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Please enjoy this shot of Elvis getting a polio shot backstage at the Ed Sullivan show as part of a pro-vaccination campaign in 1956, posted here today for no reason whatsoever

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Sugar cubes were Sabin's vaccine (oral polio vaccine, "OPV"). Elvis is shown getting Salk's vaccine which is an injection (IPV). IPV gives weaker immunity but unlike OPV it can't make you sick. OPV is still much safer than being exposed to wild polio, so

the strategy has been to use OPV when there's need for the higher protection then switching to IPV when the wild virus is rare and water quality is high. Also, no needles means no needle-stick infections, etc. The US was switching to IPV in Elvis's time.

“Oh yeah? And what became of the three people in that photo?” “They’re all dead! Just goes to show, vaccines don’t prevent death…” - RFK 😬

To be fair, one of the initial batches of the Salk Vaccine actually infected people with polio. Fortunately, it was a saner time, the problem was identified and fixed, saving many millions of people from getting the dreaded disease. Everything in medicine carries at least some risk.

I am old enough to remember the fear of getting polio. I was a child when the vaccine came. My parents made sure the family was vaccinated asap and we got all the boosters. The last one was a drop of liquid on a sugar cube.

The BoomerMagas will remember that photo and know it to be true. The ones that need to know, the ones with young kids, already sucked into the Q hole of muckLies, susceptible to KennedyLore another vaxxerNonsense, will not.

Just not sure what the intent is: to show racists arent all anti-vax? An appeal to cool that supercedes the fraudulently heroic image of some guy from mississippi who built a fortune off the creativity of others and died bloated on the toilet? The big bopper never got vacinnated?