Virus & Vaccine

While officials of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis sat on the edge of their chairs, Virus Expert Jonas E. Salk of the University of Pittsburgh gave out up-to-date details last week of the vaccine (TIME, Feb. 9) which, it is hoped, can defeat polio. Key points in his review: P:The virus can be readily cultivated in tissues from monkeys' kidneys. This process gives a higher yield than using monkey testicles (on which earlier experiments were made) and is safer than using brain tissues. P:After the virus has been killed with formaldehyde, it can still stimulate the human defensive system to manufacture antibodies which give protection against infection by all three types of polio virus. P:Given in water, the vaccine produced indifferent results in human subjects, but when prepared in an oil suspension it gave uniformly good results in 90 adults and children.

Dr. Salk, who is only 38, and the four other members of his research team had answered most of the technical questions about a useful polio vaccine. But many practical problems remained. One, Dr. Salk emphasized, was the care that must be taken to insure that no live virus, capable of causing disease, slips in with the dead virus used in a vaccine. Because this slows down a testing program, said Dr. Salk, he has not had time to think about a mass trial for the vaccine. That may come in 1954. and, if successful, wider use in epidemic areas a year or two later.

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