From polio to COVID in the eras of vaccines
Woman who lost family to “most feared death in U.S.” urges inoculations
Despite the loss of more than 600,000 lives in the United States, public health and government officials have had to find creative ways to curb vaccine hesitancy and convince Americans to inoculate against coronavirus.
But in 1954, it was a different story.
Thousands of parents in Saratoga and Schenectady counties freely gave permission for their children to take part in America’s largest experimental vaccine trial. Nearly 6,000 children from the two counties rolled up their sleeves to test a shot that promised to vanquish polio, which in the early 1950s was crippling tens of thousands of Americans every year. Public health officials called it the “most feared disease in the U.S.”
“Every mother was scared,” said Dr. James Strosberg, a retired Niskayuna physician who with his brother, Martin, wrote the newly released “Schenectady’s Battle Against Contagious
Disease: From Smallpox to COVID -19.”
“No one wanted their child to end up in an iron lung. There weren’t antivaxxers … People were so damn afraid of polio.”
They were wise to be scared. Bonny Kehm, a nursing program administrator at Excelsior College in Albany, recalls the story of her aunt Lillian Weiser. In 1953, 10-year-old Lillian came home from her Kansas school feeling feverish and achy. Within hours, she was completely paralyzed and unable to breathe — another victim of polio.
Lillian was forced to live her remaining days trapped in an iron lung — a casket-looking metal machine that breathed for her. Prone and encased in its metal with just her head revealed, she lived another two years, dying just as the first polio vaccine was to be widely distributed.
“My Aunt Lily was paralyzed from the neck down,” Kehm said. “She could literally not feel or breath on her own. They tried a couple of times to get her out to see if she could breathe on her own, but her lungs, like any
muscle paralyzed, couldn’t do it. It was heartbreaking.”
Kehm’s grandfather would go to the hospital after work and sleep on the floor next to her.
“It took a toll on him, watching his child rot away,” she said. “And certainly, there was fear, fear that another child would get it. There was fear throughout the community with people thinking ‘that could be my kid.’”
But fear of disease is no longer the only one thing that will prompt people to be vaccinated. With distrust of science rampant, health officials in 2021 have turned to giveaways
to incentivize people to be inoculated against COVID -19. New York offers college tuition; Ohio, $1 million lotteries, and Washington, marijuana. That was not the case in 1954.
“The fear of polio was as great — if not greater — than it is for COVID -19 because children were affected,” said Martin Strosberg, a public health professor at Union College who co-authored the book
published by the Schenectady Historical Society. “I remember getting vaccinated in school in Troy. Everyone lined up to get their shot in elementary school. It was fairly well accepted.”
The CDC reports that after the vaccine was widely distributed, polio infected less than 100 people in the 1960s and less than 10 in the 1970s. Polio is now considered eliminated in the U.S.
And Dr. Jonas Salk’s revolutionary vaccine could not have worked without the help of those thousands of parents and children in Saratoga and Schenectady counties who were willing to take the unproven shot in the big, double-blind experiment.
The initial test of Salk’s vaccine began in 180 counties across the nation. Saratoga County historian
Lauren Roberts said the two Capital Region counties
were selected because they had populations of more than 50,000, a high incidence of polio for the last five or six years, a high rate for a specific age group and adequate health and school facilities.
But just a month before the trial was to begin, it was nearly thwarted when then-popular radio broadcaster Walter Winchell declared the vaccine “to be a killer” after a live, virulent virus was detected
in some lots — paralyzing some children in Salk’s early private trials.
Fears about vaccine safety led to 150,000 children dropping out of the massive nationwide trial.
Still, more than 1 million children stayed, ready to get their first dose May 6, 1954, at school.
The night before, James Strosberg said, doses were flown into the Albany airport from Lilly Pharmaceutical Co. in Indianapolis by Colonial Airlines. They were then taken to General Electric where they were stored in the refrigerators at the cafeteria until what became known as VV-DAY or vaccine validity day.
That big day in Saratoga County, as described then by the Saratogian newspaper, involved 19 doctors and more than 250 volunteer nurses and nurses’ aides assisted by school personnel, mothers and other helpers at nearly every school in the county.
The children were divided into two groups — those who received the experimental vaccine, and those who received a placebo. All earned a lollipop.
“The sentiment back then was for everyone to do their part,” Martin Strosberg, who lives in Niskayuna, said. “Public health was very involved, local doctors were involved. There was a campaign to get the word out that the vaccine is safe and effective.”
Also contributing, Roberts said, was the image of an iron lung that was prevalent in the media.
“It was seared into the minds of children and parents of young children.”
A year later, on April 12, 1955, the results of the trial were in. Polio infections dropped by 80 percent. At the same time, as noted in a Times Union look back at published stories from 1955, a Cutter Laboratories-produced vaccine lot was not inactivated properly — which infected an estimated 40,000 children with polio. Ten died.
The Cutter Laboratory scandal led to Salk’s vaccine falling out of favor. But the Albert Sabin oral dose brought to market in the early 1960s essentially eradicated the disease in the U.S.
Kehm hopes COVID -19 will go the way of polio and that health care workers and the public will learn from history. In New York, half of the total population has completed the coronavirus vaccine doses, and infection has plummeted to a seven-day average of 0.4 percent.
“We have evidence, we have information, we have smart people,” Kehm said. “We can put a man on the moon, we can figure out how to cure disease . ... If you had a choice to not be a victim, wouldn’t you chose a vaccine? If my family had a choice, they wouldn’t have hesitated ... Like anything else important, we need to address vaccine hesitancy.”
The fear of polio was as great — if not greater — than it is for COVID-19 because children were affected. I remember getting vaccinated in school in Troy. Everyone lined up to get their shot in elementary school. It was fairly well accepted. The sentiment back then was for everyone to do their part. Public health was very involved, local doctors were involved. There was a campaign to get the word out that the vaccine is safe and effective.” — Martin Strosberg