Medicine: Salk Sulk Ends

After months of chauvinistic resistance against using the U.S. Salk polio vaccine, ostensibly because the British-made vaccine is better and safer (TIME, Aug. 26), the British government finally capitulated last week. Admitting that its own vaccine is in critically short supply, the Public Health Ministry ordered “forthwith” enough Salk vaccine to supplement British vaccine supplies for inoculation of all children under 15 and expectant mothers. The policy reversal came too late to do anything about this year’s grim polio season in Britain: 3,732 cases reported through August v. 2,077 for the same period last year. In sharp contrast to this picture are the U.S.’s hopeful polio figures: 3,887 cases through August v. 8,905 last year.