A Review of "Friends and Partners: The History of Polio."
|
|
Date Published: December 16, 2024
|
Background on Basil O’Connor Who Lead the Fight on Infantile Paralysis—Polio
Basil O’Connor (1892-1972) was the first president of The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), serving from its founding in 1938 to 1972. His friends knew him as “Doc.” He received degrees from Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. His career as a lawyer led to a law partnership with Franklin Delano Roosevelt with whom he led the fight to conquer polio, first as president of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and subsequently through The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), founded in 1938.
Mr. O’Connor’s foremost achievement as president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) was the leadership of a public crusade – popularly known as the March of Dimes – based on the philanthropy of common people. The NFIP March of Dimes campaigns financed the medical and rehabilitative care of polio patients and the massive medical research effort that led to the approval and licensing of the Salk polio vaccine in 1955.
Mr. O’Connor’s foremost achievement as president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) was the leadership of a public crusade – popularly known as the March of Dimes – based on the philanthropy of common people. The NFIP March of Dimes campaigns financed the medical and rehabilitative care of polio patients and the massive medical research effort that led to the approval and licensing of the Salk polio vaccine in 1955.
Extracted from March of Dimes Archives by Peter E. Greulich
A Review of “Friends and Partners: The Legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Basil O'Connor in the History of Polio” by David W. Rose
- Reviews of the Day: 2016
- Selected Insights from “Friends and Partners”
- This Author’s Thoughts on “Friends and Partners”
Reviews of the Day: 2016
Unfortunately, no "Reviews of the Day" from 2016-17 were found.
Selected Insights from “Friends and Partners”
- Polio—Infantile Paralysis, Visually Disabled and Killed Children
|
“Actually, polio was never quite the raging epidemic portrayed in the press. Ten times as many children would be killed in accidents in these years, and three times as many would die of cancer.
“The national dread of polio had two main causes [and] one was the intensely visual nature of the disease. A person could walk into a restaurant without knowing who had heart disease or leukemia but no one could miss the telltale signs of polio: crutches, leg braces, and wheel chairs.” - Basil O’Connor Surrounded Himself with the Best and Brightest “Basil O’Connor knew little about science, much less the dynamics of polio. What he did know, however, was that progress on this front had been painfully slow. With abundant resources at his disposal, O’Connor convinced Tom Rivers, a pioneering virologist, to form a committee on scientific research ... and then he hired a superb administrator named Harry Weaver to oversee the agenda.
“Rivers and Weaver agreed that prevention was the best path to follow—a vaccine.” |
Front Cover of David W. Rose's "Friends and Partners."
|
|
- Basil O’Connor’s Style of Leadership and Organization “Though he dis-ingenuously claimed he was just a ‘dumb lawyer’ and not a scientist. This self-deprecation scarcely concealed his strategy of surrounding himself with the finest medical, scientific, and management advisors of the time.
“His insistence on careful deliberation of ‘the facts’ in any decision, even the most momentous, left no doubt among his peers of his keen abilities as decision maker when discussion was ended and all facts and advice were on the table. ... “Throughout his life Basil O'Connor sought not philosophical depth, but action in an organizational context; not argumentation or endless preparation, but essential facts that lead directly to confident decisions and their speedy implementation. ... "A leader need not always project the soft-spoken humility of a Gandhi to be genuinely humanitarian, but the effectiveness of an administration will always be judged by its resulting achievements." |
Back Cover of David W. Rose's "Friends and Partners."
|
- Was an American/Western Lifestyle Change Responsible for the Rise of Polio?
|
"Some see polio as a disease of cleanliness.
"As Western nations industrialized, they became more health conscious. Clean water, better sanitation, and stricter personal hygiene became hallmarks of modern life. What Americans could not foresee, however, was that their antiseptic revolution brought risks as well as rewards. "As these reforms advanced, people were less likely to come into contact with poliovirus early in life, when the infection is milder and maternal antibodies offer temporary protection. "The end result would be a vastly expanding pool of victims--the most famous, of course, being Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)." |
This Author's Thoughts on "Friends and Partners"
|
Unless Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants his picture taken alongside a new generation of 21st Century children leaning on crutches, rolling along in wheel chairs, or condemned to a life in an iron lung, he might want to read this book first.
As president of the NFIP, Basil O’Connor’s vision was of a large-scale organization to defeat polio and it culminated not in the abatement of but the elimination of polio epidemics in the United States of America in the late 1950s. This book is about the historic struggle, the leadership and subsequent gambles of many to defeat the virus, and the benefits of developing the polio vaccine.
|
Stopping polio vaccinations might possibly mean, once again, seeing children, as shown in this picture, in wheel chairs and using canes and crutches.
|
May RFK Jr. read and learn from it!
Cheers,
- Peter E.
Cheers,
- Peter E.