Review by Choice Review
In 1955, after a massive field trial, it was announced that the Salk vaccine worked, and that polio would soon become a disease of the past rather than a scourge of the present and future. This interesting book tells the story behind the development of the vaccine against polio and provides an in-depth view of the quarrels and personal animosities that threatened the entire effort. Based on more than 100 hours of oral history interviews, as well as the papers of Jonas Salk, this important book will serve as the basis for future research on the history of polio and the attempt to develop a vaccine against the disease. The 37 illustrations add life to the account and enhance the book's value. Both public and academic collections. -M. Kaufman, Westfield State College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
In 1954, Smith's parents requested that their then six-year-old daughter be part of an experimental program to test the Salk polio vaccine. Consider: such a request back then is like asking a parent today to test an AIDS vaccine on their child. Smith's personal involvement in the landmark Polio Pioneers program is perhaps what makes this chronicle of the vaccine's development so utterly fascinating. In a lively narrative that draws on her interviews with Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk, the author richly details the events leading up to the historic moment of discovery and the breathtaking introduction of the vaccine to an anxiously awaiting public. Interwoven throughout are well-chosen anecdotes that perfectly capture the popular culture's reactions to each new stage of the program. This behind-the-scenes record of one of the most important public health measures ever is an absolute must for libraries' permanent collections, especially since it carries an important reminder for today's and future parents about the dangers of not following an immunization program. Highly recommended. Notes; to be indexed. --Mary Banas
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Paralytic polio went from epidemic outbreak to near-extinction in 50 years. This medical triumph involved more than the daring of Jonas Salk, who developed a killer-virus vaccine against the advice of his colleagues, and of his rival Albert Sabin, whose oral live-virus vaccine is now widely used. The war on polio is also the story of the March of Dimes, mass field-testing of the vaccine on schoolchildren, accidental deaths, scientists jockeying for prestige and power, and the importation of large numbers of monkeys. A Northwestern University visiting scholar, Smith unconvincingly links FDR's struggle with crippling polio to the nation's turning ``to the language of polio'' in the 1930s (``Business was `paralyzed,' the economy was `crippled' ''). Her contention that the 1950s vaccination program drew popular support from the Cold War's ``atmosphere of mass vulnerability'' seems dubious, as do some of her sociological interpretations. Even so, this exciting, dramatic narrative tells a comprehensive story of the conquest of polio and sheds fresh light on the politics of medicine. Photos. Author tour. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Who owned the patent (on the polio vaccine), Ed Murrow asked Jonas Salk on TV. ""Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"" Salk replied: And therein lies a tale, told with admirable style, wit, and intelligence by Smith, a visiting scholar at Northwestern's Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research. Smith has the rare ability to re-create a scene--bickerings at National Foundation meetings, rancor among the rivals, an impassioned press at the conference releasing the first results of the Salk vaccine trials--with wonderful verisimilitude. She will awaken in an older generation memories of the terrible summers of polio epidemics when children were forbidden to swim in public pools, when iron lungs were everywhere, when the lights would go in the movie theaters for March of Dimes collections. And she takes us back even further, to FDR and Basil O'Connor, the brash law partner and lifelong advisor who took Roosevelt's losing investment in Warms Springs and built the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. It was Foundation money that funded the vaccine development and the trials; and it was O'Connor who promised to buy the first year's output of the drug companies even if the vaccine was a bust--all told $16 million, a tidy sum in 1954. The sheer logistics of the testing of the vaccine, which required three successive inoculations, the bloods collected from subsamples, the data collection and information fed to and from 150,000 volunteers, is a story in itself. But at the heart of the book is the personal story of Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. Smith adroitly lets both men and their colleagues speak for themselves, so that one emerges with some empathy for Salk, none for Sabin. Mostly, one comes away with a sense of wonder that it all came out right in the end--and thankful to Smith for doing such a grand job of reporting how. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
