In an essay, author Judith Shaw Beatty recalls how, in 1949, she contracted polio, which was the very same year that approximately 42,000 other Americans were diagnosed with the debilitating illness. In her essay, she writes about her time spent in an iron lung in the local hospital, the poor treatment she received while there, and her return to school after suffering such loss. However, most of her writing is focused on her ongoing work as a vaccine advocate and her thoughts on the current anti-vaxxer movement.

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