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Science 2 June 2000:
Vol. 288. no. 5471, pp. 1593 - 1594
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5471.1593
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Essays on Science and Society

Also see the archival list of the Essays on Science and Society.

ESSAY ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY:
A Brief History of Polio Vaccines

Stuart Blume and Ingrid Geesink

The rivalry between Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, the U.S. scientists who each developed an efficient polio vaccine, is legendary. In a Science & Society Essay, Blume and Geesink,. examine the pressures that prompted the United States to switch from the Salk inactivated polio vaccine to the Sabin live-attenuated oral vaccine in the 1960s. This move was followed by most of the world but not by the Netherlands, where exclusive production of the Salk vaccine was continued and, indeed, improved upon. The points the authors raise are particularly pertinent because the year 2000 sees the United States switching back to immunizing children with the Salk vaccine.

S. Blume is in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. E-mail: blume{at}pscw.uva.nl. I. Geesink is at Diopter, 's Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. E-mail: I.Geesink{at}Diopter.nl

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Shedding and Reversion of Oral Polio Vaccine Type 3 in Mexican Vaccinees: Comparison of Mutant Analysis by PCR and Enzyme Cleavage to a Real-Time PCR Assay.
D. Gnanashanmugam, M. S. Falkovitz-Halpern, A. Dodge, M. Fang, L. J. Wong, M. Esparza, R. Hammon, E. E. Rivas-Merelles, J. I. Santos, and Y. Maldonado (2007)
J. Clin. Microbiol. 45, 2419-2425
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Live attenuated HIV vaccines: Predicting the tradeoff between efficacy and safety.
S. M. Blower, K. Koelle, D. E. Kirschner, and J. Mills (2001)
PNAS 98, 3618-3623
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)