Andrew Harris
Andy was born in Brandon, Manitoba in 1946. While never contracting polio himself, he recalls how mothers in his neighbourhood were worried about polio. On his walk to school, he would see houses with a quarantine sign on their door, not only due to polio, but other childhood illnesses like diptheria.
In 1952, Andy was part of a group of school children who participated in a clinical trial for the Salk vaccine.
"What did I know about it as a kid? Not very much other than it was scary. And I had to get those damn needles! I was very young at the time. So I think I was probably protected a little bit from, from the panic and the fear."
Everyone was thrilled when the vaccine trials were proven to work. A downside for Andy was discovering he had only received a placebo vaccine as part of the trial and therefore had to get vaccinatated again in 1955 - this time for real.
"I was mad because I was in the control group [and had] to get all the needles all over again. But the fact is, we did lick polio and it left us with a bit of optimism once it was finished..."
Before the vaccine was approved, a childhood friend contracted polio. Andy recalled that:
"When he got back out of the hospital, he had a very severe limp and lived with this limp all of his life because of the polio, one of the side effects of it. So he was the one that I probably have the most personal memory of, but there were others. We became very close friends, and we often walked to school together. I remember him talking about how frightening the iron lung was, the machine they put the kids to help them breathe. What a frightening experience! But he made it, he survived"
Another personal connection Andy had to polio was his sister-in-law who worked as a nurse at the hospital in Brandon. Part of her job was to escort children who had contracted polio from Brandon to the hospital in Winnipeg, a two and a half hour drive away.
Today, Andy lives in Brantford with his wife and their dog.