The Dallas Morning News dallasnews.

com M Sunday, May 27, 2018 21A

He fears parents don’t

understand polio risk
Continued from Page 20A
crafted himself, Richard eventually
replaced it with another. The key was
figuring out how the machine worked,
its bellows moving back and forth to
create a vacuum that makes the user’s
chest expand.
He’s tried it himself. “It’s a weird
feeling,” he says.
He’s fascinated by the machine’s
beautiful simplicity.
“It’s basic and bulletproof,” he says.
“There’s no chips, no electronics. It’s
built to run forever.”
But for Alexander, its purpose is
singularly crucial. Without it, he’d
eventually run out of breath.
In 2008, a Tennessee woman who’d
used an iron lung for 60 years died
after a power failure deactivated her
machine. Earlier this year, Alexander’s
own electricity went out temporarily.
“That’s how close I walk the line
between life and death,” he says.
Looking to the future
One of Dallas ISD’s first homes-
chooled students, Alexander learned
to memorize instead of taking notes.
He graduated second in his class from
W.W. Samuell High in1967 — “The
only reason I didn’t get first,” he said,
“is because I couldn’t do the biology
lab.”
Next came Southern Methodist
University, where he got around with
the help of volunteers from Alpha Phi
Omega fraternity before transferring
to UT, along with his iron lung. There,
he earned his bachelor’s degree in
1978, then his law degree in1984.
He spent his career practicing
family law and helping people filing for
bankruptcy fight off creditors.
He was more flexible then. His
125-pound body has since stiffened,
and he’s unable to use a wheelchair as
he once did, a situation he hopes to
correct with surgery so he can return to
lawyering.
He admits to one great love, an
SMU classmate whom he says he
couldn’t allow himself to commit to
because it didn’t feel fair. “You like to
dance,” he says he told her. “But I can’t
dance with you, and that makes me
feel bad for you.”
To this day, the words he recalls her
saying make him emotional: “When
I’m dancing with others,” she said, “in
my head I’m dancing with you.”
That’s among the tales he wants to
share in a book he hopes to self-pub-
lish — an autobiography, but also a
plea to Americans to make sure polio
never returns.
In the two years before Salk’s vac-
cine was widely available, the average
number of U.S. polio cases topped
45,000. By1962, it had fallen to 910.
Today, the CDC’s Cochi says, polio is
nearly gone: Only eight cases, all
thought to be connected, have been
reported in 2018, in Afghanistan and
neighboring Pakistan.
Photos by Smiley N. Pool/Staff Photographer
But until it’s fully wiped out, he
says, “this disease can come back with Kathryn Gaines visits with Alexander as he drinks coffee. When other caretakers flaked, she stepped up. “We
a vengeance. As long as there’s polio just kind of get along,” she says. “I haven’t killed him yet.”
virus circulating in the world, every-
one is at risk.”
That’s a prospect that horrifies
Alexander as growing numbers of U.S.
parents refrain from vaccinating their
kids. What if just one affected person
were to make it into the country?
Why did God let it happen?
When he was younger, some tried
to discourage Alexander from imagin-
ing he could accomplish what he’s
done, and occasionally, he’s faced those
demons himself.
“Why did God let this happen to
me?” he’s wondered. “I would get so
angry with him. I won’t accept for a
single moment that Paul Alexander is
not good enough to stand before God
and ask, ‘Why? What’d you do this
for?’”
Faith powers him onward, and he
credits his motivation to succeed to a
spirit of defiance and, most of all, to his
late parents, whom he describes as
“extraordinary souls. Magical.”
“They just loved me,” he says. “They
said, ‘You can do anything.’ And I
To answer a phone call from his iron lung, Alexander holds a long, plastic T-square-like implement in his
believed it.”
mouth. With it, he can also type emails on his computer.
Twitter: @typewriterninja

NEGOTIATIONS

Patience, Putin tells Japan

Russia in no rush to
settle territorial dispute
dating to World War II
MOSCOW — Russian Pres-
ident Vladimir Putin urged pa-
tience in efforts to resolve a
territorial dispute with Japan
that’s lasted since World War
II after talks Saturday with
Japanese Prime Minister Shin-
zo Abe, who has made a deal a
priority.
“It is important to patiently
continue the search for a solu-
tion,” Putin said. Abe said Rus-
sia and Japan should forge
economic cooperation on the
four disputed islands to ensure
an agreement “acceptable to
both nations.”
Since coming to power in
2012, Abe has devoted time
and energy into seeking a
breakthrough in the dispute
over the islands, called the
Southern Kurils in Russia and
the Northern Territories in Ja-
pan. Russian troops seized the
islands at the end of the war
and the issue has prevented
the two countries from signing
a peace treaty.
The Japanese leader is ea-
ger for a deal partly to counter-
balance China’s growing eco-
nomic and military power in
the region, while Russia has
shown no sign that it’s in a
rush and argues that time is
needed to build up their rela-
tions.
As part of his strategy, Abe
has pushed Japanese business
to put money into Russia
though there’s been only limit-
ed interest because of concern
about the investment climate.
In a setback for Abe’s ef-
forts, Russia has accelerated a
military buildup on the is-
lands. The government in To-
kyo lodged a formal protest af-
ter 2,000 Russian troops held
military exercises there in Feb-
ruary.
The two leaders have now
met 21 times. While they
agreed to start detailed negoti-
deal
ations on a plan for joint eco-
nomic development of the ter-
ritories, 15 miles from Japan’s
northern Hokkaido Island, the
initiative has barely advanced
because of a disagreement over
whether the ventures would
operate under Russian law.
Bloomberg News

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