Mayor takes pie to face, for charity

(Courtesy photo)

NEWS Staff Report

On Saturday, October 28, 2023, the Rotary Club of San Benito held the chapter’s first Walk for Polio Plus at the W.H. Heavin Resaca Trail in San Benito and then had a fundraiser Pie-in-The-Face event where San Benito Mayor Ricardo “Rick” Guerra and San Benito City Commissioner Pete Galvan volunteered to have pies of whipped cream smashed in their face for $25 a pie.

All this is to bring awareness to the community that polio is an infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of five. This virus is spread person-to-person typically through contaminated water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to the CDC, the polio virus can attack the nervous system; and, in some cases, lead to paralysis. Although, there is no cure, there is a safe and effective vaccine. Rotary International (RI) and its partners (Global Polio Eradication Initiative or GPEI) have immunized over 2.5 billion children worldwide.

In 1894, the first documented polio outbreak in the U.S. occurred in Vermont, leading to 18 deaths and 132 cases of paralysis reported. In 1916, a major outbreak in New York City kills more than 2,000 people. In that same year, across the US, polio takes the lives of about 6,000 people and paralysis thousands more.

In 1929, Philip Drinker and Harvard University’s Louis Agassiz Shaw, Jr. invent an artificial respirator dubbed the Iron Lung for patients suffering from paralytic polio.

By 1955, a vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk is declared “safe and effective” and by 1979, RI begins its fight against polio.

In 1988, RI and the World Health Organization (WHO) launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPRI). There are 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries.

In 1994, the International Commission of the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication announces that polio has been eliminated for the Americas, and by 2023, there are 10 cases of polio reported in two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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