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Dear Dr. Satire

Dear Dr. Satire,

Q: Why do babies need four polio shots when there’s no polio anymore?

A: Oh, what a shameful question! Don’t you realize how much culture we lost when polio disappeared? Whole hospital wings filled with iron lungs — gone! The sleek chrome cylinders, the rhythmic wheeze like a mechanical lullaby… it was practically a symphony of suffering. And the wheelchairs! Stylish, timeless, and available in every hospital hallway. Now, thanks to vaccines, kids just run around all… healthy. Boring.

The reason babies get four polio shots isn’t to protect them — heavens, no! It’s clearly a government conspiracy to rob future generations of that rich “shared cultural experience” of mass paralysis. Imagine: your child will never know the joy of balancing on crutches at recess, or the thrill of being whisked away to a polio ward while doctors shout things like, “Quick, crank the lung!”

We do four shots because three just isn’t nostalgic enough. It’s like a tribute band — you need multiple encores to bring back the glory days. Without them, people might forget polio ever existed, and what a loss for history buffs that would be!

So yes, vaccines robbed us of an era of iron-lung romance. But I suppose a world where kids stay upright and breathing is fine too, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Signed,
Dr. Satire — fighting to preserve vintage medical crises since 1925.

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