SALK VACCINE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27683, 13 June 1955, Page 11

SALK VACCINE

Difficulties With Mass Production (Rec. 12.15 a.m.) WASHINGTON, June 10. The United States Public Health Service today placed the major blame for the breakdown of the nation's antipoliomyelitis programme on the incompatibility of the original Salk vaccine formula with mass production methods. In a bulky report prepared for President Eisenhower, the Health Service said that experience with the Salk vaccine might lead to better control of some other diseases.

“The principles utilised in the control of virus infections successfully applied in the vaccine, offer a promise of solutions to a hitherto baffling group of disease problems,” the report said.

±he principles utilised in the control of virus infections successfully applied in the vaccine, offer a promise of solutions to a hitherto baffling group of disease problems,” the report said. Dealing with the troubles experienced with the Salk vaccine, the Health Service said that the original concept held that the poliomyelitis virus, inactivated by formaldehyde, would "render the virus harmless, but still capable of inducing the production of antibodies.”

But it had now been found that the process of inactivation did not always follow the predicted course. Live virus “not infrequently occurred after the expected completion of the inactivation process,” said the report.

New Record for Air Crossing.—A new record of 9hr 53min has been set up for the Atlantic crossing from Shannon to New York by a Pan American Airways new DC-7, a company said today. The flight beat the previous record by 40 minutes.—London, June 11.