Polio Pioneers

In the Wesley Chapel School, perched on a hill overlooking miles of slash pine east of Atlanta. Teacher Corinne Clark called the 47 moppets in second grade to order one morning last week. The stack of impressive-looking envelopes at her side, she explained, had been "sent out by the doctors to try to prevent you from having polio." She wanted the children to take the envelopes home to their parents and get their permission to be vaccinated. The youngsters took it all in quietly, asked not a single question.

Thus, routinely, news of the mass vaccination trials to prove the value of Dr. Jonas E. Salk's polio vaccine (TIME, Mar. 29) seeped down to the grass roots. Said the school's principal, Sid Clark: "The children understand that something pretty important is being done. They understand that vaccination is a doctor with a needle, and that their parents are going to say yes or no." Clark was more worried about the parents' reactions than the children's. "There are so many rumors flying around, started by headline hunters."

Vaccine & Whatnot. In the first few days, 60% of Atlanta area parents gave consent, 10% refused, and 30% did not answer. These last were being followed up to answer one way or the other, but were not being pressed to assent.

In 40-odd states, plans for the trial were being pressed along lines similar to Georgia's. From the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to health officers went masses of letters to parents signed by its president. Basil O'Connor, with informative pamphlets on the trials and cannily worded forms in which parents "request" that their children be "permitted" to take part.

There were going to be plenty of problems, most resulting from the last-minute rush and changes in the foundation's plans. Originally it was proposed to vaccinate only second-graders and use first-and third-graders as "controls." But there might be big differences between the rates, even in these adjacent age groups, and other sources of error. So in eleven states, half the youngsters in the three grades will get the vaccine while half will get an inert solution, tinted to the same cherry-soda hue. Only after the polio season is over will the code numbers be unlocked so that the records will show precisely to what extent children who received the vaccine escaped polio as compared with others of the same age who did not.

In New York City, where 37,772 children were slated for the vaccine-or-what-not test, the technicalities of epidemiology and evaluation were too much for most parents. Many asked: "Isn't there any way I can be sure my child gets the real vaccine?" The answer, as firm as the foundation and health officials could make it: no. Two out of every hundred children participating, whether they are to be vaccinated or used as "observed" (meaning untreated) controls, will be asked to give blood before and after the inoculation program. That, too, is hard for many parents to accept as necessary. But the researchers want to know what happens to the level of polio antibodies in the various groups.

Creek Beds & Sandlots. One of the biggest difficulties results from delay. Before a vaccinated child can win his "Polio Pioneer" button he must have had three shots over a five-week period. For practical reasons these must be completed before the polio season begins and also before school lets out, and that is by June 1 in some states. But no vaccination can begin until next week at the earliest, after the foundation's Vaccine Advisory Committee, headed by the Rockefeller Institute's Dr. Thomas M. Rivers, gives a final verdict on the vaccine's safety, based on Dr. Salk's preliminary trials in the Pittsburgh area.

North Carolina pulled out of the whole program last week because there would not be time to squeeze it in. Michigan's Washtenaw County dropped out because of scaremongering and general confusion, and eleven other counties hung in the balance. Some rural counties whose schools close earlier than adjacent cities may have to drop out because of the difficulty of trying to round up children for the final shot or post-vaccination blood samples. But Montgomery, Ala. determined to go ahead even if childpen have to be rounded up along the creek banks, on the sandlots, or wherever they are.

The vaccine itself is available: 237 gallons, safety-tested in three laboratories and approved by the Rivers committee, were being shipped out last week. That would be enough for the full course for 300,000 children. An additional 118-gallon lot was ready to go as soon as the committee gave the word. Thousands of volunteer workers awaited the signal. Schedules for classrooms, doctors, nurses, teachers and children, along with flow charts, were ready. So were the needles.

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