Era of Fear

http://www.immunizationinfo.org/newsbriefs/newsbriefDetail.cfm?id=7051

Era of Fear
Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN); E1
Galletta, Jan

[03/08/2002]

This year marks the 50th anniversary of both the worst polio epidemic in U.S. history and the introduction of the Salk vaccine that eliminated the disease in this country. In 1952, Dr. Jonas Salk, with financial assistance from the March of Dimes, formulated a vaccine against polio. Dr. Salk's vaccine became widely available in 1954, and by the following year, about 6.5 million children in the United States had been immunized against the disease. Nevertheless, the National Institute of Health estimates that there are still 600,000 people in the United States suffering from the after-effects of polio, which paralyzed about 25 percent of those it infected.

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