Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/13/polio-survivor-paul-alexander-who-spent-over-70-years-in-an-iron-lung-has-died-of-covid-19.html
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Interview from 2017:
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Nasty disease that’s still around due to morons who don’t vaccinate. My mother had it twice before the Salk shots. When that came available you bet your bippy we all got it. (Yeah I’m old.)
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Anti-vaxxers are hard at work making sure that those iron lungs won’t go to waste in the future.
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They have one in the Boston Museum of Science, and now when I go there and see it, I think, “Well, it’s good this thing seems to be well taken care of. We’ll probably need it.”
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There have been problems for the few people who still depend on them as the repair techs retire or die, as there isn’t training available. Also, a minuscule customer base gives little incentive for manufacturers to keep parts available. However, I doubt any of them are digital-imagine having your lungs as part of the IOT!
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Re: problems with repairs
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There was a small outbreak of polio in New York City a couple of years ago, which prompted my mother to tell me I’d never been vaccinated against it. Not because of any vaccine hesitancy on their part, but because by the time I was born in 1968, it had all but been eliminated in the US, the vaccine was no longer mandatory, and at the age I would have gotten it, I was allergic to practically everything so my doctor suggested I not get it. And now polio is back, the measles are back. We, as a species, are morons.
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Did you get that vaccine?
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I have not yet. I may. I need to talk to my doctor about it.
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Last I read, there were only three working iron lungs in the country, and a single company in Texas that was researching how to build replacement parts for them.
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When they say he spent 70 years alive using the iron lung. does that mean he literally spent 70 years on his back in side that? was he essentially paralyzed from the neck down?
thankfully no;
While Alexander spent much of his time in the mechanical respirator – which used pressure to artificially pump air into his lungs – he was not completely confined to it. He taught himself to breathe by gulping air and forcing it down his throat, allowing him to represent clients in court, travel on a plane and attend disability rights protests. Alexander told the Guardian in 2020 that this breathing technique was like riding a bicycle, but he could only do it while awake. In his last years, however, Alexander had been almost permanently confined to the 300kg machine.
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I was about to say that I was pretty sure that was a Law & Order episode, except in that case, a kid hacked into machines that delivered insulin, I believe. And they did have an episode about an anti-vaxxer being on trial because her kid gave another kid measles…with deadly results!
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Eventually they’ll pivot against iron lungs. They might stop at leeches.
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If someone can only spend at most 3 minutes outside an iron lung, this means they’ve basically been in one room for the past 70 years, attended by people with (one supposes) at least a modicum of medical training.
WHO THE HELL BROUGHT COVID INTO THAT ROOM?
Why weren’t people masking around the – literally – most at-risk person on the planet?
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this is what makes me so so so incredibly upset. someone brought COVID into this man’s house and it killed him. it’s awful.
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This, IMO, is the real danger of telling people the pandemic is over and everything should “get back to normal” - the unnecessary infections, long-term health problems, and deaths that happen as a result. Too many believe that means there is no longer any threat, and masking is something done out of paranoia rather than a precaution. I’ve encountered people who think being vaccinated is enough, when it’s not.
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/is-covid-19-still-a-pandemic/
Agreed 
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They might well have been masking, a mask greatly reduces, but does not eliminate the risk of infection.
Mr Alexander sounds like a wonderful man, we could learn a lot about his desire to live life to its fullest extent.
Oh, and get vaccinated. That includes checking with your doctor if you need a booster for any of your childhood shots; not to mention any of the conditions that get more serious with age - such as pneumonia or shingles.
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