I’m often struck by how ahead of the curve medical innovations have been in the United States of America. Years ago, I worked with a man who was brilliant, a programmer who had a Ph.D. in mathematics, who also had a disability. After several months of working with him and sharing a few meals together, we got to know each other. I learned his disability was due to catching polio as a child. That seemed really strange to me because he was younger than I am, and I got the polio vaccine as a child. Most American kids born since the mid-1950s have gotten the vaccine, and we’ve never met anyone with polio. Read more