By summer’s end, 184 people in Wytheville had polio. This meant one in every 30 residents caught the disease, giving the town ...

Members of the Post Polio Network volunteer at a recent health and disability fair in New Hope, Pa. Jim Smith was only 2 years old when he suddenly became paralyzed from the neck down. It was 1945, ...

In the summer of 1950 fear gripped the residents of Wytheville, Virginia. Movie theaters shut down, baseball games were cancelled and panicky parents kept their children indoors — anything to keep ...

Advertisements for freezers, lounge chairs and remedies for itching, gas and constipation were on the fifth page of Uniontown’s Evening Standard on April 16, 1952, which was a Wednesday. As they ...

Polio was eliminated from most parts of the world as part of a decadeslong effort by the World Health Organization and partners to wipe out the disease. But polio is one of the world’s most infectious ...

Polio is a contagious virus that at first may give flu-like symptoms but could in some more serious cases progress to meningitis or even paralysis. The CDC recommends four doses of the inactivated ...

There’s a reason you rarely hear about people catching polio—let alone dying from the highly infectious disease—particularly in the U.S. And if you’re under the age of 70, you’ve likely never had to ...

Growing up, my siblings and I would occasionally get to look through my mom’s scrapbook full of greeting cards from friends and neighbors and black-and-white photos of children in hospital beds. Too ...

For years, global health officials have used billions of drops of an oral vaccine in a remarkably effective campaign aimed at wiping out polio in its last remaining strongholds — typically, poor, ...

Alexander Tin is a digital reporter for CBS News based in the Washington, D.C. bureau. He covers federal public health agencies. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming ...