I’m writing to take issue with Leonard Cohen’s March 20 letter, “Polio epidemic may provide answers.” He indicates that the triumph over polio was the rule in handling epidemics, in that the vaccine was the key to stopping the spread of the disease.
But polio was actually the exception, not the rule, in the outstanding epidemics of the past 200 years. The other major infectious diseases were all brought under control through dramatically improved public health practices.
These included eliminating child labor, imposing the 40-hour work week, creating safe and sanitary housing standards for workers, and many other public health approaches that were brought about in response to the many epidemics caused by industrialization.
Whooping cough (pertussis) was almost completely eliminated before the vaccine came into widespread use, down to less than 100th of the levels of its peak.
Measles had been largely eliminated by the time that vaccine was even introduced, and deaths from measles had already virtually disappeared.
Diphtheria was in sharp decline by the time that vaccine was introduced, having dropped to less than half of its peak; it had a resurgence following the introduction of the vaccine, then resumed its decline at roughly the same rate it had before the vaccine.
Scarlet fever had been reduced to less than one-fifth of its peak before penicillin was introduced, which was then used to manage the disease (no vaccine was ever made for scarlet fever).
Strong, well-informed, humane public health practices remain our number one weapon against dangerous epidemics.
Lundy Bancroft
Florence