Medicine: Against Polio

A promise of cures or preventives for infantile paralysis has backfired so often that researchers are gun-shy. But this week a team of scientists at Johns Hopkins*—Drs. Isabel M. Morgan, Howard A. Howe and David Bodian—guardedly reported a new polio vaccine which, in trials on monkeys, has performed better than any other so far.

The vaccine, consisting of live virus, is not ready to be tried on human beings. But in its monkey tests it has been 100% successful: after four shots of the vaccine (into the muscles), monkeys proved immune to thousands of times the lethal dose of polio. Their immunity even stood up when the polio virus was injected directly into their brains. The vaccine is the first thus far, the Johns Hopkins researchers hopefully observed, that has produced “solid immunity.”

*One of the most heavily backed polio research centers in the U.S., the Hopkins unit has received $732,500 from the National Foundation for Infanuie Paralysis, is about to get $425,000 more.