'No shot, no date': Could teenagers make vaccinations cool again?
In the 1940s and early ‘50s, polio killed thousands of children every year and left many more paralyzed. Parents were afraid to let their kids outside when cases peaked in the summertime. Public pools were closed. Entire towns were quarantined.
When a vaccine was approved in 1955, millions of parents rushed to vaccinate their young children. But many teenagers didn't bother. By 1957, only 19 percent of teens had received the three required shots.
"Even though anyone could become infected by polio, there was a prevailing assumption that it was a disease of children, which made vaccines of teens seem less urgent or relevant," explained Stephen Mawdsley, a historian at the University of Bristol in the U.K. who studies American medicine and public health.
And there were other reasons for the slow uptake among teenagers. Many vaccine clinics weren’t accessible to younger people. The shots were expensive. There were concerns about its safety. And some young people were afraid of what they thought would be a painful shot.
Create a More Connected Minnesota
MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.
Today, some of those same factors may again be contributing to teenagers’ lagging COVID-19 vaccination rates. In Minnesota, fewer than 40 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds have received at least one vaccine dose. That’s the lowest rate of any age group.
Part of that is due to the fact that teenagers just haven’t had as much time to get inoculated. The Pfizer vaccine was just approved for 12- to 15-year-olds this week.
But it can also be difficult for many teenagers to access the shot. And health experts say that some teenagers don’t feel an urgent need to get vaccinated, because even though COVID-19 can affect younger people, older people and those with underlying health conditions have borne the brunt of the disease.
In short, teenagers — in the mid-20th century and today — often feel invincible.
In the 1950s, public health officials tried a variety of strategies to convince teens to get vaccinated. They even recruited then 21-year-old Elvis Presley to pose for pictures getting the polio vaccine backstage of “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1956, before belting out “Hound Dog” to millions of rabid young fans.
But Mawdsley contends that teenagers themselves proved to be even more persuasive than Elvis.
The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis — which later became the March of Dimes — helped form a group called Teens Against Polio, which came up with several ideas to try to make vaccines, well, cool.
They wrote articles for teen magazines. They put on live vaccination events “featuring sometimes teen athletes, which helped to make vaccinations seem cool and relevant. And even special exclusive dances where you only could enter if you had proof of vaccination," Mawdsley said.
They were called "Salk hops," named after Jonas Salk, the scientist who developed the vaccine. The term was a play off of "sock hops" — dances where teenagers took off their shoes to protect gymnasium floors. Some young people even adopted the unofficial policy: “No shot, no date.”
While it's tough to measure the impact of those efforts, Mawdsley says it's clear that teenagers did help increase the vaccination rate, which drastically reduced the incidence of polio. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of polio cases fell dramatically, to fewer than 100 cases in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s.
And Mawsdley believes that could happen again with COVID-19.
"What struck me during my interviews with former Teens Against Polio leaders was how they wanted to contribute to society to be taken seriously and to have a voice that was heard," he said.
That’s the exact message several students shared at two recent vaccine clinics held at high schools in Duluth.
"I think it’s very important that we all get it and set an example to keep moving forward in the right direction,” said Mason Klassen, 18, a senior at Duluth East High School.
“I feel like the younger generation is one of the bigger driving forces of this pandemic. They’re usually just transmitting instead of getting the full brunt of the virus like the older generation,” said fellow senior Jonah Kimbler.
But as to whether they're willing to say, “No shot, no date”? That, they didn’t say.