The battle to beat Polio

[Antaresisastar]

Anyone watched this? Had it on record and just watching now. What a terrifying disease and so recent, I remember having the vaccine on a sugar lump (I am 51).

It was a fascinating programme. It's such a recent disease. I hadn't realised how widespread it was, and how much fear it produced.

As an (ex)scientist I couldn't believe those lab workers sucking up live vaccine in pipettes. I have a friend, only a few years older than me, disabled by Polio. I have never asked my parents about how Polio had an impact on their friends or their friends children, I will now.

Mary berry had it as a child didn't she?

really interesting documentary, hadn't realised it only really surfaced in the uk in the early 1900s.

My sister-in-law got it at 3. Her legs stopped working. The family were quarantined for months even the siblings at school. She was told she would die a teenager but she has just turned 60. She is very short and struggles to walk but leads a normal life with her adapted car. She has children and grandchildren.

It was really interesting. I was amazed by the man who had been part of the test programme and now was a doctor who has written about the disease, a real childhood influence.

The American public information film seemed familiar to me. Does anyone know if there was a UK equivalent that was shown here? I remember the shadowy figure and being scared by it. Don't know if I've actually seen it before or it's a false memory, iykwim.

Missed this, what channel was it on? I'd like to catch up with it. I remember it being a very scary thing when I was a child (I'm late 40s).

I'm a scientist too, I was trained never to mouth pipette, but have seen older colleagues doing it. Not with anything as dangerous as this though.

I've just finished reading Mary Berry's autobiography, sounds as though she was very fortunate and had good care and made a more or less complete recovery. You can see she doesn't have the complete range of movement in her left hand when she cooks.

It was a BBC programme so is on iPlayer, but only for a few more days.

watch it! it is excellent, well done and not dumbed down. It was news to himself that Stephanie Flanders is the daughter of the late Michael. I was brought up on Flanders and Swann, now I've seen some footage you can see the efforts Flanders had to make just to breathe.

it is terrifyingly recent and of course has still not been eliminated. (the reasons for this make me very angry) We should be so grateful for the vaccine.

Thanks, just checked, 4 days left.

Bookmarked to watch tomorrow, though I have previously read about the disease and the race to find a vaccine.

One of DH's friends had polio as a boy. He's had to wear calipers ever since to support his legs. We're all now at the stage when age-related conditions can occur, but he's also suffering from post-polio syndrome as well. It was a horrific disease that caused so much grief, but apparently even for those, like DH's friend, who survived and built a career, married, had a family, etc., about a third will get the double whammy of the damage the disease caused affecting them again when they're older.

Finally got round to watching it last night. Absolutely fascinating, I had no idea about the history of the development of the vaccines and although I had some awareness of things like iron lungs and leg calipers, the footage of all those poor children was very moving.

We should be very grateful for the vaccines and all those brave people who worked with the live virus or allowed their children to test them.