Poliomyelitis Vaccine Quest To End Soon

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27613, 21 March 1955, Page 11

Poliomyelitis Vaccine Quest To End Soon

(Rec. 9 p.m.) ANN ARBOR (Michigan), Parents around» the world will learn next month what doctors have found out about the Salk poliomyelitis vaccine. Evaluators are near the end of fiieir job of translating into told statistics the teat results compiled from a study of 1000,000 school children iff the United States, Canada Sind The answer willbe reedy Bonte ■me in April. Doeton will announce fcen whether the Salk vaccine is an answer to poliomyelitis—whether il is a partial preventive or none at nil, J For almost a year, in an old brick building at -the University Of Michigan, doctors and statisticians have Seen at work. Of the 2,000,000 children used in the test, only 44.006 reserved the Salk vaccine. Another, reeWved « more Harmless ebri-

I trol The rest received ! n °sm??’the start of the test, the t nnlinmvelitw vaccine evaluation centre. ’ inidmDr Tthomas Wancis, chairman : or Jnl<temlolovwat Michigan Univer- ' sity Has kept Careful check on i their medical histories. ! t Wbe “ f OOl6 litis ' T* ' were ! ten and their, 1 asft.'s “ , main job of gathering information is ■ was not. That infonfottitoh ( was - carefully guarded in the card flic at • an elaborate code of

punches and notations, were the answers to the value of the Salk vaccine. Now they are almost ready to be fed into giant tabulators which will provide a human answer in mathematical terms. “Optimism would be unfounded at this time," Dr. Francis said today. “Noone knows whether the test is a success or not” Dr. Jonas Salk, of the University of i Pittsburgh, developed the vaccine after three American doctors had succeeded in isolating the poliomyelitis virus in i a test tube. The three doctors. Dr. John Enders . and Dr. Thomas Weller, of Harvard I University, and Dr. Frederick Robbins, ‘ of Western Reserve University, won a Nobel Prize for their work. i So far Dr. Salk has proved, in . limited immunisation tests and in the i laboratory, that his vaccine produced i antibodies. . ' Antibodies are the natural weapons ■ which the body uses to fight foreign elements. They are the factors that > aDDear to Rive itnmunity. i : The mass test of the Salk vaccine i was -ordered to determine whether i the vaccine would produce enough ; resistance to poliomyelitis to prevent it and whether it would eope with all ! known forms of poliomyelitis.