1979 Dystopian Vision That Came True

I HAVE THIS recurring nightmare. Jonas Salk has just announced his cure for polio. A bill is introduced in Congress to require mandatory inoculation of school children under HEW direction. Opposition then appears. Ronald Reagan urges "free choice by parents rather than compulsion by government." Mobil runs advertisements with the headline, "From gas tanks to bloodstreams. Where will government go next?" An associate professor of economics does a study for the American Enterprise Institute demonstrating that more lives may be lost by car accidents en route to doctors' offices than will be saved by the Salk vaccine. Abbott Labs argues that its product, "Polioaide," has been effective since thousands of doctors have been prescribing it for two decades. The bill then fails in the House Commerce Committee by one vote -- after the wheelchair industry, citing job losses, gives $200,000 in campaign gifts to committee members.