On April 12, 1955, it was announced that Jonas Salk had successfully developed a vaccine for the prevention of poliomyelitis, arguably the most notorious disease of the 20th century. Salk’s intravenous vaccine and Albert Sabine’s oral vaccine — developed in 1961 — helped make polio a thing of the past for much of the world’s population.
But for alumnus Grant Wilkins (BA ’47), nothing short of the eradication of polio will do.
“Until we eliminate the last wild virus everywhere in the world, we can’t guarantee that it won’t come back to any country,” Wilkins says.
As a polio survivor, Wilkins knows firsthand just how terrible the disease can be.
Although primarily considered a childhood disease in 1951, doctors diagnosed the then 25-year-old Wilkins with bulbar polio, a particularly fatal form of the disease that paralyzes the throat.
That year doctors started performing tracheotomies on patients with bulbar polio to prevent saliva from entering the lungs, which caused pneumonia and eventual death. If Wilkins had become infected with bulbar polio a year earlier, then the husband and father of three wouldn’t have lived.
“I remember I looked around the ward where I was and I saw all these people in horrible conditions and dying,” says Wilkins, “and I prayed then that if I couldn’t get a complete recovery I would rather not survive.”
Six weeks after entering the hospital Wilkins recovered. His wife, Diane Schoelzel (attd. 1944–46), wasn’t as lucky.
She was diagnosed with lumbar polio two weeks after her husband. Paralyzed from the neck down, Diane was placed in an iron lung, a cumbersome type of medical ventilator. Dependent on the machine, she remained at the hospital for two and a half years until the advent of portable chest respirators allowed her to return home. Diane never regained mobility and died of kidney failure 13 years after contracting polio.
“I know how devastating polio can be to a family,” Wilkins says. “There is no normal family life anymore when the mother or the father is totally paralyzed. My wife couldn’t even hold our kids hands or brush their hair or anything.”
Wilkins' first wife, Diane Schoelzel, was diagnosed with lumbar polio in 1951. Paralyzed from the neck down, she was placed in an iron lung and remained at the hospital for two and a half years until the advent of portable chest respirators allowed her to return home. Photo: Grant Wilkins
Wilkins’ first wife, Diane Schoelzel, was diagnosed with lumbar polio in 1951. Paralyzed from the neck down, she was placed in an iron lung and remained at the hospital for two and a half years until the advent of portable chest respirators allowed her to return home.
For more than 20 years, Wilkins has traveled nationally and internationally sharing his story in an effort to raise money for PolioPlus, a Rotary International program aimed at eradicating the disease.
Wilkins joined Rotary International in 1969, dedicating himself full time to the service organization after retiring in 1985.
“It’s been his life. If he cut himself I think he’d bleed Rotary blue. He’s really inspired a lot of people to donate money,” says Jim Wilkins, Grant’s younger brother, noting that the Rotary Club of Denver, which Wilkins belongs to, has raised more money than any other clubs nationally, contributing $500,000 to the cause.
And the program has delivered results. Prior to the implementation of the PolioPlus program in 1985, 125 countries reported incidences of the disease. Currently, polio remains endemic in only four countries: Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Rotarians through the Polio Plus program have contributed $1.2 billion to fight polio. Altogether $4 billion has been raised from various sources around the world and two billion children have immunized. The result is that polio should be eradicated by 2011.
“That’s a historic event, only one other disease — small pox — has been eradicated from planet Earth,” Wilkins says.
“If it hadn’t been for his passion we wouldn’t be as close as we are to eradicating polio,” says fellow Rotarian Frank Sargent.
And when the dream of a polio-free world becomes a reality, Wilkins has no intention of scaling down his involvement with Rotary. Instead, he plans to focus the organization’s efforts towards addressing another global health concern — unsafe drinking water.