1
00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:05,040
Speaker 1: Welcome to this day and history class, where history waits

2
00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:20,279
Speaker 1: for no one. Today is February nineteen. The day was

3
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:25,439
Speaker 1: February twenty, nineteen fifty four. A group of children from

4
00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:30,560
Speaker 1: Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received the first vaccines

5
00:00:30,600 --> 00:00:35,360
Speaker 1: for polio, a disabling and potentially deadly infectious disease that

6
00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:41,160
Speaker 1: can cause meningitis and paralysis, among other symptoms. The new

7
00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:45,680
Speaker 1: vaccine had been developed by Dr Jonas Salk, an American

8
00:00:45,720 --> 00:00:51,120
Speaker 1: physician and medical researcher. Salk's vaccine was a continuation of

9
00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:54,840
Speaker 1: the work many other researchers had done before him, and

10
00:00:55,040 --> 00:00:58,160
Speaker 1: it wouldn't serve as the be all, in all solution

11
00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 1: to polio transmission. What the vaccine did do, though, was

12
00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:06,640
Speaker 1: reduced the rate at which polio was occurring among middle

13
00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:13,560
Speaker 1: class Americans. Polio, the shortened name for poliomyelitis, is caused

14
00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:18,280
Speaker 1: by the poliovirus. As the contagious virus spreads from person

15
00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:21,480
Speaker 1: to person, it can wreak havoc on the nervous system

16
00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:26,080
Speaker 1: of the affected, causing muscle deterioration and even death if

17
00:01:26,120 --> 00:01:30,720
Speaker 1: it disrupts the processes of breathing or swallowing. There were

18
00:01:30,760 --> 00:01:35,040
Speaker 1: only twenty two reported cases of polio worldwide in seventeen,

19
00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:39,560
Speaker 1: but back in the early nineteen fifties, the number of

20
00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:42,800
Speaker 1: known polio cases in the world was in the hundreds

21
00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:47,039
Speaker 1: of thousands, and the United States was facing an epidemic.

22
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:51,400
Speaker 1: The rate of paralysis and death from polio was on

23
00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:56,040
Speaker 1: the rise, and the public was rightfully scared. People were

24
00:01:56,160 --> 00:02:01,120
Speaker 1: increasingly aware of the need for a polio vaccine by

25
00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:04,640
Speaker 1: this time. Teams have been working to find an effective

26
00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:09,240
Speaker 1: and safe vaccine for polio for decades, and people were

27
00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:12,680
Speaker 1: racing to find ways to help prevent incidences of polio.

28
00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:18,080
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty five, both Maurice Brody and John Colemer

29
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:22,919
Speaker 1: developed polio vaccines and tested them on monkeys then children,

30
00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:28,200
Speaker 1: but people were paralyzed and died in both experiments, even

31
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:32,520
Speaker 1: though Brody's results were promising and other researchers reactions to

32
00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:38,080
Speaker 1: the tests were overwhelmingly negative. In nineteen thirty eight, the

33
00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:41,240
Speaker 1: March of Dimes was established when people sent dimes to

34
00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:45,280
Speaker 1: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who have been diagnosed with polio

35
00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:49,720
Speaker 1: to help raise funds to fight the disease. In nineteen

36
00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:54,760
Speaker 1: forty nine, researchers at the Polio Myelitis Laboratory at Johns

37
00:02:54,760 --> 00:02:59,959
Speaker 1: Hopkins University established that there were three immunologically different varieties

38
00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:06,320
Speaker 1: of polio and too much well deserved ethical concern. Researcher

39
00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:11,400
Speaker 1: Hilary Kaprowski tested a live attenuated vaccine on children and

40
00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:16,520
Speaker 1: an institution for mentally and physically disabled people. The point

41
00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:20,680
Speaker 1: is by nineteen and fifty two, many breakthroughs related to

42
00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:24,359
Speaker 1: polio vaccination have been made, and medicine was well on

43
00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:28,760
Speaker 1: his way to figuring out how to prevent polio. Dr

44
00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:32,280
Speaker 1: Jonas Salk was head of the virus Research Lab at

45
00:03:32,320 --> 00:03:36,640
Speaker 1: the University of Pittsburgh. In nineteen forty eight, he was

46
00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:40,360
Speaker 1: given a grant to study polio and potentially develop a

47
00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:44,080
Speaker 1: vaccine for it, and he did just that using a

48
00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:49,520
Speaker 1: procedure the aforemented Maurice Brodie had tried years earlier. Salk

49
00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:53,480
Speaker 1: would grow samples of the polio virus and then deactivate

50
00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:58,640
Speaker 1: them using a solution called formulin. Then he would inject

51
00:03:58,720 --> 00:04:02,600
Speaker 1: the dead virus into a patient's bloodstream, and that person's

52
00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:07,560
Speaker 1: immune system would create antibodies that prevented future exposure to polio.

53
00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:13,600
Speaker 1: The vaccine required three injections and a booster. Salk and

54
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,240
Speaker 1: his team began early tests of the vaccine on physically

55
00:04:17,320 --> 00:04:21,600
Speaker 1: and mentally disabled children in nineteen fifty two using funds

56
00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:24,159
Speaker 1: from the March of Dimes, which was then called the

57
00:04:24,279 --> 00:04:29,520
Speaker 1: National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and in nineteen fifty three,

58
00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:34,080
Speaker 1: Salk injected himself, his wife, and his sons with the

59
00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:38,400
Speaker 1: polio vaccine. Children were given the first injections of the

60
00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:44,080
Speaker 1: new vaccine at Arsenal Elementary School on February nineteen fifty four,

61
00:04:44,839 --> 00:04:47,560
Speaker 1: and a couple of months later, a large scale trial

62
00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:52,480
Speaker 1: of the polio vaccine began. Nearly two million children ended

63
00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:56,920
Speaker 1: up participating in the trial. The next year, when results

64
00:04:56,960 --> 00:04:59,960
Speaker 1: of the trial were announced, they showed that the vACC

65
00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:04,000
Speaker 1: scenes had largely been effective. Salt had become a sort

66
00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:09,039
Speaker 1: of celebrity or household name, but his success did not

67
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:15,279
Speaker 1: come without controversy. Formulan wasn't always successful at deactivating the

68
00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:19,719
Speaker 1: live virus, so the live virus could remain in some vaccines.

69
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:24,760
Speaker 1: Because of this, a bad batch of polio vaccines made

70
00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:30,360
Speaker 1: by Cutter Laboratories caused forty thousand cases of polio myelitis,

71
00:05:30,720 --> 00:05:35,760
Speaker 1: dozens of cases of paralytic polio, several deaths and an

72
00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:40,480
Speaker 1: epidemic within affective communities, and Cutter's vaccine was taken off

73
00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:46,640
Speaker 1: the market. Some immunologists and epidemiologists were concerned that Salks

74
00:05:46,760 --> 00:05:50,599
Speaker 1: vaccine wasn't as safe and practical as it needed to

75
00:05:50,640 --> 00:05:55,520
Speaker 1: be to effectively produce lifelong immunity in millions of people.

76
00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:00,920
Speaker 1: They argued that an oral attenuated live virus vaccine was

77
00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:05,440
Speaker 1: a better option, But by nineteen fifty six, the number

78
00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:09,000
Speaker 1: of polio cases in the US had dropped for more

79
00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:12,800
Speaker 1: than fourteen thousand and nineteen fifty five to less than

80
00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:17,400
Speaker 1: six thousand, and nearly a hundred other countries were using

81
00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:23,040
Speaker 1: Salks vaccine by nineteen fifty nine. Albert Sabin did develop

82
00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:26,919
Speaker 1: an oral attenuated live virus vaccine that was licensed in

83
00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:31,240
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two. It was cheaper and easier to take

84
00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:37,120
Speaker 1: than sALS vaccine and thus became more popular. Today, sALS

85
00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:40,840
Speaker 1: vaccine is once again the favorite method of polio immunization,

86
00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:44,039
Speaker 1: but elsewhere in the world where polio occurs at a

87
00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:49,880
Speaker 1: higher rate, Saban's vaccine is preferred. I'm each Jeff Coote,

88
00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:53,200
Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

89
00:06:53,320 --> 00:06:57,039
Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. And if you like to follow

90
00:06:57,120 --> 00:07:00,080
Speaker 1: us on social media, you can find us at E.

91
00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:05,920
Speaker 1: D i h C Podcast on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

92
00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:10,800
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me on this trip through history. See

93
00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:24,720
Speaker 1: you here, same place tomorrow, m