OKLAHOMA STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION / From the desk of Edgar Boyd
Last March, 78-year-old Paul Alexander died in his Texas home.
While his name is unrecognizable to most of us, his death made national news.
Alexander was an attorney, TikTok influencer and author, but most notably, he spent more than 70 years of his life in an iron lung due to complications from poliomyelitis (polio). Alexander’s iron lung was a relic from decades past when hospital wards were filled with people — largely children — tucked inside the gargantuan devices for months or years on end, most commonly due to the effects of polio.
Before immunization against the polio virus was widely available, polio was one of the most feared diseases in America. Children were highly susceptible to catching the virus, which can be transmitted through airborne particles, and in severe cases could cause encephalitis, paralysis and death. By 1952 — the year Alexander was infected — cases of polio reached a peak of 20,000 in the U.S.
When Jonas Salk’s breakthrough polio immunization became available in 1955, parents lined up outside schools, hospitals and health clinics to ensure their children were immunized. Released by the Eisenhower administration and supported by Americans of all walks of life, the polio vaccine contributed to a 50% decrease in polio-related deaths in the first year alone and virtually eradicated the disease in our country within 30 years.
As time has marched on, the effectiveness of immunizations in preventing diseases has created a secondary issue of cultural amnesia. Younger generations didn’t experience the danger of unchecked polio or many other vaccine-preventable diseases. Widespread misinformation online has also contributed to not only mistrust in the health care system but also a dangerous decline in immunization rates throughout our country.
In Oklahoma alone, immunization rates have dropped in recent years, from 89.1% in 2021 to 87.5% in 2023. Vaccine exemption rates have nearly doubled in the same amount of time, going from 2.4% to 4.6%.
Falling vaccination rates are part of the reason Alexander created his TikTok account to educate young viewers. Speaking from his iron lung to an audience of more than 300,000 followers, he answered questions about his life and disease while advocating for immunizations.
As a physician who has witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of vaccine-preventable illnesses, I share Paul Alexander’s desire to spread awareness about the role we all play in abating infectious diseases by choosing to immunize. I speak with patients of all walks of life who struggle with vaccine mistrust, and I understand it can be difficult to decipher fact versus fiction, especially when it comes to the health of your child. Let me be clear: evidence overwhelmingly shows that immunizations are safe, effective and save lives.
August is National Immunization Awareness Month. As children return to school, it’s crucial that our families are up-to-date on immunizations to prevent outbreaks of contagious and, in some cases, potentially fatal diseases, including Coronavirus, measles, mumps and whooping cough. If you are fearful or hesitant about immunizations, I encourage you to turn to your family physician or local health department for guidance rather than social media, where hoaxes and false claims run rampant.
Paul Alexander took his misfortune and turned it upside down, using it as a force for good to ensure future generations of children will never experience the same fate he did. We can all do our part to safeguard the health of our communities by choosing immunizations.
(NOTE: Edgar Morris Boyd, M.D. is an otolaryngologist in Muskogee, where he practices at the Warren Clinic Saint Francis Health System. He is president of the Oklahoma State Medical Association.)
