Fifty Years Ago A Vaccine Tested In Newtown Turned The Tide In The Fight Against Polio

Fifty years ago this month, reporters, photographers, and camera crews filled Rackham Lecture Hall at the University of Michigan for a momentous announcement: a successful vaccine had been developed for polio.

The United States was in the throes of an epidemic that had begun shortly after the turn of the century. By the summer of 1952 nearly 58,000 Americans, most of them children, had contracted the disease. Between 1951 and 1954 an average 16,316 cases of paralytic polio and 1,879 deaths were reported each year. 

Fairfield County had been especially hard hit by polio. Thirty of the 100 victims were being cared for at Englewood Hospital in Bridgeport, where an entire wing of the institution had been equipped for the treatment of polio.

In those days, almost everyone knew someone who had polio. Images of children on crutches and people in “iron lungs” were everywhere, and people lived each day with the very real fear of contracting polio. Because the risk was the highest in the summer, parents kept children out of swimming pools, did not use public drinking fountains, and avoided crowded settings, such as movie theaters — all because of the fear of getting polio.

Newtown author and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Ray Sipherd was among the children who contracted polio. In August 1949, while attending a summer Boy Scout camp at Wading River, Long Island, he fell ill and was hospitalized for 15 months.  He underwent two spinal fusions and has, since then, worn full double-braces on his legs

He and another youth, Owen Roizman, who later would become a leading cinematographer, had been at camp together and wound up in the same hospital for treatment. Eight years ago the two men were interviewed at Mr Sipherd’s home in Newtown by The Bee about their experiences. The article was published in the spring 1997 issue of Health Monitor.

While the two youths were being treated, Dr Jonas Salk, 40, a physician and researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, was working on a vaccine. Finally, in 1954, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (the March of Dimes) gave him the necessary approval to conduct a test. More than 1.8 million children across the country participated — including three-fourths of the second grade at Hawley School.

On May 3, 1954, the first day of school after Easter vacation, 68 members of the second grade of Hawley School had bared their arms for the first injections of the vaccine. These children, out of 87 second graders at the school, received the vaccine at the request of their parents or guardians. The third and final dose was given in June. Afterward a ceremony was held in the Hawley School auditorium during which the children were dubbed “polio pioneers,” and received certificates of inoculation. John F. Holian, co-chairman of the March of Dimes in Newtown, made the presentation.

After a year of tracking the inoculated children, the foundation made an announcement at the University of Michigan on April 12, 1955, that the vaccine worked. 

Even before the vaccine was approved for widespread use, Newtown was getting ready. Parental request forms were sent home to parents of the other 340 pupils in grades one through four, who did not receive the vaccine the previous year.

The vaccine was to be given only on written request of parents, and Dr J. Benton Egee, Newtown health officer, urged that the forms be returned as soon as possible so the task of setting up the program could be started so vaccinations could be under way when the vaccine was released.

Arrangements were made with Fairfield State Hospital for use of syringes and needles for administering the vaccine.

The April 15, 1955, issue of The Newtown Bee reported that local doctors were formulating plans for the inoculations and that the polio vaccine would be available on a limited basis at first.

Dr Egee, Dr George B. Kyle, and Dr Joseph Reiss established a standard fee of $10 for the three shots, which included the vaccine. Two inoculations would be made to individuals before the polio season got under way, with the third to be administered seven months or more later as recommended by Dr Salk. Dr Egee said he would await the recommendations of the State Health Department regarding the final inoculation.

Preference was to be given to the 5- to 16-year-old age group, where the incidence of infection was highest. However, even in this susceptible age group, Dr Egee pointed out that there was no immediate hurry because shots could be given in May or June.

It was recommended that parents of children in other age groups wait until later in the year to request injections so that the third shot, coming in 1956, would carry them through another season.

Dr Egee stated that if large numbers of the susceptible age group were inoculated, the chances of other age groups contracting the disease would be minimized.

Following the announcement at the University of Michigan of the effectiveness of the Salk polio vaccine on April 12, Dr Egee moved ahead with plans for the inoculation of children in the first, second, and fourth grades in Hawley School.

 On April 18 about 325 pupils in grades one, two, and four were inoculated, plus those in grade three who did not get the shots the previous year.

The second in the series of three shots was to be given on June 15. Pupils inoculated in 1954 would receive a booster shot on that date.

 School nurse Martha Kline and Mrs Thomas Goosman, co-chairmen of the local March of Dimes, assisted in carrying out the program with the help of volunteers and room mothers.

The whole operation took about an hour, according to a story in The Newtown Bee. “Each child received a lollipop on Wednesday and the children bared their arms bravely, no casualties being reported,” The Bee wrote.

In 1956, the year after the Salk vaccine began being used, there were 15,140 cases of polio in the United States, less than half the number of the previous year. In 1957 it dropped to 5,485. In 1961, it was 1,312, when Albert Sabin of the University of Cincinnati perfected a vaccine made from a live, weakened virus that was thought to provide a more lasting immunity and could be administered by sugar cube or dropper instead of by an injection. It became the preferred procedure.

But as the number of cases of polio continued to drop, doctors discovered that the weakened virus rarely could mutate back to a dangerous state. Vaccinated persons also potentially could pass the virus to unvaccinated family members who had weakened immune systems. So the Salk vaccine once again became the preferred method and is a standard part of the childhood vaccine regimen.

The World Health Organization, Rotary International, and other groups have been working to eliminate polio worldwide by 2005. Although this goal may not be completely reached, the final victory is expected within the next year or two.

(Jan Howard and Kaaren Valenta contributed to this article.)