Francis Ford Coppola Reflects on Polio Survival and Criticizes Vaccine Skepticism

The legendary director recounts his childhood battle with polio and warns against efforts to undermine vaccine progress.

Francis Ford Coppola, now 85, shared his harrowing experience surviving polio as a child, including temporary paralysis and time in a crowded hospital ward.
He credited his father and an alternative therapy with helping him walk again after doctors initially predicted he would spend his life in a wheelchair.
Coppola praised the developers of the Salk and Sabin vaccines for donating their patents, which helped nearly eradicate polio by the 1960s.
He expressed concern over renewed vaccine skepticism, including efforts by a Trump administration ally to challenge the approval of the polio vaccine.
Coppola emphasized the importance of vaccines in preventing a resurgence of devastating diseases like polio, calling any move to reverse vaccine progress 'absurd.'