Word: salk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Polio is on the rise in the tropics and in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe. Specialists gave two explanations. The World Health Organization's Dr. Anthony M.M. Payne argued that the increase is apparent, not real, and the result of better diagnosis. Vaccinventor Jonas Salk offered the second explanation. "This is a disease of civilization." he said. "As countries adopt higher standards of public hygiene and sanitation, and infant mortality decreases, you get a greater number of children with no natural immunity against the disease." This probably explained recent polio flare-ups in parts of southern Europe...
...Million Shots. Vaccines of the general type developed by Dr. Salk have been widely used only in the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Australia and Israel. Noting 1956's 50% drop in polio in the U.S., the U.S. Public Health Service's Dr. Alexander Langmuir saw increasingly good results ahead: "With increasing immunization of the population under 40, a steady reduction in paralytic cases can be confidently anticipated." Denmark, long hard-hit by polio, had the brightest progress report: 99% of children up to the age of nine and 90% of all Danes aged ten to 40 have had shots...
Most delegates favored a Salk-type (killed-virus) vaccine, but there was still some argument as to how best to make it safe. The U.S. uses the Mahoney strain, which is as safe as any other if actually killed, but is a vicious cause of paralysis if live virus accidentally gets through. Britain avoids Mahoney like the plague, uses a strain that causes less paralysis even if live particles get through. So does Europe generally...
...Needles. Proponents of a live but attenuated virus, in a vaccine made to be taken by mouth, predicted a swing to their method. Cincinnati's Dr. Albert Sabin (TIME, Oct. 15) suggested that his method might be the answer for poor countries whose people cannot afford three Salk shots at $1 each, or where migrant populations cannot be brought together three times at the right intervals...
With the possibility that some, even many, shots are being given with inert material, there arises the danger that the U.S. public is being lulled into a false sense of security about polio. While Vaccinventor Jonas Salk is suggesting that the present three-shot course of inoculations could be cut to two, more conservative polio experts are arguing that more shots, not fewer, are needed. Not enough time has elapsed, and not enough children inoculated with commercial vaccine have been tested, to show whether antibody levels high enough to give immunity are maintained for more than a year...