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This week, manufacturers mark a defining 20th century triumph in engineering that saved countless lives and prevented unquantifiable suffering: the development and large-scale deployment of the polio vaccine. In an  in The Washington Times, 51�Թ��� President and CEO Jay Timmons reflects on Vaccination Day, sharing how the remarkable polio vaccine saved other children from the pain and debility his own grandmother suffered.

The celebration: “On April 12, 1960, President  declared a victory the likes of which the United States had never before seen,” Timmons wrote.

• “Five years prior, during his presidency, the U.S. had announced that the polio vaccine—a genius innovation by Dr. —was ready for widespread use.”
• “Eisenhower had masterminded the Allied victory in Europe, capped off on V-E Day. He knew what victory meant. That’s why it matters that in 1960, Eisenhower called upon the nation to ‘make April 12 a new kind of V-Day—vaccination day.’”

The disease: “Highly contagious and disproportionately affecting children, [polio] infected as many as tens of thousands of Americans in a single year.” Timmons continued.

• “Survivors of polio bore lasting scars: children who needed iron lungs to breathe, iron braces to stand or metal crutches to walk.”

Timmons’ grandmother: “Born in 1912, Jane contracted polio at age 2. Over her life, she learned how to walk four times: once before polio, a second time with leg braces, a third time as a teenager without any support (defying the experts) and a fourth time in her 50s, when—after years of pain from the lasting, debilitating effects of the disease—she submitted to a risky surgery,” Timmons wrote.

• “My grandmother was resilient and optimistic, a product of the Greatest Generation that won the war. The first time I ever saw her cry was when Eisenhower died. She knew, in so many ways, what he had helped free our world from.”

Triumph over suffering: “The vaccine meant children who would never lose their ability to walk. It meant parents and caregivers who could stay in the workforce. It meant employees who stayed healthy and produced more goods, products and opportunities for American communities. It meant businesses spared from the economic disruption that comes from widespread contagious diseases,” Timmons said.

• “The polio vaccine saved the American public more than $180 billion, and that’s just in treatment costs—to say nothing of the billions of dollars in economic activity it preserved.”

A modern-day triumph: Timmons also hailed President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which developed COVID-19 vaccines during his first term:

• “Like Eisenhower during polio, Mr. Trump during COVID-19 led with a belief in the lifesaving power of science and vaccines. He provided the competitive policies and the regulatory certainty that America needs to drive remarkable innovation. He worked to make sure life-changing discoveries were made in America and made it to the American people.”

The last word: “That is the formula for victories that would today be unimaginable to people such as my grandmother. We can bring debilitating diseases to an end. We can deliver the next V-Day,” Timmons concluded.

• “And as we mark America’s 250th anniversary, we can empower our nation’s manufacturers to drive the greatest standard of health and living in American history.”