October 28, 1956: Elvis Presley Gets the Polio Vaccine

October 28, 1956: Millions of young people's fears over getting the recently-approved polio vaccine are wiped out: Their hero got it, on the biggest show on TV.

Ed Sullivan initially said he wouldn't put Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show, because of his sexually suggestive onstage moves. But after Ed's competitor, Steve Allen, did, and got huge ratings, Ed could no longer ignore the appeal. As the title of one of his greatest hits albums said, Fifty Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.

Ed would end up putting Elvis on his show 3 times. It was only on the 3rd one, on January 6, 1957, that he was famously shown only from the waist up. I have a separate entry for that post.

The polio virus had been ravaging America for years, and approximately 60,000 children were infected annually. In 1955, hope famously arrived in the form of Jonas Salk's vaccine. But despite the literally crippling effects of the virus, and the promising results of the vaccination, many Americans simply weren't getting vaccinated. In fact, when Elvis first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, immunization levels among American teens were at an abysmal 0.6 percent.

You might think that the threats of death and paralysis would be enough to motivate people to get vaccinated. Yet, convincing people to get a vaccine is a challenging endeavor, as the 2020-21 COVID pandemic would later prove. Intuitively, it seems like it would be wise to have doctors and other health officials communicate the need to receive the vaccine. Or, failing that, we might just need to give people more information about the effectiveness of the vaccine itself.

Those aren't winning strategies today, and they weren't back in 1956. What did prove successful was Elvis getting the vaccine in front of millions. In fact, after he publicly did so, vaccination rates among American youth skyrocketed to 80 percent after just six months. Kids all over America were answering the vaccine with impressions of Elvis: "Well, uh, uh-huh!"

Contracting poliomyelitis as an adult, like Franklin Roosevelt did before becoming President, had been rare. But so many kids got it that it became known as "infantile paralysis." John F. Collins got it in 1955, just as the vaccine was first being released to the public, during a campaign for City Council in Boston. Having to use a wheelchair didn't stop him from being elected Mayor in 1959 and 1963.

Prominent Canadian politicians Paul Martin Sr. and Paul Martin Jr. got it separately, and survived it, the latter serving as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2006. His predecessor, Jean Chrétien (1993-2003), has physical challenges that suggest he may also be a polio survivor, although he has never claimed to be one, attributing them instead to Bell's palsy.

Jerome Felder, a polio survivor, wrote songs under the name Doc Pomus, including several of Elvis' hits. Bill Cullen, who, between serving as host and panelist, appeared on more TV game shows than anybody, was a polio survivor. Like Elvis in his 3rd Sullivan appearance, he was usually only shown from the waist up, because he was self-conscious about his limp. Wilma Rudolph recovered from childhood polio to win 3 Gold Medals in sprinting at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

In a weird coincidence, Donald Sutherland, who played Hawkeye Pierce in the film version of M*A*S*H, and Alan Alda, who played the character on TV, were both polio survivors. Alda became a close friend of violinist Itzhak Perlman, who contracted the disease at age 4, and, through his television appearances, is, as of October 28, 2022, the living celebrity most visibly affected by the nearly-eradicated disease.

Other celebrities, alive as of the abovementioned date, who survived polio as children include singers Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Donovan and Neil Young; actors Mia Farrow, Joe Bob Briggs, director Francis Ford Coppola and one of his Godfather actors, Gianni Russo; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; Olympic figure skating Gold Medalist Tenley Albright, golfer Jack Nicklaus, and Heisman Trophy winner and U.S. Army General Pete Dawkins.

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October 28, 1956 was a Sunday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the infamously unstable President of Iran from 2005 to 2013, was born on this day.

These NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, 20-3 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Green Bay Packers, 28-21 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 24-16 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals, 17-14 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Los Angeles Rams, 16-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* And the Chicago Bears beat the San Francisco 49ers, 38-21 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

Baseball season had ended 18 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 7 to win the World Series. There were 2 games played in the NBA. The Syracuse Nationals beat their arch-rivals, the Rochester Royals, 91-75 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York. And the Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 94-88 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

And there were 2 games scheduled in the NHL. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 1-1 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Montreal Canadiens, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

April 12, 1955: The Salk Polio Vaccine Is Announced

April 12, 1955: Dr. Jonas Salk announces that the vaccine he had been testing against polio is effective and safe.

The announcement was made at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, on the 10th Anniversary of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had been stricken with polio as a seemingly rising politician, recovered, and got himself elected President, and led the fight against polio, among the other fights he led. I can't prove that the announcement was made on that day for that reason, but it worked out poetically.

People have asked, "Could Franklin Roosevelt be elected President today? After all, he was in a wheelchair." The answer is, "Today, he wouldn't have been in a wheelchair, because, as a child born after 1955, he would have been vaccinated against polio."

As late as 1952, at which point Salk had begun testing his vaccine, polio outbreaks terrified people. Over 58,000 people were stricken with it, and 3,145 people died from it, with thousands of others paralyzed. My mother remembered growing up a block away from a public pool in Tompkins Square Park, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and her mother wouldn't let her swim in it, because polio was often absorbed from water. Even jumping in puddles was forbidden by many mothers.

Salk pressed on, until he was sure his vaccine was effective and safe. He was told that if he patented it, it would make him $1 billion. He made it free to the world. "Could you patent the Sun?" he asked.

The vaccine got, for want of a better choice of words, a booster shot on October 28, 1956. Elvis Presley, the biggest music star in America, is photographed getting the polio vaccine. That led millions of teenagers to get it.

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April 12, 1955 was a Tuesday. Football was out of season. The NBA season had ended 2 days earlier, when the Syracuse Nationals beat the Fort Wayne Pistons in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals was played at the Montreal Forum that night, and the Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-3. But the Wings would win the Cup in Game 7 in Detroit, 2 nights later.

The baseball season had just begun, and 5 games were played:

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 7-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Ted Williams did not play that day.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 14-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. For the Cubs, Randy Jackson hit a home run, and Ernie Banks went 2-for-4 with an RBI. For the Cards, Ken Boyer hit a home run, and Stan Musial went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Cincinnati Redlegs, 4-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. It was the 2nd of 5 seasons when, in the wake of anti-Communist hysteria, the Cincinnati team was known as the Redlegs, not the Reds. Warren Spahn was the winning pitcher, future World Series-winning manager Chuck Tanner hit a home run on the 1st pitch he ever sees in the major leagues, and Hank Aaron went 1-for-4, the hit an RBI triple.

* And the Kansas City Athletics beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. It was the 1st home game for the A's after moving from Philadelphia. Former President Harry S Truman, from nearby Independence, Missouri, throws out the ceremonial first ball. For the Tigers, Al Kaline went 2-for-4, and Red Wilson hits the ballpark's 1st major league home run. For the A's, Bill Wilson hits a home run, and Alex Kellner is the winning pitcher.

The next day, April 13:

* The New York Yankees and the Washington Senators opened the season at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees won, 19-1.

* The New York Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies opened the season at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The Phillies won, 4-2.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates opened the season at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers won, 6-1. Nobody knew it yet, but the "Next Year" that their fans had long waited for had finally come.