Welcome to The Asylum Archives! 

Today’s episode is a heavy one, so please take breaks as needed. I did whilst researching and editing. These histories are hard to talk about, especially for those of us in the disabled community, but I believe it is vital to do so. How else can we honour those who suffered and work to ensure such atrocities do not happen again?

Also, remember The Asylum Archives is now also a podcast! Look for the series on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: if you have other requests for platforms please let me know 🥰

⏳Time stamps:

00:00 Intro

03:54 What Is Polio?

08:01 The History of the Polio Vaccine

15:22 “Cheaper Than Calves”: Wider Abuse of Disabled People in Research

19:43 The Legacy of the Polio Vaccine

21:46 Summary

🖇 Links to Articles and Petitions:

https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/polio-20th-century-epidemic

https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/polio

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/poliomyelitis/facts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

https://www.macleans.ca/society/the-tragic-story-of-a-canadian-vaccine-trailblazer/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/04/14/cutter-polio-vaccine-paralyzed-children-coronavirus/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/spoonful-sugar-helps-radioactive-oatmeal-go-down-180962424/

https://priceonomics.com/the-mit-science-club-for-disabled-children/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/leahrosenbaum/2020/06/12/willowbrook-scandal-hepatitis-experiments-hideous-truths-of-testing-vaccines-on-humans/?sh=78a090d3279c

💌 Keep in touch 💌

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Insight_Illness

IG: https://www.instagram.com/insight_illness/

TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMRcWrC6N/

🎧 I’m still figuring out my audio and, yes, those are trains in the background that I unfortunately can’t remove completely! Please let me know if anything is particularly off 🙂 

📼 My old videos have been archived but some of them are accessible via this link:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUO7Y7jU9QOeY20ltEnxFlA4_mbiGI_Ka

🎤 Music produced by Papa Boxhead at Boxhead Studios.

Disclaimer:

I mean no offence at all by these videos, my goal is to respectfully raise awareness of often-forgotten people and increase transparency in the history of mental healthcare. Every case I cover is over 100 years old but, whilst the person I’m speaking about is no longer with us, I know their family may be so I treat their history with the same care I would want for my own. For extra anonymity, the names of patients have been changed in every video.

I also recognise that these case studies are drawn from medical records and are therefore recorded from the perspective of medical practitioners rather than the person themselves. Given the level of stigma often present in mental healthcare, especially within the eras we’re discussing, the case studies need to be taken with a grain of salt and not viewed as representing the entirety of the person they discuss. Psychiatric records are not biographies and will never capture the person as they were known to friends, to family, or to themselves. 

Thank you for listening! ❤️