Polio vaccine Dead or alive Polio limp Commentary

John Franklin Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller, Frederick Chapman Robbins, Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin immunology

Polio vaccine

• Polio, poliomyelitis,
• causes paralysis and death.
• A half million people worldwide
• were affected in the 1940s and 1950s.
• In 1949, 2,720 people in the United States
• died of polio.
• In 1952, 3,145 died and 21,269 suffered
• mild to disabling paralysis.
• In 1953, 35,000 people caught polio.
• In 1949, Enders, Weller, and Robbins
• managed to grow poliovirus in a test tube
• and they got a Nobel Prize for this in 1954.
• Salk used the Enders-Weller-Robbins technique
• and immortal HeLa cells
• to grow poliovirus for testing
• and created a polio vaccine in 1952.
• Human trials followed, starting
• with a small test in 1953,
• then in 1954 in the largest medical trial
• in history
• innoculating 440 thousand children
• in 44 states.
• In 1955, The March of Dimes
• launched a national campaign
• to administer the Salk vaccine.

Dead or alive

• Meanwhile, other scientists
• thought that Salk was wrong and
• resented that he got all the attention
• although he relied on the work of others.
• Salk insist on an inactivated “dead” virus
• that was administered by injection.
• Although it was not 100% effective
• it was totally safe and lasted longer.
• Albert Sabin created an attenuated “live” virus
• that was administered orally.
• It was easier to administer and more effective;
• however, it caused polio in some cases.
• Today, both vaccines are used,
• the Salk vaccine in the U.S.
• and the Sabine vaccine
• in other parts of the world.

Polio limp

• Tom Howard had a limp from
• nerve damage after a polio infection
• before the vaccine improved our chances
• of avoiding polio. People panicked
• when someone in town caught it.
• Some lost their ability to breathe
• and survived only on iron lungs.
• Some lost their ability to walk,
• or could walk only with awkward leg braces.
• But Tom Howard survived with his limp.
• I often wonder what it means
• to suffer a tragedy and survive.
• Does it mean you were lucky? Lucky?
• Today, in the U.S. we have no polio cases;
• our luck overflows and hardly anyone notices.