Polio may make a comeback – and it started with linking autism to vaccination

I was struck by the illness as a child. We will put everyone in danger if we allow discredited reports to proliferate

One of my earliest memories, perhaps the earliest of all, goes back to when I was about four years old, in 1946, living in the Bronx borough of New York City. I awoke to a searing headache and fiery fever, aching all over. I remember a tube being inserted into my privates, to help withdraw urine. I awoke again, I don't know how much later, hours or days, in a hospital ward. In the bed next to me was a man engaged with a terrifying contraption I now know was an iron lung, to help him breathe.

I could breathe OK, and the terrible fever and headaches had subsided. But I couldn't move my legs.