Word: salk
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...little glass bottles, the vaccine is a clear solution the color of cherry soda. But few children will have time to notice this resemblance. In a typical vaccination program at Colfax School in Pittsburgh, jabbering youngsters trooped by classes to the kindergarten room where Dr. Salk's assistants had set up desks and chairs beside tables loaded with labeled test tubes, vaccine bottles and stacks of hypodermic needles...
...each child entered the room, Dr. Salk's secretary handed him a test tube bearing the youngster's name and control numbers. Time and again, in answer to an anxious "Wotta they gonna do?" she explained the procedure softly and reassuringly. Working in twos, nurses slipped a needle into a vein in the hollow of the child's elbow (what doctors call the antecubital fossa) and snapped a vacuum seal. Immediately the tube began to fill with blood. Most of the youngsters watched with impersonal detachment, and girls were no more upset by the sight of blood...
...child's other arm was promptly swabbed with alcohol and Dr. Salk hustled over with a hypodermic. Though the syringe might hold up to 5 cc. of vaccine, the needle was changed for each child to cut down the danger of serum hepatitis. With a quick, deft motion perfected by much practice, Dr. Salk jabbed the needle in and pushed the plunger until 1 cc. had been injected. Most children let out an "Oh!" or "Ow!" and marched off, self-consciously proud, to another room where a nurse watched their reactions. One of the commonest: "Why. I didn...
Nearly every child got a warm smile and a word of encouragement from Dr. Salk, who obviously enjoys working with them. Some who were yelling with fright he calmed easily. He waved along the few who could not be pacified-he would rather miss an injection than give one to a hysterical child...
Consenting Parents. By 1953's end, Dr. Salk had given his vaccine to about 1,000 children and adults in communities around Pittsburgh, with good evidence of an increase in antibodies and no bad reactions. Many doctors, especially state and county health officers who must take responsibility for the trials in their areas, argued that 1,000 cases were not enough to prove the safety of the vaccine or give a valid indication of its effectiveness. They suggested advance trials of 10,000 and 50,000 subjects. This would have meant a full year's delay...