Today in 1954, the Salk Polio vaccine begins tests in the field on about 1.8 million children. Trials began at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in Virginia, but soon went international to Canada and Finland. The Trials used, for the first time, the “double-blind” method in which both doctors and patients don’t know if they are getting the vaccine or a placebo. By April 12, 1955, doctors were proudly able to announce the vaccine was safe and effective.
The man behind the early stage of the vaccine was New York man, Jonas Salk. Salk had done work on a flu vaccine in the 1940s, which lead him to begin production a solution to polio. During the late 1950s, Polish physician Albert Sabin worked on an Oral form of the Polio vaccine and found success as well. Sabin’s form of the vaccine was cheaper and easier to administer, making it the quick standard.
