‘Warp speed’ warning
Re “Don’t cut corners on vaccine,” editorial, May 19, and “Curing a disease, afflicted by fame,” Column One, May 18
Reporter Daniel Miller’s review of Dr. Jonas Salk’s legacy and your editorial on the Trump administration’s “warp speed” effort to develop and distribute a coronavirus vaccine are deja vu warnings from the polio era.
As a young Epidemic Intelligence Service officer in 1956, I was the lead agent from the Center for Disease Control working with the Chicago Board of Health on its 1,500case polio outbreak. As someone with 65 years’ experience in infectious disease and epidemiology, I offer a warning from the errors and lack of oversight in the Salk vaccine saga that resulted in avoidable tragedy.
Salk’s research actually implied that each lot of his killed-virus vaccine would require sophisticated testing to ensure that no live virus remained. But this caveat was not adequately conveyed to the several pharmaceutical companies rushing to produce vaccine. Importantly, federal law at the time did not require or permit direct involvement of U.S. Food and Drug Administration scientists in confidential monitoring of the production process, which is required today.
Cutter Laboratories, inexperienced in viral research, failed to detect live virus in multiple lots. The resulting thousands of children infected and several deaths is called the Cutter Incident. Other companies’ vaccines also caused infections. In fact, all companies had found live virus in numerous lots never distributed, but never disclosed this to the FDA. The production issue was resolved, but it took a massive public reeducation effort in order to resume the lifesaving program.
In the “warp speed” push for a COVID-19 vaccine, the Trump administration’s anti-science policies and budget cuts to key agencies, its silencing of scientists like Dr. Rick Bright, and its suppression of CDC’s detailed safe opening guidelines are dangerous to the public’s health not only in America, but worldwide. Lauri D. Thrupp, MD, Santa Ana The writer is a professor of medicine emeritus at UC Irvine.