29th June 1997

Post-Polio featured in this weeks MedPulse

An article on Post-Polio Syndrome and a Guest Editorial on the successes and failures of Polio Vaccines are featured in this weeks MedPulse.

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The Post-Polio Syndrome: Current Concepts and Treatment

The post-polio syndrome--muscular weakness and atrophy that occurs decades after recovery from polio--is a serious concern for the more than 1.5 million survivors of polio in the US. This article reviews the most recent diagnostic techniques and approaches to treatment.
[Infect Med 14(6):462, 465, 466, 471, 472, 474-478, 1997]

Guest Editorial - Warts on the Poliosaur Bones: The Successes and Failures of Poliomyelitis Vaccines in the US

Polio is almost gone but certainly not forgotten. Even though wild-type poliovirus has been eradicated from the Western Hemisphere, cases of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis still occur in the US and other developed countries. New guidelines that recommend the use of enhanced inactivated polio vaccine should reduce the number of cases.
[Infect Med 14(6):438-440, 442, 443, 1997]

25th June 1997

Chicago Polio Survivor Returns as Archbishop

Archbishop Francis George was recently installed as the pastoral leader of Chicagoland's Roman Catholic community following the death of Cardinal Bernardin. According to the Chicago Tribune newspaper, ever since he attended the first grade at St. Pascal's school on Chicago's Far Northwest Side, Francis George had a burning desire to become a priest. That dream survived an attack of paralytic polio at age 13 when he was in the eighth grade.

So rather than start high school at the Quigley Preparatory Seminary to study for the Archdiocese of Chicago and use public transportation commuting every day with his new crutches and braces, George opted instead to attend the resident minor seminary, St. Henry's in Downstate Belleville, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a missionary order in which he was later ordained.

Father George rose quickly through the ranks of the order and spent 12 years in Rome after he was elected their Vicar General. In 1990, when he was installed as Bishop in the Yakima WA Diocese, where he served for six years, he warned his parishioners about his bad leg. Because he wears a brace, he said, he might occasionally stumble.

"I will fall from time to time," he told them. "And I just ask you to pick me up and let us continue on."

And even Pope John Paul II made allowances for George's orthopedic difficulties. The pallium ceremony is held in Rome once each year for those who were named Archbishop of their See during the previous 12 months. George attended in 1996 after he was named Archbishop for Portland OR.

At the ceremony, the Pope did not make George kneel to receive the pallium as Archbishops usually do. The Pope stood up so that Archbishop George wouldn't have to kneel and get back up - he knew that would be awkward and painful for him.

Tom Walter