Martha Lillard, 73 years in an iron lung, warned against vaccine resistance

Martha Lillard worked on behalf of beagle rescue,  & to encourage vaccination of both dogs and humans

SHAWNEE,  Oklahoma––Martha Lillard,  78,  a longtime Pottawatomie County Humane Society online volunteer,  a strong advocate for vaccination of both people and dogs,  and the last known U.S. polio victim to spend most of her life in an iron lung, “died of long haul COVID 19 on June 26,  2026,”  according to an obituary she reportedly wrote most of herself in her final days.

Born in Shawnee,  Oklahoma,  her lifelong home,  on June 8, 1948,  Martha Lillard “contracted polio in 1953,”  she recounted,  “and from that time slept in an iron lung.  She attended Jefferson Grade School an hour daily and had home tutors,  and attended Shawnee High School via school-to-home phone.  She was a member of the National Honor Society.

“An avid beagle lover,”  Martha Lillard wrote,  she “assisted in animal rescue as a crossposter on Facebook,  also did volunteer work with a local day care center,  and was volunteer coordinator for Shawnee crisis phones.”

Diagnosed with polio at age five

Reported Jennifer Sinco Kelleher for Associated Press,  “Martha Lillard had just turned five when she was diagnosed with polio.  She depended on an iron lung to live.

“’They told her she wasn’t supposed to live past 20 years old,’”  Lillard’s younger sister,  Cindy McVey,  told Kelleher,  but “She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and to make the best of her life.”

Explained Kelleher,  “The iron lung cylinder encased her body as the air pressure in the chamber forced air in and out of her lungs.

“Her family went on road trips to Missouri thanks to a custom trailer and her father calling hotels to find out if they had doors wide enough to accommodate the machine Lillard slept in.  Lillard was even able to drive for a time,”  Kelleher wrote.

Independent, but twice married

“With therapy,”  Martha Lillard “was able to regain partial use of her left arm and use of her legs,”  Kelleher detailed.  “But she could only move her left arm side to side at her waist. Even though she couldn’t reach up,  she spent many years living alone and preparing her own meals.”

Martha Lillard was twice married.  Widowed in her first marriage,  she later married Egyptian immigrant Baha Salh in February 2026,  who became her caretaker,  after a 20-year correspondence.

“They were really soul mates,”  McVey told Kelleher,  adding,  “He’s extremely brokenhearted.”

Many others involved in animal rescue affirmed the facts of Martha Lillard’s life in Facebook postings following her death.

Companion was Benjee the beagle

“I befriended Martha in 2012,”  recalled North Carolina resident Natasha Teasley,  “when she connected with me online because she was looking to rescue a dog from a high kill shelter in eastern North Carolina.  I drove to get her dog and brought him to my home until he could get medical clearance to be flown to Oklahoma.  I stayed in communication with her through the life of her sweet dog Benjee,”  a beagle of course.

“She shared stories of how he would come lie beside her head while she was in the iron lung. Vaccines work,”  testified Teasley.

“She advocated all the time for dogs,”  affirmed Anne Manning.

Agreed Sonya Lee Ray,  “Martha was a great story teller and beagle advocate.”

Offered ML Guernsey,  “I’m honored to have known her,  if even briefly  for the doggies.  Martha Lillard  was a sweet woman who worked tirelessly to help save beagles in need.”

Martha Lillard remembered “Polio Paul”

Among Martha Lillard’s own many postings was a brief remembrance of attorney Paul Alexander,  of Dallas,  Texas,  “Polio Paul” online,  who spent 72 years in an iron lung before his death,  also from COVID 19,  on March 11,  2024.

“He was a man of great courage and integrity,”  Martha Lillard testified,  “and he stood for children getting the polio vaccine.  And I as well encourage all parents to get the vaccines that protect their children from deadly diseases.  No medicine is 100% safe.  But medicines and vaccines have saved millions of human and animal lives.”

Vaccines to protect children against polio “became available starting in 1955,”  Kelleher noted.

“According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,  a national vaccination campaign cut the annual number of U.S. cases to fewer than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s.  In 1979,  polio was declared eliminated in the U.S.,  meaning it was no longer routinely spread.”

“An epidemiological alert”

But with polio still occurring elsewhere in the world,  the U.S. is hardly in a position to relax precautionary vigilance,  as eleven co-authors warned in an article entitled “Polio returns to the USA: An epidemiological alert,”  published in the September 6,  2022 edition of the Annals of Medicine & Surgery,  a leading peer-reviewed medical journal.

“On July 21, 2022,”  the article reported,   “the USA witnessed the first case of poliomyelitis after three decades of its eradication…The New York State Department of Health confirmed that a case of paralytic poliomyelitis was reported from a 20-year-old Hungarian traveler residing in Rockland County.”

Anti-vaxxers were quick to amplify the following sentence,  “The detected viral sequence has been found to have vaccine-derived poliovirus,”  but not the authors’ recommendation that use of live polio viruses in vaccines should end,  in favor of vaccines based on killed viruses.

The transition from live-virus to killed virus vaccines in rabies prevention protocols for humans and domestic pets was accomplished in the U.S. more than 40 years ago,  and has been recommended by the World Health Organization since 2004.

Declining canine rabies vaccination rate

The U.S.,  however,  has suffered a declining rate of vaccination in recent decades against practically every deadly disease that was once believed to be eradicated through vaccination.

The decline in canine anti-rabies vaccination is particularly acute,  and potentially catastrophic.

The major instrument for ensuring canine vaccination compliance is dog licensing,  but of the estimated 90 million dogs living in the U.S.,  only about 15% to 35% are licensed,  according to a variety of studies and surveys,  with the lowest licensing rates tending to occur in the rural regions with the most rabies in wildlife.

This leaves the rabies vaccination status of as much as two-thirds of the U.S. dog population unknown.  Veterinary surveys suggest a vaccination rate of perhaps as high as 84% among dogs who receive regular veterinary care,  yet according to data reported by the American Veterinary Medical Association in December 2025,  fewer than 70% of dogs see a veterinarian in any given year.

The pet cat vaccination rate,  based on frequency of veterinary visits,  may be as low as 51%.

Concern that vaccinated dogs could become autistic

Since current canine and feline rabies vaccines confer protection for at least three years,  this may not be of concern if those dogs and cats are vaccinated when they do visit a veterinarian.

But a study published in August 2023 by the medical journal Vaccine “found that 53%  of dog owners had some concern about the safety,  efficacy or necessity of canine vaccines,”  summarized The Hill,  an online political journal.

“Additionally, 37 percent were concerned that vaccines could cause ‘cognitive issues’ in dogs and may lead them to develop autism,  a theory not backed up by scientific evidence,”  The Hill added.

“The survey was conducted on a nationally representative group of 2,200 U.S. adults,”  The Hill noted.

The Hill was primarily concerned with vaccine resistance as a political phenomenon,  but if a political attitude translates into behavior,  the Vaccine survey numbers suggest that up to 90% of the U.S. public may find pretexts to skip vaccination.

Prominent pit bull advocate is anti-vaxxer too

Among them,  reported Pien Huang for the National Public Radio program All Things Considered on October 11,  2023,  was and likely still is former American Pit Bull Examiner blogger Cindy Marabito,  whose blog was delisted by Examiner.com in 2016 in response to complaints about publication of false information issued by Rhonda Roland Shearer,  founder of the IMediaEthics.org journalism watchdog web site.

(See American Pit Bull Examiner flunks examination.)

“Cindy Marabito runs a pit bull rescue out of her house in Austin, Texas,”  introduced Pien Huang.

Claimed Marabito,  “We’re the only raw-feeding,  holistic,  completely no-kill pit bull refuge and rescue in the United States.”

Said Pien Huang,  “She currently has nine dogs who roam her big, mulched backyard by the banks of the Colorado River.  The philosophy of her rescue is to give ‘low to no vaccines.’”

Texas cases

Marabito seems to be a chronic risk-taker.

But she is not alone,  especially not in Texas,  one of the most vaccine-resistant U.S. states,  and coincidentally among the states where canine rabies persisted longest.

The most recent human death from canine rabies contracted was a seven-year-old Texas girl,  bitten by a rabid dog in June 1979.

That was long ago,  but close calls have come much more recently.

In July 2011,  for instance,  a man and woman living near Rio Vista were both bitten by a rabid pit bull,  but were successfully administered post-exposure treatment.

On December 31,  2020,  a dog who bit a female child on the jaw at a Texas deer camp tested rabid.  Because the bite was so close to the brain,  immediate treatment was necessary,  but the girl was reportedly injected with the needed immunoglobulin and did not develop rabies.

Most recently of all,  the Colorado Department of Agriculture in December 2024 announced that the Moms & Mutts shelter,  in Englewood,  Colorado,  had voluntarily agreed to an 18-month probation,  after rabies appeared in a litter of 11 pit bull mix puppies advertised as “shepherd mixes” at a July 20, 2024 adoption event held in Sheridan, Colorado.

“The rabies-positive puppy came to Colorado from Texas,” KDVR television news in Denver reported.

“Isolated cases” can spread unseen

Such “isolated cases” have the potential to spread rabies far and wide because,  unlike most animals, including cats, who die within hours of becoming infected with rabies,  dogs along with foxes,  skunks,  raccoons,  and bats can carry and transmit “dumb rabies” for months,  without showing signs of infection.

The rabies virus is carried in warm saliva.  While in the “dumb rabies” phase, dogs in particular can infect dozens of other animals,  including humans,  just by licking in the vicinity of minor open wounds.

The probable low U.S. canine vaccination rate,  likely well below the 70% rate needed to keep an outbreak from spreading,  in combination with “dumb rabies” and greater human proximity to dogs in all walks of life,  sets up the possibility of an eventual “perfect storm” rabies outbreak,  triggered most likely by a friendly rescue dog without visible symptoms making friends,  both canine and human,  at a heavily trafficked dog park

Martha Lillard got that.  Writing from her iron lung,  she tried for years to encourage vaccination to keep it from happening.

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