I heard the story so many times that I think I can actually recall the event. I see the small paper cup with a slightly yellow-colored liquid. I taste its bitter saltiness. But, that cannot be. I was too young to remember.
The story my mother told all of our life together was how, as soon as the polio vaccine was available, she brought me to get it. I was born in 1954. The year 1952 was the worst in United States history for polio — there were almost 58,000 new cases — so she ignored all the naysayers who said I would get the disease if she had me take the drink. They were wrong, as they were, but conversely so, when she was told to get a prescription for thalidomide for use as a medication for her morning sickness. No, absolutely not, and I was born without defect.
During our Sunday telephone conversation, after I tell my daughter Rachael all my “news” of the week and we speak of the news of the world, she says to me, “I need to ask you something.” I perk up. Seldom does she request anything of me now. (She is 50, having been born in January of 1975; I am now 70.)
“What’s that?”
“I can’t believe we’re even going to have this conversation, but did I ever get my polio vaccines?”
“I can’t remember. Maybe you should call your father, maybe he’ll know.” Sitting at my computer, while Rachael speaks of how she never thought the subject of polio vaccines would ever be re-visited, I look up some statistics, “It says the last case of ‘wild’ polio was in 1979. Whatever that means in regards to you getting …”
She interrupts me, “Wait, I know where I can look. When you gave me the journals, you gave me my baby book, too.” (The journals were a daily diary I kept of her life for years.) “It’s in the crawl space.”
“Call me and let me know,” I say to her before we hang up.
An hour later, I open my email to find that Rachael has written, “… of course, the preprinted booklets from the pediatrician used male pronouns as the default …” There are three attachments. The first is a copy of her “Record of Immunization,” yes, from that baby book. I see alongside “Polio,” that I have written, in my very young, round, loopy handwriting March 26th 1975, May 21st 1975, July 31st 1975.
The other two attachments are from those preprinted booklets. On March 26th, Rachael is 9 weeks old, 13 pounds, 24 inches. On May 21st, she is 4 months old, 15 pounds, 8 ounces, 26 ½ inches. I read, “He has received his first oral polio drink, to protect him from polio. There is usually no reaction to the drink.”
I email Rachael back, “I’m so happy to know all this, to know that you are protected.”
In 1955, those first vaccines were made available and my mother did not hesitate to make sure I was part of this greatest achievement in global public health. But now, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is Trump’s U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has exhibited an inconsistent stance on polio vaccines and is a strong supporter of anti-vaccine activism which, under his tenure, is gaining strength. (Measles were officially eliminated from the United States in 2000. As of Aug. 19, 2025, there have been 1,375 confirmed cases in 42 states.)
My daughter cannot believe that we are even having this conversation. My mother, if she were still alive, would know how dangerous it is, by actions like this, to undermine public confidence in proven cures. After all, she believed in science, but mostly she believed in protecting her daughter, in protecting me.
Barbara A. Rouillard of Springfield is an award-winning writer with over 100 publishing credits. Retiring in 2015, Ms. Rouillard was a public school teacher for over 32 years. She is fluent in French and a politically-active member of her community.