John Salk and Polio Vaccination

Born on October 28, 1914 the American researcher and virologist joined a team working on a vaccine against polio in 1942 at the University Of Michigan School Of Public Health. He went on to head the Virus Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh by 1947 and began preliminary testing of the polio vaccine in 1952. By 1951, Salk had determined that there were three distinct types of polio viruses and was able to develop a "killed virus" vaccine for the disease. The vaccine used polio viruses that had been grown in a laboratory and then destroyed.

Preliminary testing of the polio vaccine began in 1952. To start with, he had to sort the 125 strains of the virus. He found that they fell into three basic types and knew that a vaccine would have to include these three types to protect against all polio. One of the hardest things about working with polio virus was manufacturing enough to experiment with and to make vaccine production practical. Now Salk could speed up his research. Using formaldehyde, he killed the polio virus but kept it intact enough to trigger the body's response. On July 2, 1952, Salk tried a refined vaccine on children who'd already had polio and recovered. After the vaccination, their antibodies increased. He then tried it on volunteers who had not had polio, including himself, his wife, and their children. The volunteers all produced antibodies, and none got sick. In 1953 Salk reported his findings in The Journal of the American Medical Association. A nationwide testing of the vaccine was launched in April 1954 with the mass inoculation of school children and the results were amazing -- 60-70 percent prevention -- and Salk was praised to the skies. Higher production standards were adopted and vaccinations resumed, with over 4 million given by August 1955. The impact was dramatic: In 1955 there were 28,985 cases of polio; in 1956, 14,647; in 1957, 5,894. By 1959, 90 other countries used Salk's vaccine.

On April 12, 1955, the vaccine was declared a success and Salk, a miracle worker. Prior to the introduction of his vaccine, polio was second only to the atomic bomb as the greatest fear the American public harboured. The best known victim of polio prior to the introduction of the Salk vaccine was US President Franklin D. Roosevelt who was instrumental in funding the development of the vaccine.