Decision Reversed

At first, gamma globulin seemed to have proved itself as a weapon of definite though limited value against poliomyelitis. So. certainly, thought Pittsburgh's Dr. William McD. Hammon, the epidemiologist who pioneered mass tests with it (TIME, Nov. 3, 1952). But this week a score of the nation's leading experts on polio and immunization turned thumbs down on G.G. (Dr. Hammon was on the panel, but his position was not disclosed.)

After a three-day discussion of last year's polio outbreaks in communities where gamma globulin was injected into tens of thousands of children and into older members of families in which a case had occurred, the experts concluded:

P:Given to family contacts, G.G. had no effect either in preventing paralytic polio or in moderating its course.

P:There is not yet enough evidence to decide whether mass inoculations of all children in the most susceptible age group did any good or not.

The standoff on the second point meant little, because if mass inoculations had been highly effective, the fact would have been apparent. After studying the report, one authority had a crisp suggestion: forget about gamma globulin for polio and turn it over to the states for use against measles and hepatitis.

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