Sarah Gibbard Cook
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American Health

2/3/2025

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Fewer and fewer Americans are old enough to remember the deep fear of polio, the closed swimming pools, the schoolchildren lined up for the new vaccine. The disease left one of my schoolmates in braces for life. Globally, polio killed or paralyzed about half a million children a year. Today endemic polio occurs only in Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan, with fewer than a hundred cases last year.

One thing I’ve learned through polio work is that viruses don’t respect boundaries. Business travelers and vacationers can bring them back unawares. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) collaborate to contain deadly infections like Ebola before they reach American shores. Their scientists took the lead to eradicate smallpox and nearly stop polio.* CDC can’t do it alone. Protecting Americans requires neutral access to WHO data, laboratory samples, and outbreak alerts from many countries, not just our friends.

Vaccines to protect American seniors from flu are re-formulated for each year’s strains. They would be less targeted if our scientists couldn’t learn what strains are circulating abroad. Setting aside issues of WHO efficiency and funding, U.S. global leadership, or other nations’ health, I know that I am personally safer when CDC and WHO work together.

* Major funding for polio eradication comes from Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and foreign aid from many nations. UNICEF coordinates vaccine procurement and community education.
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    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 


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