For Some Survivors, Polio Casts a Long Shadow

Written by Freida Klotz for Undark Magazine

“Decades after the vaccine, adults with post-polio syndrome are struggling with symptoms — and looking for answers.”

“Brad Fuller was a toddler when he contracted polio in 1952 and was sent to a hospital miles from his northeast Pennsylvania home. He stayed there for nine months, enduring long stints in an iron lung, a large metallic ventilator that helped him breathe. Fuller’s parents were allowed only rare visits. His earliest memory is of a nurse holding him in a mineral pool, instructing him to kick his legs.

That year marked the epidemic’s peak, when roughly 58,000 American children and adults developed polio and 3,000 of them died. In this respect, Fuller was lucky. The disease spared him, leaving only a weakened left leg and right arm. He was able to play tennis and football and train as a clinical psychologist. He built a career leading non-profits while teaching part time at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Despite his childhood ordeal, Fuller said, he felt invincible.”

To read this complete, compelling story, that includes survivors Marny Eulberg and Carol Ferguson,

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