In 1950, more than 120,000 children caught whooping cough and more than a thousand of them died. In the same year, 33,000 people caught paralytic polio. Most were left with partial paralysis, commonly in the legs. Almost 2,000 children died of polio.
Also in 1950, nearly 500 people died of tetanus and more than 400 children died of diphtheria. About 450 children died of measles.
Sixty years ago, childhood was a dangerous time. Children didn't usually die of these diseases, but everybody knew somebody who had gotten sick with them.
Today, we do not even fear these diseases. What changed?
Credit a most ambitious program in public health: a concerted effort to vaccinate every child and wipe out these diseases.
Did it work? In 2011 (the latest figures available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), there were no polio deaths. Likewise, in 2011, nobody even caught diphtheria, let alone died of it. In that year, there were nine cases of tetanus, none deadly.
The real victory, however, was smallpox. In the 1950s, some 50 million people worldwide contracted smallpox. Approximately 20 percent of them died. About 40 percent of children who contracted it died. It was a horrible, painful and debilitating disease, leaving its victims scarred and disfigured -- if they lived.
The World Heath Organization mounted an effort to vaccinate everybody -- and that meant everybody on the planet. In 1977, the last person died of smallpox. In 1979, the WHO declared the disease wiped out. If you were born after 1980 (if you are 33 or younger), you will not have any memory of this awful disease.
In some ways, we are the victims of our success. Young parents today have grown up in a world in which most children survive childhood. Debilitating diseases such as mumps, diphtheria, tetanus, polio and whooping cough are just words today, not the horrors they once were.
Because of that, many young parents are choosing to not vaccinate their children. In fact, the California Legislature has passed a bill making it easier for parents to enroll their children in public schools without having them vaccinated. The parent only needs to stipulate that they are morally opposed to vaccinations and the child is allowed to enter school.
Is this wise? Whooping cough cases have been increasing in the last five years, along with measles and mumps.
Some parents are concerned about giving too many vaccinations at one time to a baby.
They may have a point. The medical establishment needs to hear these parents. There may be a better way to vaccinate our children. But not vaccinating them at all is opening the door to our tragic past.
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The author is a Vacaville resident and member of The Reporter editorial board. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org.