50 years ago, polio shots ended era of fear

Landmark vaccine ushered in new age of medical discovery

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updated 2:09 a.m. ET April 10, 2005

Dan Wilson remembers being a frightened 5-year-old, hearing grown-ups talking about tests as he lay on a daybed in the screened porch of his central Wisconsin home in 1955.

“One of the tests was whether you could lift your head off the bed,” he said. “I remember not being able to do that, and wondering what that meant.”

It meant polio, one of the most feared diseases of all time. The viral illness paralyzed tens of thousands of children in the United States and half a million worldwide each year.

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Wilson was among the last Americans stricken. On April 12, 1955, scientists announced they had a successful vaccine.

They made it without even being able to see the virus — microscopes weren’t powerful enough back then. They did it at great personal risk, without modern protective gear or fancy lab equipment.

‘Shot heard ’round the world’
It wasn’t the first vaccine — ones for smallpox, diphtheria and the flu preceded it. But it became another “shot heard ’round the world,” revolutionizing how people viewed science and launching a new war on germs.

Scientists headed to labs with fresh enthusiasm, convinced they could brew similar magic potions against other scourges of mankind.

“It seemed to say it was only a matter of time until we beat infectious diseases,” said Wilson, now a historian at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., and author of a new book about polio.

Today, we have more vaccines than we did 50 years ago, and more tools and knowledge to make them. But we also have more and different kinds of germs. Hubris has turned into humility in the face of failure to develop vaccines for many of them.

In fact, many of the world’s top killers — AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis — got that way because there aren’t effective vaccines. Infectious diseases are still the third leading cause of death in the United States, and they kill more than 1 in 4 people worldwide.

Smoldering debate
Existing vaccines aren’t panaceas either. Recent years have seen debate over resuming smallpox shots, the safety and effectiveness of other vaccines, and whether the widely used vaccine preservative thimerosal caused health problems.

The most common vaccine of all — the annual flu shot — is under intense scrutiny. Issues include the antiquated way it is made, a fragile supply system, worries about the threat of a pandemic, and research suggesting it might not help as much as had been believed.

Vaccines also are about money as much as medicine, sharply dividing the haves and have-nots. The world’s richest man, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, has donated a staggering $1.5 billion for immunizations in poor countries, where more than 2 million children die each year of diseases largely vanquished from the United States.

Even the polio vaccine is only a partial success story. Officials have been unable to rid the world of “the Great Crippler” as they once did smallpox, and many doubt they ever will.

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