeaway 2mo ago
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.
tonyhart7 2mo ago
its crazy that humankind can effectively end disease
- darth_avocado 2mo ago
  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/ 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 2mo ago
    [flagged]
    - kg 2mo ago
      Read up on herd immunity. The problem isn't specifically 'foreigners' but the general question of whether enough people are vaccinated to prevent the disease from roaring back when it inevitably - it is not possible to stop people from bringing diseases into the country - reoccurs.
      - pfannkuchen 2mo ago
        [flagged]
        BrenBarn 2mo ago
        You could, but if you have herd immunity, you don't need to, and if you don't have herd immunity, it's a losing battle.
        nucleardog 2mo ago
        Because your entire premise here sort of betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept? So we stop vaccinating people here, and require everyone that enters be vaccinated. Problem solved! Except not really, because people here travel to foreign places. So also everyone that _leaves_ here needs to be vaccinated as well. But that's do-able. Except, and here's the part where "herd immunity" is important: Being vaccinated doesn't prevent contracting the disease 100% of the time. The reason vaccines are effective isn't "you can never get the disease", it's because "if you get it, it can't spread to enough people to sustain itself into an outbreak". If you require people traveling into or out of the country to be vaccinated and stop vaccinating at home, you're going to have someone bring polio back fairly quickly. The vaccine is not 100% effective, and polio is asymptomatic in about 75% of cases so many carriers wouldn't even know they have it. In a vaccinated population, that's not a problem. The effective reproduction rate is <1. For every person infected, less than one other will contract it. It does out quickly. In your unvaccinated population, the R0 is 5-7. For every person infected, five to seven others will be infected. The growth will explode quickly and given the rate of asymptomatic carriers there's no chance you're going to contain it. (Also have you ever watched any zombie virus/fungus/etc show? Even if the vaccine is 100% effective, do you really want to hang the health of the whole country on nobody ever messing up vaccine administration, nobody lying, nobody faking paperwork, etc?) So everyone has to be vaccinated anyway, and if they're all vaccinated anyway the risk of letting a potential carrier in is... pretty near nil in the grand scheme of things. Your options are: * Never let anyone in or out. (But honestly, it'll still probably get in. See: lying.) * Eradicated the disease globally. We can do it, but less likely to happen now with USAID shut down. * Vaccinate at home so when the disease gets in the country it doesn't spread.
pwarner 2mo ago
Perhaps we'll be great again soon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-how-quickly-could-polio-return-to-the-u-s-without-vaccines/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-how-quickly...
sbseitz 2mo ago
[flagged]
- lisper 2mo ago
  Making polio great again.
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  Before the covid vaccination was available, I read that being recently vaccinated for polio reduces the covid risk by 5% or so. I thought what the heck, and was re-vaccinated for polio. I went down the list and got re-vaccinated for the usual set of childhood vaccines, as their efficacy fades over time.
rekoros 2mo ago
And a good day to you, sir!
- thejazzman 2mo ago
  Have you ever heard of a little Show called Branded, Dude? https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=the-big-lebowski_1998_1264&text=Have+you+ever%0Aheard+of+a+little+Show%0Acalled+Branded%2C+Dude%3F&at=%2Fthe-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-8-11-303&imagePath=the-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-8-11-303.webp&thumbnailPath=the-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-8-11-303.256.webp&dimensions=1920x1080&timestamp=1%3A08%3A11.303&title=The+Big+Lebowski https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=the-big-lebowski_1998_1264&tex... Context: https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=the-big-lebowski_1998_1297&text=%28MACHINERY+HUMMING%29&at=%2Fthe-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-9-58-175&imagePath=the-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-9-58-175.webp&thumbnailPath=the-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-9-58-175.256.webp&dimensions=1920x1080&timestamp=1%3A09%3A58.175&title=The+Big+Lebowski https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=the-big-lebowski_1998_1297&tex...
  - rekoros 2mo ago
    Bulk of the series
odo1242 2mo ago
Her self-created obituary, if anyone’s curious: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/shawnee-ok/martha-lillard-12944606 https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/shawnee-ok/martha...
- ciupicri 2mo ago
  > Sorry, you have been blocked Thanks, Cloudflare!
warshinder 2mo ago
Wild bad luck. Polio and despite vaccination she got Covid not once but twice and died of sequelei! And recently married. That is like lightening striking, again and again and again and again.
- hyperman1 2mo ago
  It might be more of a weakened immune system thing. Everyone gets small lightning strikes all the times, but our defences stop it before it gets too bad. So when defences are failing, you see a long string of random unlucky stuff happening . Same for computer services going down regularly, or sequences of small industrial accidents, or even humans being non-stop unlucky.
- PaulKeeble 2mo ago
  The Covid vaccination doesn't stop you getting Covid, it just on average reduces the severity of the infection. Covid is still producing multiple waves a year despite the vaccinations. You can still get Long Covid despite vaccination, and you can still die from Covid even if you are vaccinated, thousands do so every week.
yen223 2mo ago
I often think about how nearly everyone in my parent's generation knew someone with polio, but I know nobody from my generation in the world who had polio
frumiousirc 2mo ago
I'm reminded of the contributions of Naomi Wu. https://archive.org/details/youtube-4VKZTmTP7oY https://archive.org/details/youtube-4VKZTmTP7oY
PaulKeeble 2mo ago
Died of Long Covid. Been seeing a growing number of deaths in the Long Covid communities. There are >400 million people with Long Covid and growing in the world, if its lethal its going to be a lot of dead in the coming years.
- cyanydeez 2mo ago
  ...she was in a iron lung. How are you at extrapolating the heigh of a baby in a few years?
cyanydeez 2mo ago
let me know in a few years what the last polio patient is doing.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Lillard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Lillard

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.

selimthegrim 2mo ago
Is he still doing TWIV?
- testingonetwo34 2mo ago
  Yes! https://open.spotify.com/show/6GifipQkBOoRzOpMxw3Xix https://open.spotify.com/show/6GifipQkBOoRzOpMxw3Xix

MajorTakeaway 2mo ago

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.

tonyhart7 2mo ago

its crazy that humankind can effectively end disease

darth_avocado 2mo ago
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/ 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 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  - kg 2mo ago
    Read up on herd immunity. The problem isn't specifically 'foreigners' but the general question of whether enough people are vaccinated to prevent the disease from roaring back when it inevitably - it is not possible to stop people from bringing diseases into the country - reoccurs.
    - pfannkuchen 2mo ago
      [flagged]
      - BrenBarn 2mo ago
        You could, but if you have herd immunity, you don't need to, and if you don't have herd immunity, it's a losing battle.
      - nucleardog 2mo ago
        Because your entire premise here sort of betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept? So we stop vaccinating people here, and require everyone that enters be vaccinated. Problem solved! Except not really, because people here travel to foreign places. So also everyone that _leaves_ here needs to be vaccinated as well. But that's do-able. Except, and here's the part where "herd immunity" is important: Being vaccinated doesn't prevent contracting the disease 100% of the time. The reason vaccines are effective isn't "you can never get the disease", it's because "if you get it, it can't spread to enough people to sustain itself into an outbreak". If you require people traveling into or out of the country to be vaccinated and stop vaccinating at home, you're going to have someone bring polio back fairly quickly. The vaccine is not 100% effective, and polio is asymptomatic in about 75% of cases so many carriers wouldn't even know they have it. In a vaccinated population, that's not a problem. The effective reproduction rate is <1. For every person infected, less than one other will contract it. It does out quickly. In your unvaccinated population, the R0 is 5-7. For every person infected, five to seven others will be infected. The growth will explode quickly and given the rate of asymptomatic carriers there's no chance you're going to contain it. (Also have you ever watched any zombie virus/fungus/etc show? Even if the vaccine is 100% effective, do you really want to hang the health of the whole country on nobody ever messing up vaccine administration, nobody lying, nobody faking paperwork, etc?) So everyone has to be vaccinated anyway, and if they're all vaccinated anyway the risk of letting a potential carrier in is... pretty near nil in the grand scheme of things. Your options are: * Never let anyone in or out. (But honestly, it'll still probably get in. See: lying.) * Eradicated the disease globally. We can do it, but less likely to happen now with USAID shut down. * Vaccinate at home so when the disease gets in the country it doesn't spread.

pwarner 2mo ago

Perhaps we'll be great again soon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-how-quickly-could-polio-return-to-the-u-s-without-vaccines/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-how-quickly...

sbseitz 2mo ago

[flagged]

lisper 2mo ago
Making polio great again.
WalterBright 2mo ago
Before the covid vaccination was available, I read that being recently vaccinated for polio reduces the covid risk by 5% or so. I thought what the heck, and was re-vaccinated for polio. I went down the list and got re-vaccinated for the usual set of childhood vaccines, as their efficacy fades over time.

rekoros 2mo ago

And a good day to you, sir!

thejazzman 2mo ago
Have you ever heard of a little Show called Branded, Dude? https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=the-big-lebowski_1998_1264&text=Have+you+ever%0Aheard+of+a+little+Show%0Acalled+Branded%2C+Dude%3F&at=%2Fthe-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-8-11-303&imagePath=the-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-8-11-303.webp&thumbnailPath=the-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-8-11-303.256.webp&dimensions=1920x1080&timestamp=1%3A08%3A11.303&title=The+Big+Lebowski https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=the-big-lebowski_1998_1264&tex... Context: https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=the-big-lebowski_1998_1297&text=%28MACHINERY+HUMMING%29&at=%2Fthe-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-9-58-175&imagePath=the-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-9-58-175.webp&thumbnailPath=the-big-lebowski--1998%2F1-9-58-175.256.webp&dimensions=1920x1080&timestamp=1%3A09%3A58.175&title=The+Big+Lebowski https://amphetamem.es/meme?id=the-big-lebowski_1998_1297&tex...
- rekoros 2mo ago
  Bulk of the series

odo1242 2mo ago

Her self-created obituary, if anyone’s curious: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/shawnee-ok/martha-lillard-12944606 https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/shawnee-ok/martha...

ciupicri 2mo ago
> Sorry, you have been blocked Thanks, Cloudflare!

warshinder 2mo ago

Wild bad luck. Polio and despite vaccination she got Covid not once but twice and died of sequelei! And recently married. That is like lightening striking, again and again and again and again.

hyperman1 2mo ago
It might be more of a weakened immune system thing. Everyone gets small lightning strikes all the times, but our defences stop it before it gets too bad. So when defences are failing, you see a long string of random unlucky stuff happening . Same for computer services going down regularly, or sequences of small industrial accidents, or even humans being non-stop unlucky.
PaulKeeble 2mo ago
The Covid vaccination doesn't stop you getting Covid, it just on average reduces the severity of the infection. Covid is still producing multiple waves a year despite the vaccinations. You can still get Long Covid despite vaccination, and you can still die from Covid even if you are vaccinated, thousands do so every week.

yen223 2mo ago

I often think about how nearly everyone in my parent's generation knew someone with polio, but I know nobody from my generation in the world who had polio

frumiousirc 2mo ago

I'm reminded of the contributions of Naomi Wu. https://archive.org/details/youtube-4VKZTmTP7oY https://archive.org/details/youtube-4VKZTmTP7oY

PaulKeeble 2mo ago

Died of Long Covid. Been seeing a growing number of deaths in the Long Covid communities. There are >400 million people with Long Covid and growing in the world, if its lethal its going to be a lot of dead in the coming years.

cyanydeez 2mo ago
...she was in a iron lung. How are you at extrapolating the heigh of a baby in a few years?

cyanydeez 2mo ago

let me know in a few years what the last polio patient is doing.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]