Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-03-13
Test Fight on Polio
Child Will Not Be InocuIuted
Unless Parents Request 1t


await outside the makeshift
clinic rooms in the schools. Each
child will be accompanied by his
teacher when he enters the room.
Accurate records will be kept
there to make certain he gets all
three shots from the same vial.
A nurse will prepare the nee
dies and syringes. A volunteer
will swab the child's arm. The
shot viii be administered in the
upper left arm by a doctor.
The child then will return to
his classroom. He will have been
in the clinic room about one
minute.
Just in case any child becomes
upset or frightened a cot will
be available on which he can rest.
Another nurse will be on hand to
care for him.
That's all there is to it except
for the thousands of admins
trative details and dozens of
meetings planned by health de-
partment officials. volunteers.
teachers, principals and doctors.
No one. including the doctor or
representatives Of the health de-
partment. will know whether
your child got the vaccine or a
colored harmless liquid being
used as q control. The code al
ready is set up to maintain this
secrecy and is locked in a bank
vault.
BY early June somewhere
between 100000 and a million
children throughout the country
are expected to have received
the vaccine or the control.
Wait and Watch.
Then it is wait and watch as
the polio toll rises slowly in
June, faster in July and most
sharply in August and Septem-
Der.
DR.. Thomas Francis. jr.. re-
nowned epidemiologist at the
University of Michigan has been
given a free hand by the founda-
ton and all funds he needs to
evaluate results of the mass trial.
the biggest in medical history.
Special evaluating teams will
study the 200 areas participating.
In most areas. such as Vir-
ginia. second graders only will
receive the shots with the first
and third graders acting as
control comparisons. Eleven
areas. like Montgomery. are
using the more scientific-and
administratively dificult-secret
control system.
The questions to be answered
by the test include: Does the
vaccine provide complete or par
tial immunity and. if so, for how
long? Does it at least help block
the Gripping paralysis Of the
disease? Are the antibodieS the
real defense. as all evidence so
far indicates?
Key Question.
The latter is the key question.
AS Dr.. Hart E. Van Ripper. medi-
cal director of the foundation.
puts it:
1T is still possible that in an
unknown number of cases the
virus may select strictly neural
path" Science now believes the
polio virus spends a short time
in the blood before travelling to
the central nervous system.
Conceivably the trials might be
inconclusive. That could hap
pen if polio does not strike no.
ticeably in the test areas.
At best, according to DR.. Her
bert T. Wagner. director of the
foundations hospital services.
substantial results of the tests
will not be known before mid
winter.
If the vaccine proves effective,
even then the ultimate question
as to how long the immunity
lasts will not be answered.
But DR.. Jonas E. Salk who de-
veloped the vaccine, has reported
such good results in his tests that
the foundation has been opti-
mistic enough te spend SIS mil
lion in March of Dimes funds on
the project.