By Steve AndristIt was pretty easy to tell when Dr. McPhail was about to enter the exam room at Crosby Clinic.The first indication was the cheerful whistling as he approached, or the happy humming of a familiar song.Any expectation of his approach was confirmed by the sound of his familiar gate: clip, CLOP, clip CLOP, clip, CLOP.It was distinctive, owing to the fact that some shoemaker, or orthotist, had added about 3 inches to the heel and sole of one of his shoes.Still, that leg, the right one if my childhood memories have any veracity, was quite a bit shorter than its companion appendage, thanks to his childhood affliction: polio.This was in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, before I had even celebrated 10 birthdays.It was in the early ‘50s when C.O. “Doc” McPhail moved down from Saskatchewan to establish a medical practice in Crosby. His life had long since been threatened by paralytic polio, the permanent result of which was a crooked gait that he would live with for the rest of his life. Imagine, for a moment, walking along a hallway that is 4 inches taller on one side than the other.That was Doc’s everyday cross to bear, whether he was singing in the Presbyterian Church choir, competing at the Crosby Curling Club or delivering one of the 1,000- plus babies he brought into the world, always cheerfully whistling or humming as he worked.I guess he felt he was among the lucky ones, with a short leg his only remaining ill effect of a disease that had crippled or killed hundreds of thousands of others. By then, he and the rest of the world knew about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who became ill with polio in 1921 and lost the use of both legs for the rest of his life — 24 years, a third of them as president of the United States.Others spent their lives living in iron lungs and relying on caregivers to help with every task of daily living, from taking nourishment to moving bowels.Before he celebrated 10 years as an M.D., Doc McPhail read about the work of Dr. Jonas Salk, a New York-born scientist who in 1942 at the University of Michigan developed an early flu vaccine. In 1955, while working at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Salk got word that his new polio vaccine had been determined to be safe and effective, and the world was forever changed.Two years before the vaccine became widely available, some 45,000 Americans contracted paralytic polio each year, but by 1962, thanks largely to Salk’s vaccine, the number dropped to 910.The total number of polio deaths worldwide is estimated in the millions. U.S. polio deaths peaked in 1952 at 3,145, and by 1962 there was but a few.Salk never patented or profited from his vaccine, preferring it to be distributed as widely as possible.“The most important question we should ask ourselves,” Salk said, “is ‘Are we being good ancestors?’”Future American scientists would develop vaccines for contagious diseases such as measles, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis A and B, influenza and COVID-19, preventing both painful disease and death for millions around the globe.Americans have long been proud that their country has been the world leader in saving generation after generation from pain, suffering, death and grief.Today, though, America’s attitude is “been there, done that.”Apparently, the United States of America no longer cares about being good ancestors, and has decided that people in this country and around the world can fend for themselves.Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services and a longtime vaccine denier who once claimed to have a brain worm and continues to claim he knows more about health than hundreds of thousands of doctors who have practiced and studied it, canceled U.S. government commitments to provide $500 million in funding to support development of new vaccines.Despite overwhelming historical data that proves vaccines have been godsends, Kennedy and his cultish clan believe future vaccines may do more harm than good, and he’s pulling the plug.His decision is proof positive that he is nuts. Certifiably.The American tradition of leading scientific development to save citizens of the world from preventable agony and destruction has come to an intentional end at the hands of someone who should never have been considered to lead the country’s Health and Human Services system. There is blood on his hands, and on the hands of those who nominated him and confirmed his nomination, including North Dakota’s U.S. senators.Doc McPhail would be embarrassed. As would Jonas Salk.As should we all.