Forrest Maready > Quotes

“Whether he was asked to help because of this anomaly, or had planned on assisting anyway, the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Edward Rosenow, proponent of the poliomyelitic streptococcus bacteria, arrived in Los Angeles and made clear they weren’t finding the poliovirus simply “because it wasn’t there.”79”
― Forrest Maready, The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio

“Asking your kind indulgence, I want to tell you that I thank God for having placed your noble husband at the head of our government…I realize the great problems he has before him, and therefore hesitate to write to him regarding the one which I’m about to present to you, although I cannot believe that others must’ve brought the same subject to his attention. While chemists the world over are feverishly working to concoct poisonous gases for the wholesale destruction of their fellow-men—which all right minded people condemn, our farmers and horticulturalists are poisoning our own people with deadly insecticides. Compounds of arsenic are in common use, and one of these—lead arsenite[sic]—is sold in enormous quantities…It seems to me the chemists of the country should be set to work to discover an effective insecticide that would be harmless to humanity. And law should be made putting a stop to the use of these poisonous applications…And surely something should be done to stop the use of these poisons on our fruits and vegetables, from the effects of which many people have lost their lives.”
― Forrest Maready, The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio

“As summer approached, Brodie and his team leveraged strong relationships with local public health officials in California, Virginia, and North Carolina, to administer the vaccine through various pediatric outlets. Initially, the results of the trial seemed promising. Brodie reported that “formalin inactivated virus is probably a perfectly safe vaccine in as much as no harmful affects have developed after more than 3,000 inoculations.”
― Forrest Maready, The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio

“No one knows how much of this disease is polio—nearly all adults—nurses and doctors still coming down—much pain and weakness—very few deaths—not nearly the amount of paralysis that one expects. So I’m covering the possibility of this being a new or somewhat different virus.80”
― Forrest Maready, The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio

“The dire warnings of Arthur Kallet’s 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs and Rachel Palmer’s 40,000,000 Guinea Pig Children—ignored for so long by government agencies and growers alike—were finally beginning to resonate with consumers.”
― Forrest Maready, The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio