WEBVTT - Cell Strain 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:22.996 Pushkin. There's a place in our world where the known 0:00:23.076 --> 0:00:28.636 things go. A corridor of the mind, lined with shelves, 0:00:28.676 --> 0:00:34.076 cluttered with proof, stalked like a biological laboratory, with microscopes, 0:00:34.596 --> 0:00:39.836 stacks of slides, trays of glass vials, each topped with 0:00:39.876 --> 0:00:45.676 a black rubber stopper. This label says live virus. Oh God. 0:00:46.796 --> 0:00:51.076 There's a storage closet here, crowded with crutches and splints 0:00:51.076 --> 0:00:54.676 and braces, lined up by size down to the tiniest, 0:00:55.596 --> 0:01:01.396 fitted for toddlers. Nor Here a terrifying machine looks like 0:01:01.476 --> 0:01:06.196 something between a steel coffin and an MRI. It's an 0:01:06.236 --> 0:01:13.516 iron lung. This place, this laboratory, stores the facts that 0:01:13.636 --> 0:01:16.756 matter and matters of fact. It lies in a time 0:01:16.836 --> 0:01:20.036 between now and then. A sign on the door reads 0:01:20.516 --> 0:01:27.276 the last archive. Step across the threshold to an elementary 0:01:27.276 --> 0:01:37.436 school classroom in the year nineteen fifty five. It's time 0:01:37.476 --> 0:01:40.796 for health class. Kids seated in wooden desks, lined up 0:01:40.836 --> 0:01:45.316 in rows on squeaky linoleum floors. The teacher in an 0:01:45.316 --> 0:01:48.916 a line skirt and pumps draws the blinds and wheels 0:01:48.916 --> 0:01:53.396 out of projector. Today they're watching a film. The symptoms 0:01:53.436 --> 0:01:56.076 are quite familiar, they as it looks like a cold. 0:01:56.716 --> 0:02:00.316 Scientists think that most colds are caused by extremely small 0:02:00.396 --> 0:02:07.436 micro organisms called viruses viruses. This film is called Sniffles 0:02:07.436 --> 0:02:10.476 and Sneezes. It was made by McGraw hill Book Company. 0:02:11.116 --> 0:02:13.276 The first time I listened to it a few months ago, 0:02:13.756 --> 0:02:17.516 before the coming of the coronavirus, I thought it was quaint, 0:02:17.796 --> 0:02:20.916 sort of cute, sort of sweet, even a little silly. 0:02:22.036 --> 0:02:26.756 But now, honestly, now it's haunting. You. See what you 0:02:26.916 --> 0:02:29.836 think is a simple cold could really be the first 0:02:29.876 --> 0:02:37.036 symptoms of some other disease, such as measles, infantile paralysis, diphtheria, 0:02:37.396 --> 0:02:43.076 whooping cough, scarlet fever, influenzia, and others. Kids had to 0:02:43.076 --> 0:02:45.396 sit through films like this a lot in the nineteen 0:02:45.436 --> 0:02:49.236 fifties because of the incredible revolution in the biomedical sciences 0:02:49.356 --> 0:02:52.636 in the first half of the twentieth century. Diseases had 0:02:52.676 --> 0:02:55.756 once been mysteries, but these mysteries began to yield to 0:02:55.836 --> 0:02:58.596 facts in the seventeenth century after the invention of the 0:02:58.596 --> 0:03:03.516 first microscopes, one scientists discovered micro organisms. Then came the 0:03:03.556 --> 0:03:07.636 germ theory of disease, and by the twentieth century modern vaccination. 0:03:08.436 --> 0:03:11.036 By the nineteen thirties, there were vaccines for a lot 0:03:11.076 --> 0:03:15.636 of deadly diseases diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus. But people had 0:03:15.676 --> 0:03:17.636 to show up to get vaccinated or to get their 0:03:17.716 --> 0:03:21.196 children vaccinated, and that required believing in something you couldn't 0:03:21.196 --> 0:03:25.276 see except with a microscope or in a health class film. 0:03:25.396 --> 0:03:27.316 It wasn't just fourth graders who had to sit through 0:03:27.316 --> 0:03:31.196 films about viruses. Grown ups did too, because everyone needed 0:03:31.196 --> 0:03:33.796 to understand the nature of disease in order to understand 0:03:33.836 --> 0:03:37.276 the need for a vaccine. And in nineteen fifty five, 0:03:37.756 --> 0:03:43.876 a very scary disease was still going around, polio. In 0:03:43.876 --> 0:03:46.716 the spring of that year, Vicky Merrick's brother Chris came 0:03:46.756 --> 0:03:53.436 home sick. He was three years old. He came down 0:03:53.516 --> 0:03:56.236 with something and he had a fever and he had 0:03:56.276 --> 0:04:01.876 cramps in his legs. And my father came home and 0:04:02.196 --> 0:04:04.676 I remember him telling or somebody telling me he was 0:04:04.756 --> 0:04:08.396 lying on the landing, you know, just sickly, and of 0:04:08.396 --> 0:04:13.076 course everybody was freaking out. And Chris told me that 0:04:13.156 --> 0:04:16.116 he daddy told him he was sick for like a 0:04:16.156 --> 0:04:19.396 couple of weeks. I heard. It was much shorter that 0:04:19.556 --> 0:04:24.236 it passed, and then my mother came down with it. 0:04:26.676 --> 0:04:28.396 I met Vicky when we were working on the first 0:04:28.396 --> 0:04:31.956 episode of this podcast. She's a voice coach and she'd 0:04:31.996 --> 0:04:34.196 come to help me out. We got to talking about 0:04:34.196 --> 0:04:37.156 all the other episodes I was trying to write, including 0:04:37.196 --> 0:04:41.956 this episode about polio, and Vicky said, oh, my mother 0:04:41.996 --> 0:04:45.556 had polio. There was a time in the United States 0:04:45.676 --> 0:04:48.676 when everyone had a polio story about their family, or 0:04:48.716 --> 0:04:52.396 their neighborhood, or someone they knew. Polio struck a whole generation. 0:04:52.956 --> 0:04:55.276 Vicky's father was a doctor. He and his wife had 0:04:55.356 --> 0:04:59.036 nine kids. First, little Chris got sick, and then Chris 0:04:59.076 --> 0:05:02.636 and Vicki's mother, Helen got sick. Heilen was thirty eight. 0:05:03.156 --> 0:05:05.436 She got it in the spring of fifty five. I 0:05:05.476 --> 0:05:08.316 think one day you'd be fine. Then you'd come home 0:05:08.316 --> 0:05:12.156 with a fever, a feeling of lightness, dizziness, weakness, and 0:05:12.236 --> 0:05:14.396 within days you might have lost the use of your 0:05:14.476 --> 0:05:19.036 legs and your arms, even your lungs, depending on how 0:05:19.076 --> 0:05:22.116 far up the spinal column the virus took hold. You 0:05:22.196 --> 0:05:25.636 are looking at a killer at work. These are healthy 0:05:25.676 --> 0:05:29.756 living cells under attack by the virus of poliomyelitis. The 0:05:29.916 --> 0:05:34.076 virus itself is not visible. Its lethal effect is infection, 0:05:34.156 --> 0:05:39.156 reduced activity, abnormal rounding, and death. Polio was the most 0:05:39.236 --> 0:05:43.876 feared disease in the United States. Cancer killed more people, 0:05:44.436 --> 0:05:49.876 but polio attacked children, especially very little children. The disease 0:05:49.916 --> 0:05:53.636 often left them crippled for life. The search for cure 0:05:53.956 --> 0:05:56.876 was one of the most important public health crusades in history. 0:06:00.476 --> 0:06:03.036 Welcome to the Last Archive, the show about how we 0:06:03.076 --> 0:06:05.116 know what we know, how we used to know things, 0:06:05.276 --> 0:06:07.316 and what it seems lately as if we don't know 0:06:07.356 --> 0:06:12.596 anything at all. I'm Jillipour. This season, we're trying to 0:06:12.596 --> 0:06:16.116 solve a who'd done it? Who killed truth? In this episode, 0:06:16.396 --> 0:06:20.836 we're following the path of a pathogen, not just viruses, 0:06:21.396 --> 0:06:30.236 but something They spawned fear of vaccination. In the nineteen fifties, 0:06:30.316 --> 0:06:33.876 the federal government opened a new department. At its center 0:06:34.156 --> 0:06:36.996 was a door with gilt letters that read Office of 0:06:37.036 --> 0:06:41.876 the Secretary. The woman inside liked to be called missus Secretary. 0:06:42.556 --> 0:06:46.196 Her name was a Vita Kulpe Hobby, the US's first 0:06:46.276 --> 0:06:50.316 Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. She was tiny. She 0:06:50.436 --> 0:06:53.276 was known for her glamorous hats. On a list of 0:06:53.316 --> 0:06:56.876 the world's Best dressed Women. She was number eleven. When 0:06:56.916 --> 0:06:59.476 she took out a cigarette, ten men would jump to 0:06:59.556 --> 0:07:02.796 light it for her. She came from Texas. A reporter 0:07:02.876 --> 0:07:06.316 from Time magazine visited her once in that office. She 0:07:06.396 --> 0:07:10.036 looked small and feminine behind her broad mahogany esque but 0:07:10.236 --> 0:07:13.916 she moved with the poison competence of a successful business 0:07:13.916 --> 0:07:16.596 executive as she checked yes and no on a long 0:07:16.756 --> 0:07:20.436 list of requests for appointments and telephone priorities. Now and 0:07:20.516 --> 0:07:24.956 then she paused reflectively and puffed on a parliament then 0:07:25.276 --> 0:07:30.196 turned back to work outside. Down through the mazes, corridors 0:07:30.236 --> 0:07:34.356 and channels of health, education, and welfare. The news was 0:07:34.436 --> 0:07:38.796 spreading that Avida Hobby was a lady in complete command. 0:07:42.836 --> 0:07:45.076 The lady in command had a lot on her to 0:07:45.116 --> 0:07:49.956 do list, including polio. The President really believed in her. 0:07:49.996 --> 0:07:53.676 She'd run the campaign Organization's Citizens for Eisenhower and had 0:07:53.676 --> 0:07:57.116 helped the General win Texas. But Hobby had never been 0:07:57.156 --> 0:08:00.636 involved in medicine, or teaching, or social services. She was 0:08:00.676 --> 0:08:03.156 pretty much opposed to the federal government playing a role 0:08:03.196 --> 0:08:06.116 in any of those arenas. That was a plus, though, 0:08:06.116 --> 0:08:09.396 because Eisenhower felt the same way. He couldn't do the 0:08:09.436 --> 0:08:12.516 new deal because the public supported it, but he wanted 0:08:12.516 --> 0:08:14.956 to keep all the government programs he created as small 0:08:14.996 --> 0:08:18.196 as possible. He wanted to stop it from becoming a newer, 0:08:18.476 --> 0:08:22.756 bigger deal. But a public health crisis like polio, that 0:08:22.956 --> 0:08:26.516 is a big deal. Let's those start from the beginning, 0:08:26.676 --> 0:08:29.436 back to the beginning of Hobby's life, which was also 0:08:29.516 --> 0:08:32.356 around the beginning of the polio epidemic in America and 0:08:32.636 --> 0:08:36.636 the beginning of vaccination, because those three stories are all 0:08:36.716 --> 0:08:41.716 tangled up together. Avida Kulp was born outside of Austin 0:08:41.716 --> 0:08:44.876 in nineteen oh five. She was the second of seven children. 0:08:45.676 --> 0:08:48.116 Her mother named her Avida because it rhmed with her 0:08:48.116 --> 0:08:52.356 sister's name, Juanita. As a kid, Avida read the Congressional 0:08:52.396 --> 0:08:55.636 record for fun. She came from a political family. Her 0:08:55.676 --> 0:08:58.956 father was a Democrat, her mother a suffragist. They lived 0:08:58.996 --> 0:09:02.756 in the segregated South, where everything was segregated, including doctor's 0:09:02.796 --> 0:09:07.196 offices and hospitals. At the time, a lot of states 0:09:07.196 --> 0:09:11.956 had compulsory vaccination program especially for smallpox. Because of that, 0:09:12.236 --> 0:09:15.956 over the course of Avida's lifetime, smallpox all but disappeared. 0:09:16.716 --> 0:09:20.476 That disappearance, though, led to a paradox, the more successful 0:09:20.516 --> 0:09:23.516 the vaccine, the lower the incidents and virulence of the disease. 0:09:24.156 --> 0:09:26.636 With a disease on the wane, more people start to 0:09:26.636 --> 0:09:30.196 doubt that the vaccines necessary. This is what always happens. 0:09:30.476 --> 0:09:33.276 It's as if when people can't see children dying the 0:09:33.316 --> 0:09:38.116 smallpox anymore, they decide that smallpox doesn't actually exist. The 0:09:38.116 --> 0:09:41.196 American Anti Vaccination League was founded in nineteen o eight. 0:09:41.516 --> 0:09:44.676 When Avita was three, organizations like it were popping up 0:09:44.716 --> 0:09:47.876 all over the place. Then, early anti vaxxers thought that 0:09:47.916 --> 0:09:51.596 they spied a vast conspiracy, a well laid plan to 0:09:51.716 --> 0:09:55.756 medically enslave the nation. Soon the Anti Vaccination League was 0:09:55.796 --> 0:09:59.396 handing out pamphlets like this, one called the Crime against 0:09:59.396 --> 0:10:04.756 the school Child. All compulsory vaccination law is based on 0:10:04.796 --> 0:10:09.716 a triple falsehood that compulsory vaccination on a heart or 0:10:09.756 --> 0:10:13.756 the whole of the population is necessary to prevent small 0:10:13.836 --> 0:10:18.516 pots epidemics, That nothing else prevents small pots epidemics but 0:10:18.716 --> 0:10:23.636 general vaccination, and that vaccination is perfectly safe and harmless 0:10:23.836 --> 0:10:29.796 and never causes injury or death. All of these propositions 0:10:29.876 --> 0:10:34.876 are absolutely and demonstrably false, and therefore any law based 0:10:34.916 --> 0:10:43.396 on them is absolutely invalid. A century ago, the same 0:10:43.436 --> 0:10:47.756 Americans who railed against compulsory vaccination also railed against what 0:10:47.796 --> 0:10:52.636 they called compulsory insurance. In nineteen fifteen, when Avida was ten, 0:10:52.996 --> 0:10:55.196 it looked as though the US was finally about to 0:10:55.196 --> 0:10:58.836 pass legislation establishing a national health insurance program like most 0:10:58.836 --> 0:11:02.116 of the rest of the world, but conservative critics argued 0:11:02.276 --> 0:11:08.676 that it would be Unamerican, unsafe, uneconomic, unscientific, unfair, and unscrupulous. Then, 0:11:08.756 --> 0:11:11.436 around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, and a master 0:11:11.516 --> 0:11:14.556 stroke that's still kicking around today, they decided to call 0:11:14.556 --> 0:11:18.556 it socialized medicine, and with that the plan was defeated. 0:11:20.076 --> 0:11:23.036 In nineteen sixteen, when Avita was eleven, the first major 0:11:23.076 --> 0:11:26.116 polio epidemic hit the US. It came mainly to New York. 0:11:26.756 --> 0:11:30.236 The most reliable statistics suggest that in the epidemics first 0:11:30.316 --> 0:11:34.036 year alone, twenty seven thousand Americans got infected and six 0:11:34.116 --> 0:11:37.996 thousand died. It hit kids hardest. More than three quarters 0:11:37.996 --> 0:11:40.716 of those who died were children under the age of five. 0:11:41.996 --> 0:11:45.956 For a long time, polio, which is also called infantile paralysis, 0:11:46.596 --> 0:11:51.636 was known heartbreakingly as the baby plague in Texas, newspapers. 0:11:51.756 --> 0:11:54.236 Ivida's parents would have read all sorts of advice about 0:11:54.236 --> 0:11:58.716 how to protect her. The disease is extremely infectious and contagious, 0:11:58.916 --> 0:12:01.756 particularly in the homes of the careless and the slovenly. 0:12:02.476 --> 0:12:05.516 Keep your house clean, keep the children clean, keep their 0:12:05.556 --> 0:12:08.436 bowels open, keep them away from crowds, and put them 0:12:08.436 --> 0:12:13.316 to bed early. But this advice, it turns out, probably 0:12:13.396 --> 0:12:16.556 wasn't much good. The pattern with other diseases had gone 0:12:16.596 --> 0:12:19.436 like this. The cleaner conditions got with the end of 0:12:19.436 --> 0:12:22.556 open air, sewers and privies, the lower the incidents of 0:12:22.556 --> 0:12:27.356 infectious disease. But polio didn't follow that pattern. The better 0:12:27.436 --> 0:12:31.756 the hygiene, it seemed, the worse the polio. At the time, 0:12:31.836 --> 0:12:34.516 no one understood why. But it turns out that babies 0:12:34.516 --> 0:12:37.316 and young children exposed to the poliovirus while they're still 0:12:37.356 --> 0:12:40.916 breastfeeding or not long after weaning, they developed antibodies strong 0:12:41.036 --> 0:12:44.276 enough to ward off an infection for life. Babies and 0:12:44.316 --> 0:12:47.516 young children most vulnerable were those who had never been 0:12:47.516 --> 0:12:51.436 exposed to the virus because they lived in antiseptic, hygienic places. 0:12:52.556 --> 0:12:55.916 Avida grew up picking cotton in Texas. She had the 0:12:55.996 --> 0:12:58.636 kind of not super spic and span childhood. That probably 0:12:58.636 --> 0:13:01.436 spared her. When Avida grew up, she decided to go 0:13:01.436 --> 0:13:03.916 into politics. She went to college for a couple of years, 0:13:03.916 --> 0:13:06.076 then left to sneak into law school classes at the 0:13:06.156 --> 0:13:09.076 University of Texas. In nineteen thirty, she ran for the 0:13:09.156 --> 0:13:12.276 state legislature as a Democrat, but lost to a candidate 0:13:12.276 --> 0:13:15.156 who was a member of the KKK. The next year, 0:13:15.196 --> 0:13:17.396 when she was twenty six, she married a man twice 0:13:17.396 --> 0:13:21.316 her age, former Governor of Texas, William Pettis Hobby. She 0:13:21.436 --> 0:13:24.036 always called him Governor. He was the publisher of the 0:13:24.076 --> 0:13:26.556 Houston Post. She worked there as a writer when she 0:13:26.636 --> 0:13:29.516 married him, Then she became an editor. Later she took 0:13:29.556 --> 0:13:33.236 over altogether. The Hobbies had two children, who were sixteen 0:13:33.276 --> 0:13:36.196 and eleven. During a particularly bad year for polio in Texas, 0:13:37.156 --> 0:13:41.236 somehow Vida's kids didn't get infected. Maybe she'd kept them inside. 0:13:43.516 --> 0:13:46.476 Good morning, boys and girls. Looks like Blondie and Dagwood 0:13:46.476 --> 0:13:48.236 are going to go out in a fishing party. Toby, 0:13:48.236 --> 0:13:52.356 you got any fishing music over there? Here as mine? 0:13:53.116 --> 0:13:57.636 That's Hubert Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis. On WCCO radio 0:13:57.716 --> 0:14:00.996 in nineteen forty six. You think stay at home campaigns 0:14:00.996 --> 0:14:05.276 are new, they're not. We've been through this before. During 0:14:05.316 --> 0:14:08.516 bad years for polio, American cities and towns ran campaigns 0:14:08.596 --> 0:14:12.116 urging kids to stay indoors every day all summer long 0:14:12.396 --> 0:14:15.396 in order to avoid catching polio. Radio stepped in to 0:14:15.436 --> 0:14:18.396 help kids fight the boredom. Humphrey read the funnies out 0:14:18.396 --> 0:14:20.756 loud over the radio with his two kids at his side. 0:14:21.276 --> 0:14:24.836 There's Dagwood, kids, and there's Dagwood right along. There's right 0:14:24.876 --> 0:14:27.636 alongside the lake shore there, and he says, I don't 0:14:27.676 --> 0:14:29.636 know why it is, I can't catch a fish. But 0:14:29.716 --> 0:14:35.356 Dagwood wasn't enough. Polio kept getting worse worse every year. Adults, 0:14:35.356 --> 0:14:38.876 of course, sometimes got it. Two Franklin dellan Or Roosevelt 0:14:38.916 --> 0:14:41.876 had gotten it in nineteen twenty one. Determined to find 0:14:41.876 --> 0:14:44.956 a cure, FDR helped found what became the March of Dimes. 0:14:45.476 --> 0:14:48.156 It's called that partly because kids would march around collecting 0:14:48.196 --> 0:14:54.076 dimes in ten cans for polio research. Avida Hobby and 0:14:54.116 --> 0:14:56.556 her husband had supported FDR when he ran for president 0:14:56.556 --> 0:15:01.396 in nineteen thirty two. They were longtime Democrats, Southern conservative Democrats, 0:15:01.756 --> 0:15:04.876 so they opposed a lot of FDRs social programs. In 0:15:04.956 --> 0:15:07.116 nineteen forty two, Avida Hobby became a head of the 0:15:07.116 --> 0:15:09.636 Women's Army Corps. She was among the first woman ever 0:15:09.676 --> 0:15:12.396 to earn the rank of colonel. For her salary, she 0:15:12.476 --> 0:15:15.956 accepted a dollar a year. That's how she knew Dwight Eisenhower. 0:15:16.236 --> 0:15:18.636 He was the highest ranking man in the military. She 0:15:18.796 --> 0:15:26.996 was the highest ranking woman. By nineteen fifty two, Hobby 0:15:27.036 --> 0:15:29.876 had abandoned the Democratic candidate. She'd grown tired of the 0:15:29.916 --> 0:15:34.396 new Deal she liked ike. On the campaign trail, Eisenhower 0:15:34.436 --> 0:15:38.196 announced a proposal that many Democrats supported the establishment of 0:15:38.276 --> 0:15:42.316 national health insurance. Instead of the patient getting more and 0:15:42.596 --> 0:15:47.356 better medical care for less, he will get less and 0:15:47.476 --> 0:15:52.356 poor medical care or more. In nineteen fifty two, the 0:15:52.436 --> 0:15:55.836 United States witnessed the worst polio epidemic in its history. 0:15:56.396 --> 0:16:00.356 Fifty eight thousand Americans got infected everywhere. There were stories 0:16:00.396 --> 0:16:06.676 about suffering in interviews on the radio. But could you 0:16:06.716 --> 0:16:09.276 remember want to keep in mind, but all of these 0:16:09.316 --> 0:16:11.876 families that we're talking to today are just playing common 0:16:11.996 --> 0:16:15.236 ordinary American families. There isn't anything outstanding about them. You 0:16:15.676 --> 0:16:17.796 don't have to be the president of the United States 0:16:17.876 --> 0:16:20.676 or the President of Republic in order to get polio. 0:16:20.956 --> 0:16:23.356 You can be just a plain common, ordinary person like 0:16:23.556 --> 0:16:28.796 me and you. Ordinary people, including really little kids, had 0:16:28.876 --> 0:16:33.036 ended up living in iron lungs. It's that machine you're 0:16:33.076 --> 0:16:36.316 hearing right now, a machine that could breathe for polio 0:16:36.436 --> 0:16:39.716 victims who couldn't breathe on their own. It must have 0:16:39.756 --> 0:16:44.236 been like living in a coffin. Little Richard Basil knew 0:16:44.236 --> 0:16:49.236 what that felt like. Hi, what you know, Richard Basil? 0:16:50.356 --> 0:16:53.276 I want to ask you a good question. How did 0:16:53.316 --> 0:16:56.756 you like bringing that iron one like them? And you 0:16:56.836 --> 0:16:58.476 didn't like it? A bill? Who did you feel like 0:17:00.556 --> 0:17:04.036 they're really feeling to it at all? I felt cool, 0:17:04.596 --> 0:17:07.996 you felt air, and that era sort of did lots 0:17:07.996 --> 0:17:10.076 of things for this little two right, How do you 0:17:10.116 --> 0:17:14.436 certainly do look healthy? How old are you? Seven years old? 0:17:14.476 --> 0:17:16.876 And and here's a little seven year old guy that's 0:17:16.916 --> 0:17:18.756 going to go on to be president of the United 0:17:18.796 --> 0:17:21.996 States maybe or a ball player? How do you want 0:17:21.996 --> 0:17:26.916 to be a ball player? A little fellow that's seven 0:17:26.996 --> 0:17:29.076 years old and he's going to be a baseball player, 0:17:29.236 --> 0:17:31.236 and of course he's going to be able to do 0:17:31.276 --> 0:17:33.516 that too if he wants to if he has the ability, 0:17:33.756 --> 0:17:35.516 it's up to him. But he's going to be able 0:17:35.556 --> 0:17:38.156 to do it because of this big guy in lunch 0:17:38.156 --> 0:17:40.156 to that we were talking about this big guy in lung, 0:17:40.516 --> 0:17:43.036 the thing that breathed into him, the breath of life. 0:17:43.316 --> 0:17:46.316 How are you feeling that it pretty good? Well, that's 0:17:46.356 --> 0:17:49.396 really well, thank you very much, Richard Basil and a 0:17:49.476 --> 0:17:53.836 feminess is Basil. Well, I don't know about that interview. 0:17:54.396 --> 0:17:57.396 We sounds so heartless to me. That kid isn't going 0:17:57.436 --> 0:18:10.836 to grow up to play baseball. At the end of 0:18:10.836 --> 0:18:15.716 that terrible epidemic year nineteen fifty two, Eisenhower won the presidency, 0:18:16.236 --> 0:18:19.436 and he appointed the inimitable Evita Hobby to head what 0:18:19.556 --> 0:18:22.556 would become the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the 0:18:22.636 --> 0:18:25.556 department that would be charged with handling the polio crisis. 0:18:26.716 --> 0:18:29.516 Hobby was a dynamo. She oversaw one of the biggest 0:18:29.516 --> 0:18:32.596 budgets of any department of the federal government. She was 0:18:32.636 --> 0:18:34.996 only the second woman ever to serve in the cabinet, 0:18:35.356 --> 0:18:40.036 and reporters found her irresistible. She works six days a week, 0:18:40.396 --> 0:18:43.316 with time off every Saturday afternoon for a hair due 0:18:43.356 --> 0:18:46.996 at Elizabeth Ardens. Her day begins at six thirty a m. 0:18:47.316 --> 0:18:50.636 With a thorough perusal of the newspapers, and she arrives 0:18:50.676 --> 0:18:53.716 at the office a little after nine. As a rule, 0:18:53.996 --> 0:18:58.556 work continues through lunch, invariably cottage, cheese or fruit salads, 0:18:58.956 --> 0:19:03.276 with missus Secretary issuing orders as she eats. Most nights, 0:19:03.316 --> 0:19:07.196 Ovida hobby is hard at work until midnight. Someone else 0:19:07.276 --> 0:19:09.716 was hard at work that year. The man who would 0:19:09.756 --> 0:19:15.356 perfect a vaccine for polio a young, brilliant and ambitious virologist, 0:19:15.516 --> 0:19:20.596 doctor Jonas Salk. The story of the polio vaccine became 0:19:20.636 --> 0:19:23.836 a legend even as it was being reported. Working at 0:19:23.876 --> 0:19:27.796 Pittsburgh University's virus Research Laboratory, a forty year old doctor 0:19:27.876 --> 0:19:31.196 Salk labored three years, often sixteen hours a day, six 0:19:31.276 --> 0:19:35.516 days a week, till painstakingly perfect a vaccine. Jonas Salk 0:19:35.596 --> 0:19:38.996 developed the polio vaccine in nineteen fifty two. The problem 0:19:39.076 --> 0:19:42.196 was how to prove that it worked. Incredibly in nineteen 0:19:42.236 --> 0:19:45.996 fifty four, he ran a field trial on millions of children, 0:19:46.196 --> 0:19:48.476 starting with his own. Some of the kids in the 0:19:48.556 --> 0:19:51.716 study would get the vaccine, others would get a fake shot, 0:19:52.156 --> 0:19:54.996 and still others no shot at all. Even so, it 0:19:55.036 --> 0:19:58.396 was the largest such medical test ever attempted. Four hundred 0:19:58.436 --> 0:20:01.796 and forty thousand youngsters in forty four stays were inoculated 0:20:01.796 --> 0:20:04.996 with the Salk vaccine, two hundred and ten thousand received 0:20:05.076 --> 0:20:08.316 dummy shots, and more than a million other children were observed. 0:20:08.356 --> 0:20:11.716 In comparison, not a single child who completed the Salk 0:20:11.836 --> 0:20:18.676 vaccinations died of paralytic polio. People who lived through this 0:20:18.756 --> 0:20:21.676 time remember the vaccine announcement like it was yesterday. It 0:20:21.796 --> 0:20:25.596 was a public health triumph of victory for science the 0:20:25.716 --> 0:20:32.156 world truly, the world celebrated. Poliomyolitis or infantil paralysis is 0:20:32.156 --> 0:20:35.356 no longer the scourge it once was. Thanks to the 0:20:35.476 --> 0:20:38.716 killed virus vaccine developed by doctor Jonas Sack and first 0:20:38.756 --> 0:20:41.996 he was in nineteen fifty five, thousands have been spared 0:20:42.156 --> 0:20:45.516 death and crippling. That's the storybook version of the Stock vaccine. 0:20:45.876 --> 0:20:49.356 The legend and much of that story is true, but 0:20:49.436 --> 0:20:51.836 it leaves out a few things, things that turn out 0:20:51.836 --> 0:20:53.956 to have to do with race, and especially with the 0:20:53.956 --> 0:20:58.156 federal government's authority to make decisions about health, education, and welfare. 0:20:58.796 --> 0:21:01.556 The kids in the field trial to test whether they'd 0:21:01.556 --> 0:21:04.956 contracted polio, they'd have their blood drawn, but to tell 0:21:04.956 --> 0:21:07.316 whether that blood contained the virus, it had to be 0:21:07.356 --> 0:21:11.276 tested on sales that Laboratories involved in the field trial 0:21:11.676 --> 0:21:14.196 used cells that had been grown from a sample taken 0:21:14.236 --> 0:21:17.556 from a woman named Henriette Alas Jonah Sax. Field trial 0:21:17.556 --> 0:21:20.716 wouldn't have succeeded without those cells. This is where the 0:21:20.756 --> 0:21:25.596 story about polio becomes a story about race. In nineteen 0:21:25.636 --> 0:21:28.516 fifty one, Henriet Alas went to the doctor. She was thirty, 0:21:28.596 --> 0:21:31.676 a black woman with five children. She had a terrible pain. 0:21:32.116 --> 0:21:34.796 She described it as a knot in her womb. She 0:21:34.876 --> 0:21:38.996 had cervical cancer, a very aggressive cancer. You might know 0:21:39.036 --> 0:21:41.196 about Henriette Alas if you've read a book by Rebecca 0:21:41.236 --> 0:21:45.556 Sclute called The Immortal Life of Henriette A. Lax. Sclute, 0:21:45.556 --> 0:21:47.516 with a lot of help from one of LAX's daughters, 0:21:47.756 --> 0:21:50.476 tells the story of how a cell biologist in Baltimore, 0:21:50.716 --> 0:21:54.196 George Guy, scraped some cells from LAX's tumor. Then he 0:21:54.276 --> 0:21:57.276 kept those cells in his lab at Johns Hopkins without 0:21:57.356 --> 0:22:00.956 the knowledge or consent of Henriette Lacks. A few months later, 0:22:00.996 --> 0:22:03.836 a surgeon took still more cells from her tumor. They 0:22:03.876 --> 0:22:07.476 were unlike any cells anyone had ever seen before. Usually 0:22:07.516 --> 0:22:10.836 cells don't last long, but LAX's cancer cells lived and 0:22:10.956 --> 0:22:15.156 kept growing, and they grew fast, incredibly fast. Guy called 0:22:15.196 --> 0:22:17.716 the cell line the HeLa strain, after the first two 0:22:17.796 --> 0:22:20.916 letters in each of her names. They became part of 0:22:20.916 --> 0:22:24.036 the fight against HIV AIDS. They're being used to study 0:22:24.116 --> 0:22:28.916 COVID nineteen. They've revolutionized medical research, but the ways they've 0:22:28.956 --> 0:22:32.276 been used have also raised all kinds of medical ethics issues. 0:22:33.996 --> 0:22:36.516 It also turned out that the HeLa cells were very 0:22:36.556 --> 0:22:41.396 susceptible to the poliovirus. Doctors had long believed that African 0:22:41.396 --> 0:22:44.956 Americans were immune to polio because it seemed to hit affluent, 0:22:44.956 --> 0:22:49.436 white family's hardest, maybe because of their affluence. One theory 0:22:49.556 --> 0:22:52.436 was that wealthier families kept cleaner houses, which made their 0:22:52.516 --> 0:22:56.956 children less likely to be immune. But black children did 0:22:56.996 --> 0:22:59.676 get polio, and when they got sick, they were barred 0:22:59.676 --> 0:23:03.716 from the best treatment centers. So the Tuskegee Institute, a 0:23:03.796 --> 0:23:07.996 historically black college, founded its own polio research and treatment center, 0:23:09.196 --> 0:23:13.036 and in nineteen fifty three Tuskegee started a cell factory 0:23:13.516 --> 0:23:17.076 producing HeLa cells to be used in socks field trial. 0:23:19.196 --> 0:23:22.516 The Tuskegee Institute cell factory. The first cell factory ever 0:23:22.996 --> 0:23:26.036 was staffed by a team of black women's scientists, eventually 0:23:26.076 --> 0:23:29.036 thirty five of them. They worked in specially outfitted, air 0:23:29.076 --> 0:23:33.516 conditioned laboratories. They used binocular microscopes. They pioneered the development 0:23:33.556 --> 0:23:36.436 of rubber screw tops for test tubes that they stacked 0:23:36.436 --> 0:23:40.516 in special stainless steel racks. At the peak of the project, 0:23:40.716 --> 0:23:44.196 they shipped twenty thousand cultures a week in boxes marked 0:23:44.356 --> 0:23:49.036 perishable biological material. The Black women at Tuskegee, growing cells 0:23:49.076 --> 0:23:52.396 from the cell line of Henrietta Lacks, eventually shipped some 0:23:52.476 --> 0:24:00.636 six hundred thousand test tubes of HeLa cells. This part 0:24:00.636 --> 0:24:03.356 of the story wasn't entirely left out of the legend 0:24:03.396 --> 0:24:06.516 of Jonas sock I did find one mention of it 0:24:06.596 --> 0:24:09.356 in nineteen fifty five from a New York Times your 0:24:09.396 --> 0:24:13.796 story about twenty five Negro scientists and technicians are participating 0:24:13.836 --> 0:24:16.556 in the production of HeLa cells. About half of the 0:24:16.596 --> 0:24:20.636 laboratories are using HeLa cells prepared on Tuskegee's campus. The 0:24:20.716 --> 0:24:23.316 Times described the HeLa cells as cells taken from a 0:24:23.356 --> 0:24:25.556 single human cancer which resulted in the death of a 0:24:25.596 --> 0:24:29.476 woman in Baltimore. They're protecting her anonymity, But the Times 0:24:29.516 --> 0:24:31.836 never mentioned that the cells came from a black woman. 0:24:32.596 --> 0:24:35.996 I have a theory about that particular silence. The Supreme 0:24:36.036 --> 0:24:38.636 Court had just ruled in Brown v. Board of Education 0:24:39.036 --> 0:24:43.356 that segregation is unconstitutional, which had led to a resurgence 0:24:43.436 --> 0:24:46.396 of white nationalism. That was the state of the nation 0:24:46.636 --> 0:24:49.956 at the time of Jonah Socks Field trials, trials that 0:24:50.116 --> 0:24:53.036 mixed the blood of white children with cells taken from 0:24:53.036 --> 0:24:56.116 a black woman. Probably that was just not a story 0:24:56.156 --> 0:24:59.116 the Times was willing to tell in nineteen fifty five. 0:24:59.436 --> 0:25:01.876 They wouldn't have wanted white people to not take the 0:25:01.956 --> 0:25:05.436 vaccine because it had come, even indirectly from a black woman. 0:25:06.436 --> 0:25:08.556 The results of the Field trial finally came in on 0:25:08.636 --> 0:25:13.676 April twelfth, nineteen fifty five, and historic victory over a 0:25:13.756 --> 0:25:17.436 dread disease is dramatically unfolded at the University of Michigan. Here, 0:25:17.516 --> 0:25:20.356 scientists ush're in a new medical age with the monumental 0:25:20.396 --> 0:25:23.996 reports that prove the Salk vaccine against crippling polio to 0:25:24.076 --> 0:25:27.956 be a sensational success. It doesn't take any historical imagination 0:25:27.996 --> 0:25:30.636 these days to understand the relief the public must have 0:25:30.676 --> 0:25:34.156 felt hearing the news that day. We all know what 0:25:34.196 --> 0:25:36.556 it feels like to wait for that day, for that news. 0:25:36.956 --> 0:25:41.316 The anticipation of getting everyone immunized, the prospect of ending 0:25:41.316 --> 0:25:45.356 the long days of staying at home. A vaccine. A vaccine, 0:25:45.596 --> 0:25:58.636