Polio Precaution

If there is any medical connection between getting inoculations for children's diseases and catching poliomyelitis, doctors do not know what it is. But researchers on three continents have reported that when a child, after recent inoculation, contracts the paralyzing form of polio, the paralysis seems most likely to strike the injected arm or leg.

For that reason, New York City's Department of Health last week suspended diphtheria and whooping-cough inoculations (except for infants under six months, who are virtually immune to polio) at its 76 child health stations.* The ban will run until Oct. 1.

* Similarly operations for removal of tonsils or adenoids, or even teeth, have long been discouraged in the spring and summer polio season, because they seem to increase the likelihood that polio will cause paralysis.

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