TERRY

Terry is seven years old and stays alive with the help of a respirator and 24-hour nursing care. He can move his eyes and mouth but he can't move his head. Terry was left paralyzed by vaccine strain polio after swallowing live oral polio vaccine at nine weeks of age.

Terry was a beautiful baby, the only child born to parents in Alabama. Blond and blue-eyed with what his mother described as a "healthy pink glow" to his skin, Terry had been a happy, healthy, strong baby from birth. He was lifitng his head and attempting to roll over when he was two months old. 

When Terry was nine weeks old, his doctor gave him his first DPT shot and oral polio vaccinations. In the 48 hours after his vaccinations, Terry started to sleep more than usual and his mother couldn't wake him up to eat. Terry's breathing became shallow and the pretty pink glow of his skin turned grey and mottled. When Terry's mother called the doctor's office, she was told to wait until the morning to bring him in. But Terry's mother was so worried she decided not to wait until morning and took her baby into the doctor's office without an appointment. 

When the nurse saw the color of Terry's skin, she immediately grabbed him and started oxygen therapy. An ambulance was called to take him to the hospital. When the doctor asked Terry's Mom what had happened to him, she reminded the doctor that Terry had just gotten vaccinated but the doctor said he did not think the vaccines had anything to do with Terry's condition. Still, the doctor wrote on the medical chart that Terry should not receive any more DPT vaccine.

At the hospital, Terry was put on a respirator. For the next two months, Terry was fed through a tube in his nose and had to remain on the respirator 24 hours a day while one lab test after another was performed to try to find out what had happened to him. All the tests came back negative. Terry's parents kept talking about the vaccines he had been given but nobody would listen.

Terry spent another nearly six months in a major hospital while doctors searched for a clue to the cause of his sudden collapse and paralysis. One muscle biopsy pointed to Werdig-Hoffman disease, which is similar to Lou Gehrig's disease, but a follow-up biopsy failed to support that finding.

When Terry returned home after nearly eight months in the hospital, a local neurologist researching the cause for Terry's illness found a reference in the neurology textbook that the oral polio vaccine can mimic Wernig Hoffman disease. 

Today Terry spends most of his time in bed or in a recliner while he is visited by teachers, physical therapists, speech therapists and occupational therapists. Because the respirator that keeps him alive is so big, he is unable to leave his house most of the time. Terry is still in diapers and must wear a permanent catheter because of kidney problems. Although he can sometimes swallow a little bit of solid food, he is primarily fed through a tube in his nose. His nurses suction him regularly to keep the tubes allowing him to eat and breathe clear, but he frequently goes into respiratory arrest and experiences other medical emergencies that send him to the hospital.

Even with the severe injuries that the live polio vaccine left him with, Terry loves Barney and likes to have his parents and therapists read to him. His Dad says he gives you a special look when he wants something. He loves to be picked up and held close but he can't hug you back.

In 1996, the U.S. Court of Claims in Washington, D.C. officially acknowledged that Terry's paralysis was caused by the live polio vaccine he received as a baby.

Sadly, Terry passed away on January 8, 1999.

Today, the only cases of polio in the U.S. are caused by the live oral polio vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control reports that there are eight to ten cases of vaccine associated polio in the U.S. every year but there is a question about how many cases like Terry remain undiagnosed.