1952

Salk’s killed virus polio vaccine, first tests of: In June, Salk begins first secret tests of polio killed virus vaccine at D. F. Watson Home for Crippled Children and the Polk School for the Retarded and Feeble-Minded. With “volunteers” from the Watson Home, he injected them with the type of killed virus corresponding to the polio antibodies already in their system to determine whether the vaccine could stimulate further immune activity and raise their antibody levels still higher. At the Polk School, where the subjects didn’t have polio, and some had no antibodies to one or more type of the virus, the experiments tested the vaccine’s safety and antigen power. The tests were successful at both institutions. At Polk School, “The vaccine proved safe. It stimulated a high antibody response to all three types of polio virus that persisted for months” (Oshinsky II, 219-223, quoted at 223). Sequential stepping stones to the field trials of 1954 were: Salk’s live CBS radio broadcast (“The Scientist Speaks”) of 26 March 1953 (237-238); Basil O’Connor’s formation of NAIP’s Vaccine Advisory Committee to begin planning the trials (239); resignation of Joseph A. Bell (from NIH) on 31 October who had been hired to oversee the mass trials, but whose methodological scruples (double-blind trial with placebo injection to half the volunteers; replacing Salk’s mineral oil adjuvant with water) were anathema to Salk (244-251); Albert Sabin’s letter to other NFIP grantees berating Salk’s dead virus vaccine and insisting on the prematurity of field trials was not well-received, even by former allies (251-255).