In the Fifties and Sixties, a huge number of men had been in the military during WW II. They were used to taking orders. I'm not sure they trusted the authorities, exactly, but they had learned to obey them. I think that may have been part of the reason parents so easily agreed to have themselves and their children vaccinated.

Polio was an especially frightening disease. You could become infected and wind up paralyzed, living in the "iron lungs" they had in those days. You could get polio from crowds, at the beach, almost anywhere people gathered. A vaccine seemed like a Godsend, a way to ensure that you or your kids wouldn't suffer that awful disease. The risks of the vaccination were far less than the risks of catching polio.

The first vaccine was developed by Dr. Salk. It used a killed virus that was injected into the muscle. A few years later, the Sabin vaccine was developed that used attenuated live virus. You could take this vaccine orally. We got it on sugar cubes.

The problem with the live vaccine is that those who aren't already protected could catch a full-blown case of polio from someone who had just been inoculated. The live vaccine induced a very mild case of polio in the subject. Sometimes that subject could pass the infection on to someone else, and sometimes that infection was full strength.

Over the years, 0ur trust in doctors has eroded, as we kept learning of medical disasters. We had Thalidomide, that caused severe birth defects when given to pregnant women. We had the DES disaster, which caused the daughters of women trreated with the drug to develop reproductive organ problems. X-Rays had been used to shrink inflamed tonsils, leading to later cases of thyroid cancer. Valium and other anti-anxiety drugs caused mass addiction in the American population. We learned repeatedly that medical treatment can be more dangerous than the illnesses they tried to heal.

These days many people no longer believe in the "doctor knows best" theory. We have learned to ask questions and not believe everything we're told. That's a good thing. Medicine is more art than science, and doctors can make mistakes. Every medical treatment should be approached with caution, all doubts answered before beginning.

So yeah, many people are unwilling to entrust their health, or the health of their children, to doctors. That's just common sense, considering how many times the medical profession has blown it in the past. It's not paranoia to recognize that doctors are prone to error and mistakes and poor judgement.