Latest news with #Salk
The Citizen
21-04-2025
- Health
- The Citizen
Measles outbreak in US highlights vaccine importance
Vaccines are one of humanity's greatest achievements. Since 1974, they have prevented 154 million deaths – averaging over three million each year, or six every minute for 50 years. These statistics were shared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) ahead of World Immunisation Week, which starts on Thursday and ends on April 30. According to WHO, widespread immunisation has also 'driven down infant mortality by 40%'. It says the measles vaccine accounts for 60% of these saved lives. Caxton Network News spoke to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and Prof Shabir A Madhi, the dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand and director of the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (Wits-VIDA), to find out more about immunisation in South Africa. Vaccines defeat deadly diseases It is thanks to vaccines and ongoing research and development that diseases once considered deadly are now controlled. When South Africa added the rotavirus vaccine to the national childhood immunisation programme in August 2009, there was a 'massive decrease in hospitalisation for gastroenteritis', says Madhi. A significant example of the power of vaccines is the eradication of smallpox, a severe disease that had been around for centuries and caused painful illness, with 'up to 45% mortality in severe cases', says the NICD. The NICD explains that in 1796, Dr Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids who had had cowpox did not develop smallpox. He took material from a cowpox sore and inoculated it into the arm of a young boy. Although the boy was regularly exposed to smallpox, he never developed the disease. This groundbreaking experiment led to the development of the smallpox vaccine and, eventually, to the eradication of the disease. The last known case occurred in 1977. Then there is polio. A major outbreak in the United States left 2 000 people dead in 1916. Thirty-six years later, another outbreak claimed 3 000 lives. The NICD says thousands of children were paralysed, had deformed limbs and required interventions to help them breathe, including iron lungs, a coffin-like cabinet respirator. The development of two vaccines in 1955 and 1961, respectively – by Jonas Salk (injectable inactivated polio vaccine) and Albert Sabin (a weakened live virus given orally) – kickstarted a nationwide immunisation campaign in the United States. Both Salk and Sabin initially tested the vaccines on themselves. In South Africa, polio epidemics occurred in the 1940s. In 1948, the Polio Research Foundation (PRF) was established, and South Africa became one of the first countries in the world to widely administer the Salk vaccine. The NICD says the Salk vaccine was made at the PRF (in parallel with the US). Could polio make a comeback? 'Global vaccination efforts have almost eradicated this disease, with only two countries having wild-type poliovirus,' says the NICD. They are Pakistan and Afghanistan. 'Areas of war and strife where vaccinations are not given and areas where vaccination coverage remains poor can cause polio to become a threat again.' Vaccine myths There are many vaccine sceptics around, especially since Covid-19. The spread of vaccine mis- and disinformation promotes vaccine hesitancy, and this was worsened by the anti-vaxx movement that became prevalent during the epidemic. Madhi cites the current measles outbreak in the United States as a 'good example of why we cannot be complacent about immunising our children'. In 2000, measles was declared eliminated in the country, largely due to the effectiveness of the MMR vaccine and widespread vaccination coverage. However, there has been a resurgence of the disease in the United States, which has already recorded more than 700 cases of measles this year, including two fatalities – a hefty increase from the 285 cases in 2024. Madhi and the NICD unpack several vaccine myths: Myth: Vaccines weaken the immune system. Madhi: Vaccines prepare the immune system to control the infection when a person is exposed to a virus or bacteria. Myth: The measles (or any vaccine) causes autism. Madhi: The doctor responsible for fabricating the data used to spread this misinformation was deregistered in the UK. NICD: The study linking autism to the measles vaccine was flawed, disproved and retracted, and many newer studies have shown no relationship between autism and vaccines. Myth: It is better to get immunity from infection than from a vaccine. Madhi: Use that strategy if you are willing to gamble on the health and life of your child. Myth: Getting a vaccine will make me/my child sick. NICD: Vaccines can make you/your child slightly ill, but these symptoms are usually mild and do not last long. Myth: Vaccines contain pork products, and my belief/culture doesn't allow me to have porcine products. NICD: Few vaccines use porcine gelatine as a stabiliser, and none of these are in South Africa's expanded programme on immunisation. Myth: If you missed a vaccine, it is too late to catch up. NICD: This is not true. A catch-up immunisation schedule is available and used by healthcare workers to help people get up to date on their vaccines safely and effectively. FAQs Where are vaccines available, and are there any costs involved? NICD: Key vaccines that are on the public sector's expanded programme on immunisation schedule are free at community clinics. Madhi: Some GPs, pharmacies and private hospitals also provide vaccines, although costs may vary and could include the costs of the vaccines and their administration. Which vaccinations are important for adults in South Africa, especially those in high-risk groups (such as the elderly and immunocompromised)? NICD: Flu, Covid, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (highest valency that is available) and the combination tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis vaccine. How does the immune system respond to vaccines, and how does this protect us from disease? NICD: Vaccines contain harmless parts of a virus or bacteria. When we get a vaccine, antigens from the weakened pathogen (virus or bacterium) or tiny bits of the pathogen can trigger the immune cells to fight off these foreign substances and protect the body from disease. The immune response also produces 'memory cells' that remember what the foreign substance or invader looks like, so when the real bacterium or virus attacks, the immune system is ready to fight it off. How did Covid affect vaccinations, and what were the consequences? NICD: The epidemic negatively impacted the coverage of routine vaccines. This is because during the lockdowns, health services were disrupted and children couldn't access vaccination. This means that we have an immunity gap that is likely contributing to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as diphtheria and measles. Children who have missed any vaccine doses must be taken to the clinic to catch up on those missed doses to ensure that they are protected against all the vaccine-preventable diseases. How does widespread vaccination protect not just individuals, but entire populations? Madhi: Widespread vaccination protects individuals who may not be able to be vaccinated because of medical conditions. As an example, children who are immunocompromised should not get some live attenuated vaccines such as measles or oral polio. However, if a sufficient percentage of the childhood population is vaccinated, vaccination can interrupt transmission of the virus in the community, and even children who have not been vaccinated will be protected from being infected. Public healthcare's vaccine schedule The NICD says a hepatitis B vaccine is now given at birth to babies whose mothers tested positive during pregnancy for the hepatitis B surface antigen. In addition, the rubella vaccine (at six months and 12 months) has been added to the measles vaccine as a combination dose. Here is the schedule: Birth: (BCG, Oral polio vaccine and Hepatitis B vaccine at birth for those babies whose mothers tested HBsAg positive during pregnancy). Six,10 and 14 weeks: Hexaxim (6-in-1 vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, inactivated polio, haemophilus influenzae type b, hepatitis B). Also at six and 14 weeks: Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and rotavirus vaccine (RV). Six months: Measles, rubella vaccine. Nine months: PCV. 12 months: Measles, rubella vaccine (MR). 18 months: Hexaxim. Six years: Tetanus, diphtheria, acellular pertussis (TdaP). 12 years: TdaP. Breaking news at your fingertips… Follow Caxton Network News on Facebook and join our WhatsApp channel. Nuus wat saakmaak. Volg Caxton Netwerk-nuus op Facebook en sluit aan by ons WhatsApp-kanaal. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Wall Street Journal
14-04-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
A Souvenir From Dr. Jonas Salk, Circa 1955
In 'When Salvation Rode the Rails' (op-ed, April 2), Bob Greene uses a polio patient's harrowing cross-country train ride with a malfunctioning chest respirator to pay tribute to those who stepped forward to help save the woman's life. Of them and myriad other Americans, Mr. Greene writes: 'They are able to accomplish something quietly profound: to give people they have never met a chance to breathe another day.' This sentiment applies to an untold number of Americans but also to Dr. Jonas Salk, the virologist whose injectable polio vaccine Mr. Greene also mentions. I contracted polio in August 1955 after receiving two of the three then-prescribed Salk polio-vaccine doses. After undergoing two weeks of hospital treatment and two months of bed rest, I learned I was the only patient in that hospital's polio ward not developing any paralysis. The vaccine allowed me a life of physical activity, including in high-school and college sports and other forms of recreation.
USA Today
12-04-2025
- Health
- USA Today
America once feared polio nearly as much as nuclear war. Then came the vaccine.
America once feared polio nearly as much as nuclear war. Then came the vaccine. | Opinion Together, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths and saved millions of children from paralysis. Show Caption Hide Caption COVID-19 vaccine skepticism familiar to polio vaccine developer's son Dr. Peter Salk was one of the first children to receive his dad's polio vaccine in 1953. Here's what he thinks could happen with the COVID-19 vaccines. Staff video, USA TODAY With rising measles outbreaks and what Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says about vaccines making daily headlines, it is timely to recognize that April 12 is the 70th anniversary of the most anticipated medical moment of the 20th century ‒ the polio vaccine. For decades, polio had terrified parents and transfixed the nation. Each summer, polio outbreaks forced closures of swimming pools and movie theaters. A 1916 epidemic caused 27,000 cases of paralysis and 6,000 deaths. A 1950s survey showed that Americans feared polio more than any other calamity except nuclear war. In 1947, a 33-year-old researcher named Jonas Salk became the director of a new virology lab at the University of Pittsburgh. Salk believed a killed-virus vaccine was the best approach to combat polio. Most other virologists disagreed with him. They favored a weakened live-virus vaccine that was predicted to be more effective and long-lasting. A contest between these two opposing vaccine strategies would soon emerge from the setting of stuffy, academic conferences into public view. Below the surface, it was a rivalry between two brilliant men, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. 'Like being kicked in the teeth' Sabin was the more experienced researcher. Eight years older than Salk, he was the head of pediatric research at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital in Ohio. At conferences, Sabin failed to veil his dim view of Salk as an overly ambitious, excessively striving neophyte. In one telling episode in 1948, Sabin humiliated Salk at a conference by responding to one of Salk's questions with: 'Now, Dr. Salk, you should know better than to ask a question like that.' Salk recalled the interaction was 'like being kicked in the teeth.' Whereas Salk argued a killed-virus vaccine would be safer and easier to make, Sabin believed a live-virus vaccine would be superior in the long run. He felt that there was still much to learn about the poliovirus, and that the science could not be rushed. Against the prevailing advice of his peers, Salk forged ahead with plans to develop a killed-virus vaccine. He neutralized cultures of the virus by immersing them in formaldehyde. It was a delicate balance. Too high a concentration of formaldehyde might diminish the vaccine's ability to produce an immune response against the disease. But too little might inadequately kill the virus and leave an unsafe, live vaccine that could actually cause polio ‒ a horrendous thought. Opinion: Her medical file read 'death imminent.' His treatment plan changed cancer forever. When Salk grew confident enough in his vaccine to test it on humans, he and his lab team first tried it on themselves. Salk also inoculated his wife and children. He then obtained approval to solicit volunteers at two institutions, the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children and the Polk State School, established for 'feeble-minded' children. With consent from parents, testing began in 1952. 'When you inoculate children with a polio vaccine for the first time,' Salk later admitted in an interview, 'you don't sleep well for two or three months.' 'The vaccine works' To his relief, the vaccine produced a significant, protective antibody response against poliovirus. In January 1953, Salk reported his results at a conference of prominent virologists. His peers expressed surprise and incredulity, but the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis decided to embark on a national trial of Salk's vaccine. It was a momentous decision. An experimental vaccine previously tested in only a couple hundred people would now be given to hundreds of thousands of children across America. The vaccine trial of 1954 was among the largest medical studies in history, conducted at 14,000 schools in 44 states and Canada. Opinion: Vaccine skepticism isn't new, but its terrifying place in politics is In the United States, more than 600,000 first, second and third graders received three shots, each a month apart, of either vaccine or placebo. Not everyone supported the vaccine. Some parents refused to subject their children to an 'experimental' treatment. On April 4, 1954, radio celebrity Walter Winchell publicly derided the vaccine in a monologue that included, 'Attention everyone! In a few moments I will report on a new polio vaccine ‒ it may be a killer!' The study results were scheduled to be announced on April 12, 1955, at the University of Michigan. The nation held its breath. The first three words of the press release were, 'The vaccine works.' It was safe and 80-90% effective. This news was immediately broadcast across the nation and around the world. A generation of Americans would remember what they were doing the moment they heard the news. Jonas Salk became the most famous doctor on earth. He would never earn a dime from the vaccine he pioneered. Albert Sabin later developed a live, attenuated-virus vaccine that could be given orally and in only one dose. In 1961, Sabin's oral vaccine supplanted Salk's shots nationwide. Later, in 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention switched the recommended vaccine back to the Salk version, hoping this might help eradicate polio worldwide. The rivalry between Salk and Sabin ultimately served to benefit mankind. Because of them, American summers ceased to be shrouded by pervasive fear. Together, they prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths and saved millions of children from paralysis. Seven decades later, vaccines remain our best weapon against viral disease and one of medicine's greatest gifts to humanity. Dr. Andrew Lam is a retina surgeon and an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is author of 'The Masters of Medicine: Our Greatest Triumphs in the Race to Cure Humanity's Deadliest Diseases.'
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Deseret News archives: Salk and brave ‘pioneers' beat polio with vaccine in 1955
A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives. On April 12, 1955, the polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk was declared safe and effective following nearly a year of field trials undertaken by about 1.8 million American child volunteers dubbed 'polio pioneers.' The front page of the Deseret News heralded the triumph, and noted Utah's participation in the pioneering effort. Knocking down polio was the biggest medical experiment ever, the national field test of the vaccine that defeated polio. In the early 1950s, polio would strike more than 50,000 people during a single peak epidemic year. Thousands of children were paralyzed. Many died. Many more were unable to breathe without an iron lung. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself a polio victim, established the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, with a goal to care for polio victims and help overcome the disease. Children participated in the annual March of Dimes to collect money for polio research. In April 1954, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis began vaccinating the 1.8 million schoolchildren with a polio vaccine developed by Dr. Salk. Delivered by syringe, the Salk vaccine — plus an oral compound later concocted by Dr. Albert B. Sabin — eventually all but eliminated polio. Field trials were carried out early in 1954. Altogether, 1.8 million children in first, second and third grade were given a series of three shots. Typically, the vaccinations were spaced a month apart. In 1960, Salk established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, a San Diego suburb. The institute became a leading biomedical research center. Salk conducted research on multiple sclerosis and cancer before retiring from his own laboratory in 1984. He continued to maintain offices at the institute and, in 1987, co-founded Immune Response Corp. in Carlsbad to search for an AIDS vaccine. He died in 1995. Here are some stories from Deseret News archives about eradicating polio, what it took from the American public and how we have dealt with disease and vaccinations since: 'Utahns recall polio's impact' '`Polio pioneers' began quest to conquer illness 40 years ago' 'Vaccine years away for AIDS, but efforts are showing promise' 'A miracle, or a scientific feat? Vaccines can be both' 'One step at a time: Salt Lake City researcher records post-polio syndrome' 'Support group validates polio survivors' 'Salk honored 40 years after banishing fear' 'Jonas Salk, eradicator of polio, dies' 'Here's why Utah is looking at monitoring wastewater for polio' ''Polio' is important history of disease'
Boston Globe
24-03-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
The measles vaccine, developed at Boston Children's Hospital, spared millions from misery
Miller could have hardly imagined in those feverish hours that a pioneering Boston scientist would create a vaccine to spare countless other children from Advertisement Enders conducted this extraordinary research at Boston Children's Hospital (then known as Children's Hospital Medical Center) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Miller was in his senior year at Harvard Medical School in 1961 when he was introduced to Enders. A few years before, Enders had won the Thanks to Enders' work on vaccines, John Enders posed for a photo in 1964 in his office. Boston Children's Hospital Most are children and at least 40 patients have been hospitalized. One child in Texas has died, the first death from measles in the US in over a decade. The rapidly spreading outbreak comes as vaccination rates in general among children Miller, now a few weeks shy of 88 and a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Yale School of Medicine, is keenly aware of the Advertisement For millennia, scientific discoveries have been carried forward and built upon as the acolytes of one generation nurture and then pass their insights to the next. Now, that time-honored progression is at risk of fraying under a barrage of Trump administration actions that have slashed hundreds of millions of dollars for The story of the measles vaccine, the research behind it, and the generational legacy it spawned is one of the clearest cases of this long arc in science. Enders, originally an unhappy language major in graduate school at Harvard, only became fascinated with science after tagging along with a friend to a lab, and meeting a charismatic immunology researcher and professor, By the 1940s, Enders was absorbed by Shortly after, Jonas Salk used the Enders' team technique to create the polio vaccine now widely associated with Salk, which was licensed in 1955. Advertisement By then, Enders' team, working to build on their colleagues' success with polio, had A front-page 1959 Boston Globe headline captured the excitement of the measles breakthrough. 'Safe, Effective Measles Vaccine Found in Tests on Children Here,' proclaimed the story, which said that adult volunteers at Children's Hospital took the vaccine before it was tried on 11 Boston-area children. After further successful trials, a September 1961 New York Times article declared, 'Dr. Enders' second triumph over a major disease will be hailed everywhere as one of the greatest achievements of medicine.' And yet, even when Miller first met Enders in 1961, the lab at Children's still occupied four rooms in an old building in Longwood Medical Area. The measles vaccine would be licensed two years later, and the vaccine available today contains the same strain of virus isolated by the Enders team so many decades ago. Enders' technique for growing viruses made it possible for many scientists to later develop other common vaccines on a large scale. Years later, after Enders' death in 1985, Miller was going through his late mentor's papers and discovered a trove of letters from pharmaceutical companies asking for batches of the measles virus to help them create additional measles vaccines. Enders and his colleagues, Miller learned, were just giving away copies of the virus, mailing samples to help out other scientists. Advertisement 'There wasn't the era of intellectual property,' Miller said. 'They didn't harvest any money from measles or from the polio.' Enders, a modest man with a magnetic personality, an unquenchable curiosity, and a penchant for wearing vests, was affectionately called 'Chief' by his lab colleagues. He was thrifty by nature, packing his lunch daily, but was known to lavish time on his students, asking about their lives, as well as their research. Miller bonded with him over their shared passion for fishing. From left, the late Dr. Robert Gross, a pediatric surgeon at Boston Children's Hospital, and Dr. John Enders hold a bucket of striped bass caught near Ender's home in Waterford, Conn. Courtesy of George Miller Fishing, said Miller, is an apt metaphor for the work scientists do. 'We catch surprises,' he said. Miller spent just four months during that stretch in Enders' lab learning how to handle viruses before heading to Cleveland for a residency in internal medicine at Case Western Reserve University. But those four months sparked his interest in using science to fight disease. That, and the country's launch in 1964 of a military draft for its expanding war in Vietnam, inspired Miller to enroll in an alternative: a program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help vaccinate thousands of children against measles in Panama and Africa. 'It's the story of my life,' Miller said of his opportunity to use a vaccine his mentor created to vaccinate so many children against a disease often lethal in developing countries. His time in Panama's remote Veraguas province stands out. 'You had to take a horse up there. The roads weren't passable,' he said. 'We'd show up at this site that had been established for vaccination against measles. And these mothers would come with their babies. They may have walked for three days to get it.' Miller returned to Enders lab in the late 1960s for about three years of post-doctoral research working on the Epstein-Barr virus, a common virus that causes mononucleosis or 'mono.' At Enders' suggestion, Miller coaxed the virus to grow indefinitely in a cell and then demonstrated that such an 'immortalized' Epstein-Barr virus can turn cancerous, paving the way for researchers today who are linking some viruses to cancer, such as the Advertisement Soon after, Miller was recruited to Yale School of Medicine, where his groundbreaking Epstein-Barr research continues to fuel his life's work. George Miller circa 1966 in Veraguas province, Panama, when Miller was working at the CDC administering mass measles vaccinations to children there. The region was so remote that the only way to get there was via horseback. George Miller Mindful of the extraordinary opportunities afforded him from his years with Enders, Miller became known at Yale as a mentor who, like Enders, regularly shared his time and insights to inspire the next generation of scientists. Among them is Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Hotez became a familiar face during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, regularly tapped by TV news to explain the science to an uneasy public. 'George taught me how to think through a problem,' Hotez said. 'Whether it's seeing a patient with an unknown infectious illness or how to manage things during an epidemic.' Hotez said he and Miller have privately discussed the rising misinformation against vaccines and 'how horrified we are that we have to even defend vaccines.' Hotez, author of the 2018 book 'Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism,' has drawn on his experiences as a pediatrician, vaccine scientist, and father of an autistic child to push back against the growing, false claims that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes the developmental disorder. 'I grew up in this era when vaccine scientists were considered something heroic,' said Hotez, who is 66. 'And that's what I wanted to do with my life.' From left, an unidentified man, Dr. John Enders, and Dr. George Miller as Miller is awarded the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fund grant in 1968 for his early work with Epstein-Barr virus. George Miller For his 70th birthday in 2007, some of Miller's former students organized a symposium to honor their mentor. Nearly 200 flocked to Yale, coming from around the world where many now hold prestigious positions in science, said Dr. Sumita Bhaduri-McIntosh, director of Pediatric Infectious Disease Research at the University of Florida, who helped organize the event. 'Many of us are continuing the tradition of paying this one forward by training the next generation that follows us,' she said. In Hotez, that tradition will come full circle next month. Boston Children's Hospital each year invites a science luminary to lead a special teaching session for doctors and medical students in honor of Enders. And on April 16, Hotez will lead that session. 'George taught me not only how to be a good scientist, but how to conduct myself, to show integrity and to explain science,' Hotez said. 'I was totally thrilled to get that invitation,' Hotez added, 'because Enders is one of my biomedical heroes.' Dr. George Miller held a photo of himself, standing with doctors involved with West African measles vaccinations, outside the CDC in Atlanta. Miller, holding a horn, is second from right. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Kay Lazar can be reached at
