Regular Meeting, March 9, 1954 2
The President said, "Dr. Dixon is chairman of the Poliomyelitis Committee, and what he says tends to indicate that the vaccine is safe, and gives us some idea as to how the vaccination will take place."
Dr. Lewis Howard addressed the President, and was recognized. He said, "I have been given the administrative job of getting this thing started, and April 2, 1954, if the date set for the first dose. To my mind, we ought to organize about 30 teams for this community, and I anticipate that we could get the job done in 1-1/2 to 2 hours on this basis. The organization is up to my office. If we could have 30 physicians to volunteer, we could get the job done. As for getting into arguments about the safety of the vaccine and all that, I am just a health officer. I have been assured by the powers up above that the Foundation will take care of anything that does wrong with the vaccine. They do not anticipate anything going wrong. For a while the question 'Who is going to assume the responsibility' did concern me. It did enter my mind that some child might be coming down with polio at the time of a vaccination, but the Foundation assures me it will take care of all responsibility."
Dr. Bernstein--"We have been asked to approve, ratify, sponsor, this polio vaccinations. I don't think there is any need for us here to take any stand one way or other, but certain objections have been raised, and if there is anyone who knows of these, this is the time to bring them forth. It was my original intention to turn this discussion over to someone who knows something about the problem, but I want to avoid having anyone try to projects one side of the problem. I plainly state that I know very little about it, and would like to that those who are interested make their statements now."
Dr. Dixon addressed the President and was recognized. He said,
"If the Pima County Medical Society does not approve of this, this will cease to be a selected areas for the trial vaccination."
Dr. Bernstein then read an excerpt from the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL, February 11, 1954, an Editorial called the "Present Status of Research on Vaccine against Poliomyelitis", the last paragraph:
"A potential development of a vaccine incorporating living, avirulent strains of poliomyelitis virus has been advanced by Sabin's recent discovery that all three virulent to avirulent forms by special methods of cultivation in non-nervous tissue. The data he presented at the December 1953 meeting of the New England Pediatric Society indicated that the work had progressed sufficiently to warrant the extensive laboratory studies that must precede any test on human beings. The prospect of an effective and practicable method of vaccination against poliomyelitis seems better now than ever before, but there may be considerable wisdom in making haste slowly."
Dr. Bernstein added "I gather that no one here raises any objection to the use of the vaccine? If that is so, fine."
Dr. Stanford then addressed the President, and was recognized. He said, "I think the public could easily be convinced of the safety of this vaccine if all the members of the Pima County Medical Society who are in favor of the vaccination will permit themselves to be vaccinated first."
Dr. Mayer Hyman addressed the President, was recognized, and said, "I recall from reading this same article something about Rh factors, and also about a certain strain having been used which may be dangerous."
Dr. Bernstein said, "At the Board of Directors meeting recently we felt there were not enough of us present who knew enough about this particular thing to decide on it."
Dr. A.L. Lindberg, having been recognized by the President, said, "I heard a little about this on the radio about two weeks ago--a report from somewhere that it was not effective at all."
