
A newly discovered film shows Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had polio, walking - wilsonfiifi
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/06/27/a-newly-discovered-film-shows-franklin-d-roosevelt-who-had-polio-walking/
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bane
For those here who've never encountered polio or know survivors of it, it's
one of the scariest diseases imaginable. My father's generation was one of the
last to commonly grow up with it, and medicine was entirely unable to provide
much support to sufferers of the virus. I know he grew up in a large family,
and I also know that 2 or maybe 3 uncles and aunts of mine were killed in
childhood from it.

One of my uncles also had it and survived, but was crippled for the rest of
his life. He was able to get around okay with braces and a cane until his
mid-50s. And then the trauma from the disease finally caught up to him and he
spent the rest of his life as a paraplegic with breathing troubles that
finally killed him in his early 70s.

My father may have caught it, but was able to fight it off. He also has
Guillain-Barré syndrome and attributes it to that period.

Medicine was so unable to cope with the volume and severity of the patients
during the 30s and 40s that "alternative" remedies came into full fashion. In
1949, a researcher named Fred R. Klenner claimed to have found that high doses
of vitamin-C could ward off the virus. As a result households stricken with
polio often found themselves stuffed to the gills with donations of fruits,
vegetables and strangely goats as it was believed that goat milk had high
doses of the vitamin.

Salk's discovery of the vaccine, the trials around it and the mass global
uptake afterwards have _almost_ rendered the virus extinct. But it could
almost never happen today.

~~~
praneshp
> . In 1949, a researcher named Fred R. Klenner claimed to have found that
> high doses of vitamin-C could ward off the virus.

This was referenced in an episode of the tv show House

> the mass global uptake afterwards have almost rendered the virus extinct.

This is one of the things India (and from what I've heard, Pakistan) did
really well. Every year around vaccination time (there used to be two doses
taken around a month apart) there used to be almost propaganda like mass
advertisements, camps, etc. When I was a kid I knew of a handful of older
people that had polio; a kid born today is unlikely to meet someone with
polio. Unfortunately, a very small minority is trying to argue that polio
vaccination is a conspiracy by [pharma companies | government | rich people]
:(

~~~
CamperBob2
_Unfortunately, a very small minority is trying to argue that polio
vaccination is a conspiracy by [pharma companies | government | rich people]
:(_

Not without some justification:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-
vacci...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-
osama-bin-ladens-dna)

This CIA-backed program should have been seen (and prosecuted) as a crime
against humanity, but for some reason, it wasn't.

~~~
krapp
But the anti-vaccination movement is arguing that _real_ vaccinations are a
conspiracy - the post you linked is about CIA agents infiltrating a
vaccination program in order to attempt to verify Bin Laden DNA in a local
population.

I've read several articles about this incident and none of them claim the
vaccines themselves were tampered with, or poisoned, so it seems neither the
article or the operation described support the premise held by anti-vaxxers
that vaccinations either don't work or are actively and intentionally harmful.

~~~
Taniwha
The antivaccination weirdos never got to see my grandmother (in NZ, a western
country) walk in a leg brace her entire life, they are dangerous, we don't
shame them enough

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Maultasche
He was able walk for short distances, but only with difficulty and a lot of
pain. He often used a cane to help him out.

Winston Churchill records seeing Roosevelt slowly walk over to greet him, and
knew how difficult it was for Roosevelt to do that.

~~~
neonate
That's what the article is about, and what the film shows. Apparently there
wasn't this kind of footage before.

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fredsted
Youtube link:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYN1apQHPx0&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYN1apQHPx0&feature=youtu.be)

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saurik
> Roosevelt was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He was
> diagnosed with poliomyelitis at the time, but his symptoms are more
> consistent with Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) – an autoimmune neuropathy
> which Roosevelt's doctors failed to consider as a diagnostic possibility.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27s_pa...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27s_paralytic_illness)

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philliphaydon
The footage was less surprising to me than the fact that Photographers and
cameraman had the upmost respect and empathy back then to not video or
photograph him walking or getting out of a car or such.

In this day n age there is absolutely 0 respect because negative news sells.

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goodJobWalrus
Ok, I have to ask, what kind of camera was that? Did we really have film
cameras small enough that could be casually carried by tourists in 1935?

~~~
flashman
My guess would be a Kodak 16mm handheld. The Cine-Kodak Model B was introduced
in 1923 and a few subsequent models had been released by 1935:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cine-Kodak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cine-
Kodak)

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maxxxxx
FDR often leaned on people's arms to get support so he could appear to be
walking or standing. In this video he does it too.

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JJMcJ
If you saw Ken Burns' series on The Roosevelts, there was plenty of film of
this.

FDR had developed a way of moving stiff legged in his braces. It was painful
and difficult.

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dang
Url changed from [http://time.com/5325424/video-president-roosevelt-
walking/](http://time.com/5325424/video-president-roosevelt-walking/), which
points to this.

~~~
_wmd
The Washington Post link is subscription-only at least for users in Europe,
and the video itself is hosted on YouTube. It should probably be reverted to
the original link

~~~
neonate
[http://archive.is/DuM4w](http://archive.is/DuM4w)

