Senator Mitch McConnell Sole Republican Who Didn't Vote to Confirm RFK, Jr.

Cites his childhood polio experience as rationale.

Senator Mitch McConnell was the sole Republican to vote against RFK, Jr.’s confirmation as HHS Secretary. As he explained in his statement.

I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles… a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr. Kennedy to lead these important efforts.

A public heath report titled “Incidence of Poliomyelitis in the United States in 1944” reported an above average national incidence of polio that year, with a total of 19,053 cases. However, no outbreak in Alabama was noted, indicating that the two-year-old Mitch McConnell was an exceedingly unlucky isolated case.

Alone among infectious diseases, polio only became a serious problem in the 20th century. The conventional explanation is that—while every other infectious disease was dramatically reduced by improvements in public sanitation—the increasing availability of clean drinking water apparently resulted in fewer children being exposed to the polio virus during their early childhood years (between 6 months and 5 years) when the disease is typically very mild. This, in turn, resulted in fewer mothers acquiring immunity and passing it on to their nursing infants.

The experience of the American South seemed to support this theory. Without widespread electrification or water filtration systems, the South had poor sanitation, which led to mild infant infection and widespread adult immunity. This could explain why the region saw no major polio epidemics until the late 1940s.

As Senator McConnell described his case in his memoir: “The disease struck and weakened my left leg, the worst of it my quadriceps.”

Given that he was two years old at the time—when the disease is usually very mild—and given that it was apparently an isolated case in Alabama that year, his was an especially bad piece of luck.

I wonder how the local doctor in Five Points, Alabama—which currently has a population of 114— obtained a definitive diagnosis in 1944. Laboratory testing for polio was not widespread prior to 1958.