Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine
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Polio (Infantile paralysis or
Salk's vaccine
By 1950, Jonas Salk had tested both live attenuated polio vaccines and formaldehyde-killed polio vaccines in monkeys and by 1952, began testing on humans.[4] The killed vaccine, with proper filtration of the biological culture, was found to be effective.[5] A problem with this vaccine was the perception that to be adequately protected; a child needed three properly spaced injections and a recommended booster shot every year, which was expensive.[6] However, Jonas Salk stated in interviews that this perception was not true. The Salk vaccine was the first polio vaccine to receive approval of the U.S. government and was used in the United States until 1961, when the Sabin vaccine was recommended to replace it.[7][8]
Sabin's vaccine
Albert Sabin, a virologist who publicly disagreed with Salk and his killed vaccine, worked on creating a vaccine with live attenuated vaccines.
Cold war tensions
Cold War tensions caused Western scientists to discount reports from the Russians about the effectiveness of the Sabin vaccine.[11] However, mass vaccinations of Sabin's vaccine spread throughout Eastern Europe from 1960 to 1963.[12] Just as some Soviet virologists did not trust the American Salk vaccine, Americans had similar reservations about the Sabin vaccine.[13] However, other Soviet virologists argued that the Salk vaccine could be considered safe because the Americans had tested it on their own people,[14] and that the Sabin vaccine must be potentially dangerous because the Americans did not want to test it on their own society.[14]
Federal licensing
The documented achievement of the Sabin–Chumakov collaboration eventually overcame the ideological differences of the Cold War.[11] Their oral live-virus vaccine became federally licensed in 1962, and was used for over three decades to help eliminate polio globally, replacing the Salk vaccine.[11] Using these vaccines, the threat of polio remains a serious threat only in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan.[11]
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-515294-4.
- PMID 22486119.
- ^ Conis, Elena (2016). "Political Ills". Distillations. 2 (2): 34–37. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-137-27852-4.
- ^ a b Rhodes 2013, p. 133.
- ^ Oshinsky 2005, p. 256.
- ^ Rhodes 2013, p. 136.
- ^ Swanson 2012, p. 67.
- ^ Swanson 2012, p. 68
- ^ Rhodes 2013, p. 135
- ^ a b c d Swanson 2012, p. 69
- S2CID 13950772.
- ^ Vargha 2014, p. 338.
- ^ a b Vargha 2014, p. 336.