The Cutter incident. Poliomyelitis following
formaldehyde-inactivated poliovirus vaccination in the United States during
the Spring of 1955. II. Relationship of poliomyelitis to Cutter vaccine.
1963.
Review of accidents caused by incomplete inactivation of
viruses.
Brown F.
U.S.D.A. Plum Island Animal Disease Center, Greenport, NY 11944-0848.
Inactivation of viruses and bacterial toxins with formaldehyde for the
preparation of vaccines has been a favourite method for most of this
century. The Cutter incident in 1955
with poliovaccine focussed attention on the problems accompanying the
procedure for inactivating viruses although it had been known since the
1930s that the method was not without its dangers. It had also been
known since about the same time that foot-and-mouth disease vaccines
prepared in this way could carry residual infectivity. The molecular methods
of analysis introduced in the 1970s proved without any doubt that the
outbreaks in France in 1981 and in other countries of Western Europe in the
1980s were caused by improperly inactivated vaccines. Recent molecular
evidence has now shown that formaldehyde-inactivated Venezuelan equine
encephalitis vaccines were the probable cause of the outbreaks of the
disease during the 1969-1972 pandemic in Central America. In
the author's opinion it is remarkable that formaldehyde is still used for
the preparation of inactivated vaccines, particularly since it is known that
the procedure also affects the immunogenic epitopes of the viruses.
Publication Types:
Review
Review, Tutorial
PMID: 8174792 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Science 1972 Feb 25;175:861-866
Division of biologics standards: in
the matter of J. Anthony Morris
Wade N.
From the article: "In
1955 a newly developed vaccine against poliomyelitis was rushed onto the market
and promptly caused among the vaccinees and their families ten deaths and 192 cases
of paralytic polio. The Cutter 'incident,' as the scandal was named after
the company that produced most of the bad vaccine, caused the resignation of a
Secretary of Health Education and Welfare, a Surgeon General, and a Director of
the National Institutes of Health."
Books,
LinkOut