Free and open to the public
RSVP required - Please call 617-573-7080
The goal of this collaborative event, celebrating the historic milestone of the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine, is to honor New England's polio survivors and the healthcare professionals who cared for them.
This inspiring event will educate polio survivors and their guests about the history and impact of polio on its victims and the country, and inform all who attend about Post-Polio Syndrome. The event will celebrate survival, highlighting the support polio patients provide to one another, and showing how individuals disabled by polio have gone on, despite accessibility and attitudinal barriers common in the 1950's and even today, to live productive lives.
An exhibit comprised of artifacts from the Polio Oral History Project and the Children's Hospital Boston archives, photographs, news clips and excerpts from Polio Oral History Project interviews, will greet attendees to the event. An educational program about the history of polio, the development of the Salk vaccine, the legacy of polio survivors and Post-Polio Syndrome will be the focus of the event. Relatives of Dr. John Enders, 1954 Noble Prize recipient for his work at Children's Hospital isolating the poliovirus, and the granddaughter of one of the most famous polio survivors of all time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, will be invited to attend.
The exhibit space will later serve as the backdrop to a concluding reception. Attendees will be able to view the artifacts and stories in a more leisurely fashion, and will learn more about the history of polio and how the struggle to overcome the disease led to medical breakthroughs and social change.
For additional information, please contact:
Anna Rubin, Education and Outreach Coordinator
International Rehabilitation Center for Polio at Spaulding Framingham
email: agrubin @ partners.org (omit the spaces)
phone: 508-872-2200, ext. 241
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