0:00:02 > 0:00:03PUBLIC HEALTH FILM:
0:00:03 > 0:00:07'You've never seen me but I'm sure you've seen my shadow.'
0:00:07 > 0:00:13This programme contains some scenes some viewers may find upsetting.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17100 years ago, a mysterious new epidemic took hold in Britain and America.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20There was no vaccine to prevent it and no cure.
0:00:21 > 0:00:27'I specialise in grotesques, twisting and deforming human bodies.'
0:00:29 > 0:00:33It was every bit as terrifying as the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s -
0:00:33 > 0:00:38except the victims of this cruel plague were mainly children.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42And its symbol was a calliper.
0:00:42 > 0:00:48ARCHIVE: 'A thick fear fell over the city. Polio running wild, choking hospitals.'
0:00:48 > 0:00:49I know about polio
0:00:49 > 0:00:53because my own dad caught the disease in the navy during the war.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57Polio put him in a wheelchair from the age of 21.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01It was also a large part of the reason why
0:01:01 > 0:01:03he never lived to see me grow up.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08The battle to beat polio tested medical science,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11particularly here in America, to the limit.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15It's a story of decades of battling between good
0:01:15 > 0:01:20and bad science and giant scientific egos - brilliant men who often
0:01:20 > 0:01:24seemed more focused on defeating each other than defeating polio.
0:01:27 > 0:01:28ARCHIVE: 'Someday, says Dr Salk,
0:01:28 > 0:01:32'the vaccine may completely eradicate the menace of polio.'
0:01:32 > 0:01:35Sort of celebrity scientist, Jonas Salk,
0:01:35 > 0:01:40this white knight in a lab coat who was always talking in front of cameras.
0:01:40 > 0:01:41There was tremendous jealousy.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44Albert Sabin really attacked Salk mercilessly
0:01:44 > 0:01:46because he was a bastard, frankly.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50The race for a vaccine saw scientists
0:01:50 > 0:01:53embarking on the riskiest types of testing.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56About 120,000 children were inadvertently inoculated with
0:01:56 > 0:01:58live deadly polio virus.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04It was probably the worst biological disaster in United States' history.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07But if it hadn't been for all that,
0:02:07 > 0:02:11it turns out we might have had a polio vaccine years earlier.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even my dad,
0:02:14 > 0:02:15might have been spared.
0:02:25 > 0:02:26Hello, good evening.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29We had quite a business getting up here from the Haymarket.
0:02:29 > 0:02:31Swann offered to push me up.
0:02:31 > 0:02:33I'd forgotten it was November 5th tomorrow -
0:02:33 > 0:02:36he got one and sixpence! LAUGHTER
0:02:36 > 0:02:40My father became a world-famous entertainer in the singing duo
0:02:40 > 0:02:42Flanders and Swann in the 1950s.
0:02:44 > 0:02:46He wheeled himself into the spotlight,
0:02:46 > 0:02:4920 years after contracting polio.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54Polio paralysed him completely for the first six months, withered
0:02:54 > 0:02:59his muscles and then put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03I was only six-and-a-half when dad died
0:03:03 > 0:03:05so my memories are glimpses, really.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09# Mud, mud, glorious mud...
0:03:09 > 0:03:11# Nothing quite like it for... #
0:03:11 > 0:03:15One of the memories I do have is something that was related
0:03:15 > 0:03:17to his disability cos I remember being able to sit on his lap
0:03:17 > 0:03:21and drive the car, because he had a specially-adapted car
0:03:21 > 0:03:24where the accelerator actually just involved squeezing
0:03:24 > 0:03:27with your hand rather than having to use your feet.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31A disabled driver's badge seems to act like an L-plate to most other
0:03:31 > 0:03:33drivers - they want to get past you at all costs.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36They think you're going to blow up or something.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42My father died in 1975, when he was only 53,
0:03:42 > 0:03:47from medical problems partly brought on by a long life with polio.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52ARCHIVE: 'He looks well enough, but there's something wrong with him.
0:03:52 > 0:03:57'Infantile paralysis or to give it its proper name - poliomyelitis.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01'It left his limbs limp and powerless.'
0:04:03 > 0:04:06We know now that polio is a virus that enters the gut
0:04:06 > 0:04:09and attacks the central nervous system.
0:04:09 > 0:04:11But in Bristol back in 1909,
0:04:11 > 0:04:15when the first children in Britain became ill, no-one knew any of that.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19They just knew that children were being paralysed by a terrifying new disease.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28This was pretty standard if you had a leg affected
0:04:28 > 0:04:32so you can lock the leg straight for walking because the leg would
0:04:32 > 0:04:35otherwise be so weak that it would just buckle under your weight.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39It wasn't perfect but it did get people mobile.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44Parents and doctors alike had no understanding of what was
0:04:44 > 0:04:48attacking the children - could only try to cope with the symptoms.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53This was an immobilising plaster cast. A child would have had
0:04:53 > 0:04:57a paralysed right arm and the arm would have been splinted up
0:04:57 > 0:05:01like that with this back slab and held up with that support.
0:05:01 > 0:05:03And how long would they be in something like that?
0:05:03 > 0:05:04Um, usually some months.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06It was an attempt to rest the arm
0:05:06 > 0:05:10so that the paralysis could run its course and hopefully recover.
0:05:10 > 0:05:12The big problem with this, of course, is that
0:05:12 > 0:05:16if you splint a limb in a position, then all the muscles lose power
0:05:16 > 0:05:18and they don't synthesise protein.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21So if there was any chance that these children were going to get
0:05:21 > 0:05:24some use back in his arms this would make sure that wouldn't happen.
0:05:24 > 0:05:25This would be a really good way
0:05:25 > 0:05:27- of preventing that from happening. - Oh, God.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32The patient simply had to lie paralysed waiting
0:05:32 > 0:05:36and hoping for the worst phase of the disease to subside.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43These are dolls that were used to show children who were
0:05:43 > 0:05:46going into an orthopaedic hospital what they might expect.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49And this is the child's prison, effectively,
0:05:49 > 0:05:53so the child would have been stuck in that bed for weeks or months.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55But there is worse to come.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01In the worst cases, polio would paralyse the child's diaphragm
0:06:01 > 0:06:03till they couldn't breathe at all.
0:06:03 > 0:06:08Here we have the iron lung if there was a risk that their respiratory
0:06:08 > 0:06:10muscles might be paralysed.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13And so if you couldn't breathe, you would go into this.
0:06:13 > 0:06:15If you couldn't breathe, you would go into this.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17The mortality rate was about 70%.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21It looked like a coffin and it effectively was a coffin.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25Three quarters of people put into this actually died in the machine.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28A year before the Bristol epidemic,
0:06:28 > 0:06:31science had made its first foray against the disease.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34Most infections of the time were caused by bacteria,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37and a Viennese professor of pathology, Karl Landsteiner,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40had gone looking for the bacteria that he assumed caused polio,
0:06:40 > 0:06:43and found out something important.
0:06:43 > 0:06:48They put an extract of infected spinal cord from a boy who had
0:06:48 > 0:06:50died of polio in Vienna...
0:06:50 > 0:06:54They ran this through a filter that held back all bacteria.
0:06:54 > 0:06:56But that extract which had been filtered out to take out
0:06:56 > 0:07:00the bacteria still was able to transmit paralysis to a monkey
0:07:00 > 0:07:02when it was injected into a monkey.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06So that proved that whatever caused the paralysis was actually smaller
0:07:06 > 0:07:09than a bacterium and that's where they proved that it was a virus.
0:07:11 > 0:07:13With Landsteiner's discovery came
0:07:13 > 0:07:17the realisation that there would be no cure.
0:07:17 > 0:07:19There aren't any particularly good medicines
0:07:19 > 0:07:22against viruses once you've got the infection,
0:07:22 > 0:07:26so, in general terms, the best way of dealing with a viral
0:07:26 > 0:07:29infection is to try and prevent it rather than treat it or cure.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34By the start of the 20th century, science had already developed
0:07:34 > 0:07:40successful vaccines for two deadly viral diseases - smallpox and rabies.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43But polio turned out to be much, much, trickier.
0:07:46 > 0:07:50All viruses are small, but the polio virus was tiny.
0:07:50 > 0:07:55It was so small you could fit 20,000 of them on a printed full stop.
0:07:55 > 0:08:00They didn't invent a microscope powerful enough to see them for another 20 years.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08Right from those early days, British scientists shied
0:08:08 > 0:08:12away from even trying to solve the problem of polio.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15There simply wasn't the money, the will,
0:08:15 > 0:08:19or the expertise to investigate the condition in this country.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28But across the Atlantic, philanthropists made rich
0:08:28 > 0:08:32by industry were funding scientists to do exactly that.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36If you wanted to do serious medical research in America
0:08:36 > 0:08:40in the first part of the 20th century, you wanted to do it here.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43The Rockefeller Institute basically set the course for research
0:08:43 > 0:08:47into polio for nearly 30 years - not always in the right direction.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53In fact, the first attempts in 1910, by the Institute's
0:08:53 > 0:08:57illustrious director Simon Flexner, would turn out to be disastrous.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02To discover how the virus took hold in the body, Flexner began
0:09:02 > 0:09:07swabbing the noses of his lab monkeys with the live polio virus.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10His monkeys soon became paralysed.
0:09:10 > 0:09:16Flexner's conclusion was that polio virus was inhaled through
0:09:16 > 0:09:19the nose, went into the brain,
0:09:19 > 0:09:23and into the central nervous system causing paralysis.
0:09:23 > 0:09:25The problem, as Flexner saw it,
0:09:25 > 0:09:28was that polio virus never entered the bloodstream.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32If that was true, it was very bad news.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36Vaccines work by creating antibodies in the blood,
0:09:36 > 0:09:38so if the polio virus never passed through the bloodstream,
0:09:38 > 0:09:41a vaccine would be impossible.
0:09:41 > 0:09:45But Flexner, it turned out, had made a fundamental mistake.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48He never tested any other kinds of monkeys to see
0:09:48 > 0:09:51if there was any other way that you could catch polio.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54Had he done so, he would have found out that most monkeys become
0:09:54 > 0:09:56infected through the mouth -
0:09:56 > 0:09:59ingesting the virus through the gut and into the bloodstream,
0:09:59 > 0:10:03so a vaccine would have been possible after all.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05But Flexner wasn't just wrong...
0:10:05 > 0:10:07He was incredibly powerful.
0:10:07 > 0:10:11He was right at the top of the tree in American medicine.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14He was regarded as the most powerful man in polio research
0:10:14 > 0:10:17on the planet, and he concluded that if he couldn't make it work,
0:10:17 > 0:10:19then nobody could make it work -
0:10:19 > 0:10:23so he single-handedly effectively killed off research into polio
0:10:23 > 0:10:25vaccines for another 20 years after that.
0:10:30 > 0:10:35And the need for a vaccination was about to become even more urgent.
0:10:35 > 0:10:40In June 1916, right on Flexner's doorstep, the largest polio epidemic
0:10:40 > 0:10:44the world had ever seen erupted right in the heart of New York.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48It would paralyse or kill as many as 27,000 people
0:10:48 > 0:10:50in the next three months.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56The health authorities were baffled and set out to find the source.
0:10:59 > 0:11:02Infectious diseases, like cholera and TB, were a huge problem
0:11:02 > 0:11:06in New York in the 1870s and '80s, when the population was exploding.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10By the turn of the century, the number of cases had gone down dramatically.
0:11:10 > 0:11:12They thought they'd got on top of the problem
0:11:12 > 0:11:14with better sanitation and better health standards.
0:11:14 > 0:11:18So the outbreak of polio came as a real shock.
0:11:18 > 0:11:19They blamed the foreigners -
0:11:19 > 0:11:23particularly the Italian immigrants who were coming in with their
0:11:23 > 0:11:25"deadly germs" and living in Brooklyn.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30Thousands of Italian immigrants who'd fled the war in Europe
0:11:30 > 0:11:32were now flooding into New York.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41Most settled in Pigtown, as this area of Brooklyn was known.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44Little did they know they were moving into another war zone -
0:11:44 > 0:11:46the epicentre of the polio epidemic.
0:11:48 > 0:11:50It affects hundreds of children,
0:11:50 > 0:11:54they come down with high fevers, paralysis.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57The parents do not know what to do.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01They begin to send workers around to these various immigrant
0:12:01 > 0:12:03tenements to look at the children
0:12:03 > 0:12:06and very quickly these neighbourhoods are quarantined
0:12:06 > 0:12:10meaning that parents cannot go in and see their children.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20But quarantine officials on Ellis Island soon found out that
0:12:20 > 0:12:24though the disease had originated in that Italian neighbourhood,
0:12:24 > 0:12:27there wasn't any evidence of it coming in with the refugees.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32And before long, the disease itself began to spiral outwards.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37It starts in Brooklyn, it moves to Manhattan,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40it moves into the areas north and west of New York City,
0:12:40 > 0:12:43and the authorities don't know what to do.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47The public health authorities kill tens of thousands of cats
0:12:47 > 0:12:51believing that cats and dogs spread the disease.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55They begin killing horses, they begin trying to figure out
0:12:55 > 0:12:58is this a disease that comes from animals to humans?
0:12:58 > 0:13:00Where has it come from?
0:13:00 > 0:13:05Towns outside of New York begin to have police at the borders
0:13:05 > 0:13:10saying that no-one who does not live in this town will be allowed in.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16When the epidemic finally burns itself out three months later,
0:13:16 > 0:13:19the authorities make an astonishing discovery.
0:13:21 > 0:13:22Nine out of ten of the victims
0:13:22 > 0:13:25hadn't come from Pigtown or other ghettos,
0:13:25 > 0:13:28but from the wealthier suburbs.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33You have to understand that the great polio epidemics
0:13:33 > 0:13:38occur in the 20th century - the belief being that polio is
0:13:38 > 0:13:41a disease of cleanliness, and as societies become more
0:13:41 > 0:13:46antiseptic they are more likely to have certain kinds of diseases.
0:13:46 > 0:13:51And polio virus is apparently very susceptible in that area.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55The reality was that no-one was safe.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58As a rising star of American politics,
0:13:58 > 0:14:03Franklin D Roosevelt would contract polio five years later in 1921.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06It would leave him paralysed from the waist down
0:14:06 > 0:14:07for the rest of his life.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10Despite that, he went on to become the only man
0:14:10 > 0:14:13ever elected president four times.
0:14:14 > 0:14:19I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do solemnly swear that
0:14:19 > 0:14:23I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29In office, he made the fight against polio not just his own
0:14:29 > 0:14:34personal crusade, but a spur for all of America to embrace the cause.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43For 25 years, Simon Flexner's failed experiment had made sure that
0:14:43 > 0:14:47nothing had happened in the world of polio research.
0:14:47 > 0:14:48But with this new president,
0:14:48 > 0:14:52the search for a vaccine was back on the agenda.
0:14:52 > 0:14:57What you do have by the 1930s are other people beginning to work.
0:14:57 > 0:15:01They're not sure how polio virus enters the system,
0:15:01 > 0:15:05but they are willing to move forward in terms of a vaccine -
0:15:05 > 0:15:10what we will try to do is to produce some antibody reaction.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13It's worked in the past with smallpox,
0:15:13 > 0:15:18and a smallpox vaccine, it's worked with rabies and a rabies vaccine,
0:15:18 > 0:15:23these are both viruses, let us try to move in that direction.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27What quickly develops are two very different approaches.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30Here in Philadelphia, the director of the city's medical
0:15:30 > 0:15:35research institute, John Kolmer, following in the footsteps of Edward
0:15:35 > 0:15:37Jenner's success with smallpox,
0:15:37 > 0:15:40began work on a live virus vaccine.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44That's a very tricky vaccine because basically you have to
0:15:44 > 0:15:49weaken it to the point where it causes a very infinitesimally
0:15:49 > 0:15:54minor case of polio, but it also produces immunity.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57In other words, it will produce antibodies that will give you
0:15:57 > 0:16:01a lifetime of immunity against the virus itself.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06That is very hard because you have to keep attenuating the vaccine
0:16:06 > 0:16:10and make sure that it does not have enough live virus in it
0:16:10 > 0:16:12to give you polio.
0:16:14 > 0:16:16But there was a rival team.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20Here in New York, the city's head of public health, William Park,
0:16:20 > 0:16:24had brought in a brilliant young researcher, Maurice Brodie,
0:16:24 > 0:16:27who had very different ideas on how to create a vaccine.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Brodie had decided to follow the method used by Louis Pasteur
0:16:31 > 0:16:35in his discovery of a vaccine to fight rabies.
0:16:35 > 0:16:39We will take polio virus and we will kill it with formaldehyde.
0:16:39 > 0:16:44And we will inject it into your body and see what happens, OK?
0:16:44 > 0:16:48The beauty of that kind of vaccine is that
0:16:48 > 0:16:52if you fully kill the polio virus, the vaccine itself can never
0:16:52 > 0:16:56cause polio in the person who is getting the injection.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58The question is, how well will it work?
0:16:58 > 0:17:03Two lines of attack should have been better than one, and yet these two
0:17:03 > 0:17:09illustrious men turned a scientific endeavour into a dangerous race.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12William F Park and Maurice Brodie thought
0:17:12 > 0:17:16they could basically take their time but they found out very quickly that
0:17:16 > 0:17:21in Philadelphia, 90 miles away, John Kolmer, was testing on children.
0:17:21 > 0:17:26What this did was to increase the pressure on Park and Brodie
0:17:26 > 0:17:28to also begin testing on children
0:17:28 > 0:17:31and what you had was a kind of scientific race.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37Who would get the vaccine out first, who was going to test the most,
0:17:37 > 0:17:40what the results were going to be, who would be more successful?
0:17:40 > 0:17:43When you're doing vaccine work in the 1930s,
0:17:43 > 0:17:49almost no-one, in a regulatory way, is looking over your shoulder.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53You are on your own - you're a buccaneer, you're a pioneer,
0:17:53 > 0:17:56and you are doing what you think must be done.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02Paul Offit knows all about pioneering vaccines.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05He helped create the rotavirus vaccine against diarrhoea
0:18:05 > 0:18:08which still kills more children in the developing world than
0:18:08 > 0:18:10almost anything else.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13I wouldn't say cutting corners was the right thing,
0:18:13 > 0:18:16you do it because you want to get there as quickly as you can.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18Polio was a devastating disease.
0:18:18 > 0:18:20It would, you know, it would affect children
0:18:20 > 0:18:25and it would cause them to be permanently paralysed and worse,
0:18:25 > 0:18:28they had a complete realisation what was happening to them.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31It affected their spinal cord far more than it affected their brain
0:18:31 > 0:18:33so they were fully aware of the fact
0:18:33 > 0:18:35that they may have had this iron lung that
0:18:35 > 0:18:38helped them breathe or that they were going to be crippled for life.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42It was a devastating infection and a very emotional infection.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46So there was a lot of interest in trying to make a vaccine to prevent it -
0:18:46 > 0:18:49to do whatever you could to make a vaccine to prevent it.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55What came out of that pressure was a willingness to take risks.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59Brodie thought injecting a mere 20 monkeys would be enough to
0:18:59 > 0:19:00prove his vaccine worked.
0:19:01 > 0:19:05Kolmer thought it OK to give his virtually untested live virus
0:19:05 > 0:19:07vaccine to hundreds of doctors who injected
0:19:07 > 0:19:09it into thousands of children.
0:19:14 > 0:19:16In November 1935,
0:19:16 > 0:19:20Brodie and Kolmer's results were publicly unveiled
0:19:20 > 0:19:24at the country's top medical conference in St Louis, Missouri.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27Both men were confident they had a vaccine that worked,
0:19:27 > 0:19:29and was safe to use.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34Looking back now, these papers, there's a lot that's wrong.
0:19:34 > 0:19:38Kolmer makes the point that his vaccine, in particular, is safe.
0:19:38 > 0:19:40Out of the 10,000 who were immunised,
0:19:40 > 0:19:44there are ten cases here of children who developed
0:19:44 > 0:19:47what looked very much like paralytic polio after being vaccinated.
0:19:47 > 0:19:49And five of those died.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52And when Kolmer wrote the first draft of this paper
0:19:52 > 0:19:55he didn't include this. It looks awfully like a cover-up.
0:19:56 > 0:20:00One of their fellow scientists at the meeting was damning.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03He presented the clinical evidence to the effect that the Kolmer
0:20:03 > 0:20:06live virus vaccine caused several deaths in children
0:20:06 > 0:20:10and then point blank accused Kolmer of being a murderer.
0:20:12 > 0:20:14And then in the end, they all turned on him
0:20:14 > 0:20:16and he then said, Kolmer said,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20"Gentlemen, this is one time I wish the floor would open up and swallow me."
0:20:23 > 0:20:25In fact, his rival Brodie had also been
0:20:25 > 0:20:27responsible for paralysing children.
0:20:27 > 0:20:32The formaldehyde he used hadn't killed all the virus in his vaccine.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37And it's Maurice Brodie that I really feel very sorry for
0:20:37 > 0:20:41because he was young, he was only 30, and died not very many years
0:20:41 > 0:20:45later at the age of 39 and there were rumours that he killed himself
0:20:45 > 0:20:47because he couldn't cope with this.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53The National Medical Conference concluded that both Brodie
0:20:53 > 0:20:56and Kolmer's vaccines were dangerous and should be banned immediately.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02I don't blame Kolmer and Brodie.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05I think they were trying to do the best they could to prevent a disease
0:21:05 > 0:21:08that was paralysing and killing children. For the 20 years
0:21:08 > 0:21:11until we had the next polio vaccine, think about how many children,
0:21:11 > 0:21:14how many thousands of children, would be paralysed or killed by that
0:21:14 > 0:21:17virus while we were waiting to figure this out.
0:21:24 > 0:21:29I find that whole episode in the '30s really frustrating.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33If it's true that it put back the search for a vaccine by 20
0:21:33 > 0:21:37years, well, that was the 20 years when my dad got polio.
0:21:38 > 0:21:43But Britain had never been part of any scientific race to find a vaccine.
0:21:43 > 0:21:46Here the response seemed to be damage limitation.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51- ARCHIVE:- 'Usually severe paralysis means imperfect recovery
0:21:51 > 0:21:54'and you may have to help the patient with a mechanical aid.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56'In the iron lung he looks happy.'
0:21:57 > 0:22:00We didn't have a president to lead the campaign
0:22:00 > 0:22:03but we did have our own rich philanthropist.
0:22:04 > 0:22:08- ARCHIVE:- 'Once again Lord Nuffield comes forward as Britain's premier philanthropist.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11'He watches a demonstration of the new iron lung which he's mass
0:22:11 > 0:22:15'producing at Cowley for presentation to hospitals all over Britain and the Empire.'
0:22:17 > 0:22:19The millionaire industrialist, Lord Nuffield,
0:22:19 > 0:22:24turned over half his shop floor to producing not cars, but iron lungs.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29This instrument is vital for the treatment of children whose
0:22:29 > 0:22:33respiratory organs had been impaired by infantile paralysis and a special
0:22:33 > 0:22:37staff, trained in its correct use, is always available day or night.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43The Royal Berkshire Hospital was given one of those iron lungs.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47He offered to build, and supply free of charge,
0:22:47 > 0:22:49an iron lung to every hospital in the British Empire
0:22:49 > 0:22:52which is an extraordinary philanthropic gesture...
0:22:52 > 0:22:55- So they were shipped off around the world...- Yes, absolutely.- Amazing!
0:22:55 > 0:22:58I sincerely hope that my gift
0:22:58 > 0:23:02will be the means of saving many valuable lives.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09Lord Nuffield's generosity reached as far as the Flanders family.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12When Dad caught polio, out at sea in the navy,
0:23:12 > 0:23:17it was so severe he quickly needed an iron lung to survive.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20For the first six months, he was in it for 24 hours a day.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23With the war still raging, there were frequent power cuts
0:23:23 > 0:23:26when his nurses had to pump it by hand to keep him breathing.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30- ARCHIVE:- 'The patient is made to breathe by a regular alteration of air pressure.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34'The air presses on the patient's diaphragm
0:23:34 > 0:23:38'and thus brings about an involuntary emptying and filling of the lungs.'
0:23:38 > 0:23:41Just stopped you dying of respiratory failure
0:23:41 > 0:23:45in the early stages, and then not everyone did recover.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47Um, it really bought you time.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51I had to go down a mine once.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53I had a terrible claustrophobia attack
0:23:53 > 0:23:55and I'm starting to feel slightly the same way.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58So this is a normal one and I'm finding it too short
0:23:58 > 0:24:00so I don't know what my dad would have done.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04Urgh... God!
0:24:06 > 0:24:09- Do not be alarmed!- Urgh!
0:24:12 > 0:24:14- God!- Excellent.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20All this clanking around!
0:24:20 > 0:24:25And then there'd be a rubber seal around your neck to stop any leaks.
0:24:27 > 0:24:28Completely trapped!
0:24:30 > 0:24:32Everything had to be done for you.
0:24:32 > 0:24:34You were dependent on nursing staff completely.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41- I'm not sure this is going to be... - So this is...
0:24:41 > 0:24:44- ..great on the dignity front. - ..a feeding cup.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49Mm-hm.
0:24:49 > 0:24:50Hmm.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54Very tasty. Gosh, that's the only way you can drink anything.
0:24:54 > 0:24:56Horrible feeling, isn't it, to be so dependent?
0:24:56 > 0:24:59It's true that anyone in hospital feels a bit like that,
0:24:59 > 0:25:01but this is extreme.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06My dad, eventually, was able to breathe again on his own,
0:25:06 > 0:25:11but some patients spent 50 years in this horizontal prison.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19In 1938, the same year that Nuffield was sending iron lungs
0:25:19 > 0:25:22across the world, President Roosevelt was doing
0:25:22 > 0:25:26all in his power to make polio research America's national cause.
0:25:27 > 0:25:31And he found a very American way to raise money for it, using the power
0:25:31 > 0:25:36of Hollywood - bringing in stars like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.
0:25:36 > 0:25:38Judy, when I spent a dime on myself for some little luxury
0:25:38 > 0:25:41like this, I always think about those unfortunate kids -
0:25:41 > 0:25:44how far just a dime will go toward helping.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47And that's what every good American should do - join the March of Dimes.
0:25:47 > 0:25:51Send yours to President Franklin Roosevelt in the White House.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02Like a battle-ready general, he founded the March of Dimes - a polio
0:26:02 > 0:26:06charity that would "lead the fight on every phase of the sickness".
0:26:07 > 0:26:10Over the next 20 years, The March of Dimes would turn
0:26:10 > 0:26:13the traditional model of fundraising on its head.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16It wasn't looking for big donations from the few,
0:26:16 > 0:26:19but tiny ones from the very many.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23He raised hundreds of millions of dollars.
0:26:23 > 0:26:25The dimes weren't forthcoming within the first two days
0:26:25 > 0:26:27and then indeed there was a deluge.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30And the joke was that the White House had to
0:26:30 > 0:26:34increase its mailroom staff in order to manage the volume of mail.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37He wanted to take this fight nationally and to really unify
0:26:37 > 0:26:41the fight against this disease and that's what he did.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44And that was our mantra at the time, to unify,
0:26:44 > 0:26:47lead and direct the fight against polio.
0:26:47 > 0:26:49ARCHIVE: 'March of Dimes headquarters in Washington.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52'Mrs Roosevelt accepts a cheque from Bobby Ridgio of Brooklyn.
0:26:52 > 0:26:57'And here it is. 500,000 dimes!'
0:26:57 > 0:27:00The campaign was also before its time in the way it used
0:27:00 > 0:27:03the media to scare the population into action.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08PUBLIC HEALTH FILM ARCHIVE: 'My name is Virus Poliomyelitis.
0:27:09 > 0:27:14'I cause a disease which you call infantile paralysis.
0:27:14 > 0:27:20'Ah, here we are - this is what I've been looking for...'
0:27:25 > 0:27:28I mean, now it's quite hard to watch that because it does
0:27:28 > 0:27:32look like scaremongering - I mean, it's a horror movie.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36But this would have been playing in movie theatres across the country?
0:27:36 > 0:27:38It was shown in theatres, yeah.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42It does seem like a precursor to The Twilight Zone, I like to think.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45Infantile paralysis.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48The way it's designed. It's trying to grab people, to scare them.
0:27:48 > 0:27:55Just the physical presence of disabled children in hospitals,
0:27:55 > 0:27:59in homes in the public was fearful enough.
0:27:59 > 0:28:01Infantile paralysis.
0:28:02 > 0:28:07That might have been me or your little boy or girl.
0:28:07 > 0:28:09It strikes the poor and the rich.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13No-one is safe from infantile paralysis,
0:28:13 > 0:28:15no matter who you are or what kind of home you live in.
0:28:18 > 0:28:22With all my money, what could I have done for my child?
0:28:27 > 0:28:31By the late 1940s, they'd proved that polio was absorbed
0:28:31 > 0:28:35into the bloodstream through the gut, and Hilary Koprowski, a Polish
0:28:35 > 0:28:39emigre working for a commercial lab in New York, realised this discovery
0:28:39 > 0:28:43could pave the way to a pioneering new method of vaccination.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51Hilary Koprowski was being funded by private industry
0:28:51 > 0:28:55and therefore Hilary Koprowski had fewer restrictions on what
0:28:55 > 0:28:57he could and could not do.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01And he was, in many ways, the great scientific buccaneer.
0:29:04 > 0:29:07He was going to give patients a vaccine they could drink.
0:29:07 > 0:29:08That would offer faster
0:29:08 > 0:29:12and more effective protection than a vaccine injected by syringe.
0:29:13 > 0:29:17But it would also be more risky, because he chose a live virus method
0:29:17 > 0:29:20as the building block for the vaccine.
0:29:21 > 0:29:25Boldly, he did test the vaccine on himself by drinking his concoction
0:29:25 > 0:29:29of virus grown and weakened in the brain cells of infected animals.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35The next step was to find a larger group of human guinea pigs
0:29:35 > 0:29:38to try out what was a potentially a lethal cocktail.
0:29:39 > 0:29:45This is where Koprowski came to try out his experimental vaccine on humans.
0:29:45 > 0:29:49Back then, it was a home for so-called "feeble minded children".
0:29:54 > 0:29:57In Letchworth Village in upstate New York, Koprowski found what
0:29:57 > 0:30:01he considered to be ideal test subjects -
0:30:01 > 0:30:05children who were either abandoned or orphaned, who had no-one
0:30:05 > 0:30:09to speak for them, and who were too severely disabled to protest.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15Koprowski's biographer has a description of him
0:30:15 > 0:30:20arriving here on February 27th 1948 with his colleague, Norton.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23"They carried a small cooler containing another batch of
0:30:23 > 0:30:25"the polio vaccine that they'd made
0:30:25 > 0:30:27"in the blender earlier that morning.
0:30:27 > 0:30:29"A boy of six waited.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33"His extreme handicap included an inability to feed himself.
0:30:33 > 0:30:36"A cubic centimetre of the grey liquid was measured out
0:30:36 > 0:30:37"and fed to the boy.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41"Koprowski recalls that the boy reacted badly to the taste
0:30:41 > 0:30:44"and was given a chocolate milk chaser which he liked."
0:30:44 > 0:30:49"It was typical," he writes, "of Koprowski to remember such a detail.
0:30:50 > 0:30:53They did it in ways that today we would find abhorrent.
0:30:53 > 0:30:58On the other hand, he saw this as absolute progress
0:30:58 > 0:31:01and what he saw was that he was getting results
0:31:01 > 0:31:02in these young children.
0:31:02 > 0:31:06By today's standards, this would be absolutely...
0:31:06 > 0:31:09It would be an offence that would send someone to jail.
0:31:10 > 0:31:12When Koprowski published his results,
0:31:12 > 0:31:16the British journal The Lancet did wonder whether it was right
0:31:16 > 0:31:18to call the children here "volunteers".
0:31:18 > 0:31:21They wrote, "We may yet read in a scientific journal that
0:31:21 > 0:31:25"an experiment was carried out with 20 volunteer mice
0:31:25 > 0:31:28"and 20 other mice were used as controls."
0:31:30 > 0:31:33Despite the controversy about his methods, the Letchworth
0:31:33 > 0:31:37residents developed antibodies which protected them against polio.
0:31:39 > 0:31:44Over a five year period, he modified his vaccine and ran more tests,
0:31:44 > 0:31:47finding a group in Britain who did give permission for a study.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51One of those volunteers happened to be a five-year-old
0:31:51 > 0:31:54Gareth Williams, then growing up in Belfast.
0:31:54 > 0:31:59Well, here we've got two guinea pigs here - this is actually me and my sister.
0:31:59 > 0:32:03We were recruited by the Professor of Microbiology coming up to my dad,
0:32:03 > 0:32:04who was Professor of Geology,
0:32:04 > 0:32:07in the staff club one lunchtime saying,
0:32:07 > 0:32:10"I've got this new vaccine for polio we've got to try it out.
0:32:10 > 0:32:12"It's everybody's responsibility,
0:32:12 > 0:32:14"I'm looking for volunteers, how about your kids?
0:32:14 > 0:32:16"Mine are in already."
0:32:16 > 0:32:19To which my father allegedly said, "That's fine, you can have them!"
0:32:19 > 0:32:22The trial involved Gareth, and hundreds of others,
0:32:22 > 0:32:25drinking Koprowski's oral vaccine.
0:32:25 > 0:32:27They were then tested over the next few months to see
0:32:27 > 0:32:31if their blood had created antibodies - it had.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34The vaccine was safe too - no-one had any side effects.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38But the research also discovered something alarming
0:32:38 > 0:32:42about the way polio could be passed between human beings.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45They discovered that although when you took the vaccine
0:32:45 > 0:32:48out of vial was absolutely innocuous -
0:32:48 > 0:32:49you could inject it into the brain
0:32:49 > 0:32:53of a monkey which was a standard test for the ability to paralyse
0:32:53 > 0:32:58at the time - you could do that and the monkey was absolutely fine.
0:32:58 > 0:33:02If you collected the vaccine virus from the stools having been
0:33:02 > 0:33:06through the kids' bowels and injected that virus into the monkeys' brain
0:33:06 > 0:33:09then some of those monkeys became paralysed.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12So what this showed was that simply going through the bowels
0:33:12 > 0:33:16of ostensibly normal kids in Belfast transformed this innocuous
0:33:16 > 0:33:20vaccine virus into something that could regain the power to paralyse.
0:33:20 > 0:33:24I don't know if it was my sample's of my sister's, or somebody else's,
0:33:24 > 0:33:30but somewhere in that study there was a bowel which altered
0:33:30 > 0:33:31the nature of the vaccine virus.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34So you risked putting it back in the community
0:33:34 > 0:33:37even if it wasn't going to be caught by the person themselves?
0:33:37 > 0:33:41Exactly right. This was a significant setback for the Koprowski vaccine.
0:33:45 > 0:33:49The head of virology at Belfast University declared that
0:33:49 > 0:33:54the vaccine was unsafe, so although he had got tantalisingly close,
0:33:54 > 0:33:58the Belfast trials had sent Koprowski back to the drawing board.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04At exactly the same time, astonishingly,
0:34:04 > 0:34:08rather like the rivalry of the 1930s, two more scientists
0:34:08 > 0:34:12came forward to battle it out in the race for a vaccine.
0:34:12 > 0:34:14Their approaches were radically different,
0:34:14 > 0:34:18one slow and methodical, the other fast and driven.
0:34:21 > 0:34:23Albert Sabin was the tortoise -
0:34:23 > 0:34:27a professor of paediatrics at Cincinnati Medical School.
0:34:27 > 0:34:28He was nothing if not thorough,
0:34:28 > 0:34:33having spent 20 years already researching the polio virus.
0:34:35 > 0:34:41Albert Sabin was actually one of the great medical research scientists
0:34:41 > 0:34:46of the 20th century. He moved slowly and very, very carefully.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49And he saw himself as a scientist's scientist.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52He saw himself as a guy who worked in the lab, never left,
0:34:52 > 0:34:56and made discoveries, one by one using building blocks.
0:34:58 > 0:35:00If Sabin was the tortoise,
0:35:00 > 0:35:05then the hare in the race was Jonas Salk - a fast-thinking, fast-talking
0:35:05 > 0:35:08scientist working at the medical school in Pittsburgh, who'd already
0:35:08 > 0:35:12made a successful flu vaccine for the troops during World War II.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15He had the backing of The March of Dimes who were eager for results.
0:35:18 > 0:35:20He was funded by a group, The March of Dimes,
0:35:20 > 0:35:22who wanted to get from point A to point B.
0:35:22 > 0:35:25He thought like a pharmaceutical company and Jonas Salk in many ways
0:35:25 > 0:35:27acted like a pharmaceutical company and that also
0:35:27 > 0:35:31went against what one had as a conception a scientist does.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35Sabin and Salk were on opposite sides of the debate
0:35:35 > 0:35:39when it came to what the vaccine should be based on.
0:35:39 > 0:35:41Salk and Sabin had fundamental differences
0:35:41 > 0:35:42about what would be the best vaccine.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45Salk thought it would be a virus that would be completely killed,
0:35:45 > 0:35:48Sabin thought it would be a virus that would be weakened.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50So when there are differences of opinion,
0:35:50 > 0:35:52those are very emotional issues.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54There was tremendous jealousy.
0:35:54 > 0:35:59And so, Sabin really attacked Salk mercilessly because he was
0:35:59 > 0:36:03a bastard, frankly, and Salk was a much kinder, gentler man.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11'But that funding from The March of Dimes gave Salk a major
0:36:11 > 0:36:13'advantage over Sabin.
0:36:13 > 0:36:17'In 1949, it allowed Salk to put his lab in the centre of a working
0:36:17 > 0:36:21'hospital surrounded by polio patients in Pittsburgh.'
0:36:21 > 0:36:25So this is the original, the old bit of the hospital.
0:36:25 > 0:36:30'Jody Zogran was a nurse on that polio ward.'
0:36:30 > 0:36:32When was the last time that you were here?
0:36:32 > 0:36:34Er, 61 years ago.
0:36:34 > 0:36:3661 years ago, you came in here!
0:36:36 > 0:36:40Yeah, and our nurses station would have been just about here.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44Dr Salk took over the first floor for research.
0:36:44 > 0:36:49'The layout of the hospital turned out to be vital to Salk's approach.
0:36:49 > 0:36:52'With his labs down below and a ward full of polio patients
0:36:52 > 0:36:57'just above, he had a unique and ready source of live virus.'
0:36:59 > 0:37:02Polio is contracted by going through the mouth and it
0:37:02 > 0:37:07goes down through the GI tract and it settles in the intestine.
0:37:07 > 0:37:10Patients that were newly infected with the disease would let out
0:37:10 > 0:37:12the polio virus in their stools
0:37:12 > 0:37:16but it would only stay alive for a very short time, so Dr Salk
0:37:16 > 0:37:20needed the samples delivered to the labs as quickly as possible.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24He would rush with the pan to the door, no further.
0:37:24 > 0:37:28Sitting outside, there were medical students
0:37:28 > 0:37:32and they would stand up, grab the bedpan,
0:37:32 > 0:37:37run down the three flights of stairs and give it to someone in the lab.
0:37:38 > 0:37:42Waiting there to collect the samples and extract the live virus
0:37:42 > 0:37:46was Ethel Bailey, a researcher who worked with Dr Salk.
0:37:47 > 0:37:51We had to get enough virus to make a vaccine.
0:37:51 > 0:37:56Once we got the virus we used to inoculate the test tubes
0:37:56 > 0:38:00and the only way we had to do it was with a pipette so you sucked
0:38:00 > 0:38:05it up, hopefully not too far, put your finger on it and then
0:38:05 > 0:38:08you could release just the amount you wanted, in each test tube.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11So it's like when you're trying to get petrol flowing into a tank
0:38:11 > 0:38:14you were basically, you were sucking up, only this was live polio virus.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18And you didn't think, "This is a crazy thing for me to be doing"?
0:38:18 > 0:38:22I don't know, a time or two I think I did get it in my mouth but you
0:38:22 > 0:38:27run to the sink and rinse it out as best you can and hope for the best.
0:38:30 > 0:38:34Ethel had to wait two weeks to find out whether she'd contracted polio.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39That was just one incident of many for the workers who were
0:38:39 > 0:38:42taking those risks in the rush to find a vaccine.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47ARCHIVE: 'In New England, a silent visitor crept in - polio.
0:38:47 > 0:38:49'It first hit the Boston area.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53'July, first week, 15 cases, second week 35, then 50.
0:38:53 > 0:38:59'August 370 more. Polio running wild, choking hospitals.'
0:38:59 > 0:39:03By the 1950s, epidemics were featuring ever more frequently
0:39:03 > 0:39:06in the newsreels, adding to the terror of a population
0:39:06 > 0:39:09that felt pretty much helpless in the face of a disease
0:39:09 > 0:39:11they could do nothing to prevent.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15There was so little known about the way polio was spreading.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18Some towns sprayed streets with toxic chemicals.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23- ARCHIVE:- 'Today's target for this B-25 is Rockford, Illinois,
0:39:23 > 0:39:27'a peacetime mission to spread 500 gallons of DDT, the army's
0:39:27 > 0:39:32'miracle insecticide over the city stricken with an infantile paralysis epidemic.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36'A bomber turns to the ways of peace, becomes an instrument of science.'
0:39:42 > 0:39:47For ordinary people in small towns like Dewitt in upstate New York,
0:39:47 > 0:39:52it was hard to know how to go about your daily life.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54Jan Nichols grew up here during that period.
0:39:56 > 0:40:01Parents were terrified and had a bunch of rules for us -
0:40:01 > 0:40:04we had to wash our hands a million times a day,
0:40:04 > 0:40:09we couldn't get over tired, we could not swim in a swimming pool,
0:40:09 > 0:40:12because they were told that if you swam in a swimming pool
0:40:12 > 0:40:16you would get polio. They tried to keep us away from large gatherings.
0:40:16 > 0:40:21My college roommate's mom was afraid to have her go to Mass on Sundays.
0:40:21 > 0:40:24So you were surrounded by a virus you could not see
0:40:24 > 0:40:29and you did your best to protect but you could not completely protect.
0:40:29 > 0:40:35So, they were just praying that their family was never hit.
0:40:39 > 0:40:45But in 1952, polio did come late to the town and with deadly force.
0:40:45 > 0:40:47It happened on Halloween.
0:40:50 > 0:40:54In Dewitt School, eight out of 24 of her class got polio,
0:40:54 > 0:40:57including her twin brother, Frankie.
0:40:59 > 0:41:03He was a typical little active boy, always running, always jumping,
0:41:03 > 0:41:06always getting into trouble with the boys
0:41:06 > 0:41:09and we were getting ready for Halloween.
0:41:09 > 0:41:13Frankie suddenly developed a terrible time breathing so
0:41:13 > 0:41:18he was rushed to city hospital and I remember vividly looking out one
0:41:18 > 0:41:23of the front windows as they were driving Frankie to the hospital.
0:41:23 > 0:41:27He was immediately placed in an iron lung because he could not breathe.
0:41:27 > 0:41:32The next night, at 10.25 at night, Frankie died.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38Frankie was only six.
0:41:39 > 0:41:44By the time he died, Jan had also been rushed to hospital with polio.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47Her parents were ordered to burn all of the children's possessions
0:41:47 > 0:41:49to prevent the spread of the disease.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52They were allowed to keep just two.
0:41:53 > 0:41:58They kept these silver juice cups with our names on them
0:41:58 > 0:42:03and we had been given these when we were born, so he was just...
0:42:03 > 0:42:07Look at those eyes, he's absolutely full of the dickens!
0:42:07 > 0:42:10It's great that you can remember him so well, though.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13Maybe because he was as twin that you had such strong memories.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16I was this age when my dad died and I don't remember him very well -
0:42:16 > 0:42:18I don't have vivid memories like that.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22It was so important to me that he did not die in my mind.
0:42:24 > 0:42:26- ARCHIVE:- 'A thick fear fell over the city.
0:42:26 > 0:42:29'Summer ended but schools stayed shut,
0:42:29 > 0:42:32'their halls mute evidence to the ever-present epidemic.'
0:42:35 > 0:42:40The year that Frankie died, 1952, turned out to be the worst year
0:42:40 > 0:42:45for polio in American history with 58,000 victims.
0:42:45 > 0:42:49- ARCHIVE:- 'This is polio and it is something for you to remember.
0:42:49 > 0:42:51'Polio is not over.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54'Polio is not over for this patient.
0:42:54 > 0:42:57'Polio is not over for thousands.'
0:42:57 > 0:43:00There had never been a greater need for a vaccine.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03In 1953, Jonas Salk went public
0:43:03 > 0:43:06declaring that his vaccine might be possible within two years.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11From his Cincinnati lab, Albert Sabin openly contradicted him.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17He looked at Jonas Salk and saw this sort of celebrity scientist being
0:43:17 > 0:43:22trotted out by The March Of Dimes, this white knight in a lab coat was
0:43:22 > 0:43:26always talking in front of cameras - this, to him, was not real science.
0:43:26 > 0:43:31Albert Sabin actually believed and to some degree, correctly,
0:43:31 > 0:43:33that he had the better vaccine.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37It would take longer but his vaccine would give better immunity
0:43:37 > 0:43:41and he believed that if another vaccine came out first
0:43:41 > 0:43:46that that would push his vaccine aside and that the world would be left
0:43:46 > 0:43:50with a quicker vaccine but an inferior vaccine.
0:43:50 > 0:43:56Sabin probably considered himself to be the more accomplished scientist
0:43:56 > 0:44:00but Salk was the more single-minded about how to achieve his goal.
0:44:00 > 0:44:04He was of the belief that if you give a killed virus that that
0:44:04 > 0:44:07could induce lifelong immunity and nobody thought that was true.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10At the time, what people thought was there was only two ways
0:44:10 > 0:44:13to get lifelong immunity and that was to either be naturally infected
0:44:13 > 0:44:16with polio or to be infected with a live weakened form
0:44:16 > 0:44:18of the virus like Albert Sabin had done.
0:44:18 > 0:44:22But he showed that, in fact, a killed virus could induce a memory response
0:44:22 > 0:44:25which is to say something that was likely to induce
0:44:25 > 0:44:27lifelong immunity and he was right and no-one believed him
0:44:27 > 0:44:30at the time but he stuck by that and he was right.
0:44:36 > 0:44:41In May 1953, after almost five years of growing, purifying,
0:44:41 > 0:44:43heating and pickling his virus,
0:44:43 > 0:44:47Jonas Salk finally believed he'd got his vaccine formula right.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57Apparently they used to call it "Dr Salk's germ-free lab".
0:44:57 > 0:45:00This is the actual lab. It's amazing.
0:45:00 > 0:45:04This is where he did all that work and came up with the vaccine -
0:45:04 > 0:45:07the first vaccine that could actually beat polio.
0:45:11 > 0:45:14But he needed human guinea pigs to be sure.
0:45:14 > 0:45:17So in a display of striking bravado, he injected himself,
0:45:17 > 0:45:21his wife and all his sons.
0:45:21 > 0:45:23Peter Salk, himself now a medical researcher,
0:45:23 > 0:45:25is pretty relaxed about this.
0:45:25 > 0:45:29He knows exactly why his dad was prepared to take that risk.
0:45:29 > 0:45:31My father was time-driven, he was also being
0:45:31 > 0:45:35driven by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis who
0:45:35 > 0:45:38wanted to see something out as quickly as possible.
0:45:38 > 0:45:42He had to be sure that the virus was completely killed
0:45:42 > 0:45:44so he was caught between two poles.
0:45:44 > 0:45:47One was the pressure to move quickly
0:45:47 > 0:45:49and the other was the pressure
0:45:49 > 0:45:52to do something in absolutely the right way.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56Doctor, you must have had confidence in your vaccine when you tried it on human beings.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58What was that confidence based on?
0:45:58 > 0:46:01Well, it wasn't confidence, it was a question of having a certain
0:46:01 > 0:46:05amount of knowledge and information and, er, the next step, er,
0:46:05 > 0:46:08in acquiring more information was to inoculate human subjects.
0:46:08 > 0:46:13He had himself inoculated, his wife, Donna, and their three sons,
0:46:13 > 0:46:16so they had to wait for about a month to see
0:46:16 > 0:46:21if they had built up any antibodies and the only way
0:46:21 > 0:46:26they would know is if the blood in that test tube changed colours.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31Salk knew he was potentially exposing himself
0:46:31 > 0:46:33and his family to polio.
0:46:35 > 0:46:4031st day, the lab worker that was responsible for all
0:46:40 > 0:46:45the specimens opened up the door to the specimen lab
0:46:45 > 0:46:49and she screamed at the top of her voice and it was the first time
0:46:49 > 0:46:52Doctor Salk ran out of his office without his lab coat on
0:46:52 > 0:46:58and everybody came and everybody was kissing and hugging and screaming.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02To know for sure if the vaccine worked,
0:47:02 > 0:47:04they needed a much larger trial.
0:47:04 > 0:47:10In April 1954, the biggest medical experiment in human history began.
0:47:12 > 0:47:16It needed the cooperation of more than 50,000 teachers
0:47:16 > 0:47:20across the country, immunising almost two million children.
0:47:26 > 0:47:29At her school in Dewitt, Jan Nichols and her school friends
0:47:29 > 0:47:34were among those lining up to be guinea pigs for Dr Salk's experimental vaccine.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40This is the picture of me actually getting the vaccine.
0:47:40 > 0:47:44Well, they told us that we were doing something for our generation
0:47:44 > 0:47:47and for all future generations of children.
0:47:47 > 0:47:50So I can remember thinking we were really famous kids, you know,
0:47:50 > 0:47:53because we were doing something good.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56- I did get a card... - He just found it recently.
0:47:56 > 0:47:58A certificate of membership presented for taking
0:47:58 > 0:48:01part in the first national test.
0:48:01 > 0:48:03Well, that's amazing you still have that.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05Do you remember getting your injection?
0:48:05 > 0:48:11Actually I do because all of us were lined up and this one boy,
0:48:11 > 0:48:14if I dare mention his name, John Hammicon was there,
0:48:14 > 0:48:16and kids where getting their shots and John got his shot.
0:48:16 > 0:48:19His eyes rolled into his head and down he went.
0:48:19 > 0:48:24Oh, and so everyone watching that would have been like, "I'm not getting that!"
0:48:24 > 0:48:26We were proud, we were proud kids and you ask anybody who was in
0:48:26 > 0:48:31that trial if you're a Polio Pioneer, everybody would raise their hands.
0:48:31 > 0:48:33No matter where I talk, all over the country,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36and I ask for Polio Pioneers, I'll get hands.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40- ARCHIVE:- Now to the University of Michigan Campus in Ann Arbor
0:48:40 > 0:48:44come hundreds of scientists hoping to hear the words that will signal
0:48:44 > 0:48:47the end of polio's long and ruthless reign of terror.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53Leading the medical men is Dr Jonas Salk whose polio vaccine
0:48:53 > 0:48:56has been tested and carefully evaluated.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59Copies of the official findings are wheeled in.
0:48:59 > 0:49:01The room is electric with expectancy.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04Then the historic announcement - the vaccine works.
0:49:04 > 0:49:08It is safe, effective and potent.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11Reporters press forward to get the results the whole world
0:49:11 > 0:49:13is waiting for -
0:49:13 > 0:49:17rushing to their typewriters to spread the momentous news.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20The triumphant Salk vaccine went into production immediately
0:49:20 > 0:49:23on the 12th August 1955.
0:49:24 > 0:49:28- ARCHIVE:- Though some of the youngsters are apprehensive, they learn,
0:49:28 > 0:49:32when their turn comes, that the vaccination hardly hurts at all.
0:49:33 > 0:49:36But less than two weeks after the release of the vaccine,
0:49:36 > 0:49:38there was a major setback.
0:49:39 > 0:49:42A number of children in the west and south west of America
0:49:42 > 0:49:45had started to get polio from the vaccine itself.
0:49:49 > 0:49:53- ARCHIVE:- At this moment, an ominous chain of events begins in California.
0:49:53 > 0:49:55Five polio cases are reported
0:49:55 > 0:49:58and each victim has just been given the Salk vaccine.
0:50:07 > 0:50:12As the tragic scandal played out, it became clear that almost
0:50:12 > 0:50:14all of those who had come down with polio, had been given
0:50:14 > 0:50:19vaccine from just one laboratory, the Cutter Labs in California.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25We had given polio vaccine to prevent polio
0:50:25 > 0:50:27and, in fact, had caused polio in these children,
0:50:27 > 0:50:29I think, um, I can't imagine
0:50:29 > 0:50:32anything worse and so we shut down the polio vaccine programme for
0:50:32 > 0:50:36a couple weeks in this country until we figured out what was going on.
0:50:37 > 0:50:40- ARCHIVE:- As the mystery deepens and still more cases are reported,
0:50:40 > 0:50:42the government acts.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51Soon after, all other vaccine shipments are temporarily held up -
0:50:51 > 0:50:54release of the Salk vaccine seems a gigantic
0:50:54 > 0:50:56and tragic blunder only 25 days after
0:50:56 > 0:50:59the announcement of success in the field trials.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05Jonas Salk was adamant that it wasn't a fault in his vaccine,
0:51:05 > 0:51:07but in the way it was being manufactured.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10The investigation proved him right.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14The Cutter Labs had failed to kill all the virus in the vaccine.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18About 120,000 children were inadvertently
0:51:18 > 0:51:22inoculated with live, fully virulent, deadly polio virus.
0:51:22 > 0:51:2540,000 developed abortive polio which is to say
0:51:25 > 0:51:26short-lived paralysis.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30About 200 were permanently paralysed and ten were killed.
0:51:30 > 0:51:35It was probably the worst biological disaster in the United States' history.
0:51:38 > 0:51:42By acting so quickly, the government was able to rebuild Americans'
0:51:42 > 0:51:45confidence in the new vaccine.
0:51:45 > 0:51:49A programme of mass immunisation across the country went ahead
0:51:49 > 0:51:50the following year.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56The number of cases of polio recorded fell from 60,000
0:51:56 > 0:52:00to 2,000 within a year of Salk's vaccine.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04Within a decade, polio in America was all but eradicated.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11But in Britain, it was a very different story.
0:52:11 > 0:52:14Here the take-up of the vaccine was painfully slow.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18And again, my own family were directly affected.
0:52:18 > 0:52:23A year after Salk's triumph in America, in 1956, in Ireland,
0:52:23 > 0:52:26my Uncle Patrick got polio.
0:52:27 > 0:52:28He was only six.
0:52:30 > 0:52:36I remember having like flu and I sort of remember everybody looking
0:52:36 > 0:52:42rather aghast around - my mother and others were in tears.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45And I remember my mother saying, to comfort me, the ambulance
0:52:45 > 0:52:49will bleep its horn and everybody would get out of the way.
0:52:49 > 0:52:51The sort of thing people say to comfort children
0:52:51 > 0:52:54but actually it made me feel worse because I could sort of sense
0:52:54 > 0:52:59the sense of panic and anxiety so I screamed more and more.
0:53:01 > 0:53:06Patrick was one of 220 children to contract polio that year in Cork,
0:53:06 > 0:53:08which was in the throes of a serious epidemic.
0:53:09 > 0:53:14You caught polio after the vaccine had been discovered.
0:53:14 > 0:53:16Did you ever think about how tantalising that was?
0:53:16 > 0:53:19- Do I think I feel real unlucky? - Real unlucky!
0:53:19 > 0:53:22You bet I do, yeah!
0:53:22 > 0:53:25Patrick's a journalist and he came back recently to write a book
0:53:25 > 0:53:30about his childhood experiences and was surprised to find evidence
0:53:30 > 0:53:35in the local newspaper archives suggesting why no vaccine was available to him.
0:53:37 > 0:53:39- Oh, right, yeah... - Yeah, there we go, yeah.
0:53:39 > 0:53:41So that's...
0:53:41 > 0:53:44"Polio vaccine passes safety test in Britain."
0:53:44 > 0:53:47That's over a year after the trials in the US,
0:53:47 > 0:53:50it's getting its approval in Britain.
0:53:52 > 0:53:56The Cutter incident had cast a long shadow across the Atlantic.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58Patrick had missed the chance to be immunised at the height
0:53:58 > 0:54:01of what was the last mass epidemic in Europe
0:54:01 > 0:54:06because the safety tests here had been so exhaustive.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09It wasn't until 1957 that the vaccine finally
0:54:09 > 0:54:13arrived in Britain but it wasn't hailed with all the enthusiasm
0:54:13 > 0:54:15expected of a life-saving drug.
0:54:15 > 0:54:20The doubts cast by Cutter just wouldn't go away in the public's mind.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22Has your child been immunised?
0:54:22 > 0:54:26- No, she hasn't been done yet. - You refused?- Yes.
0:54:26 > 0:54:27Why did you refuse?
0:54:27 > 0:54:31Well, because there was such a lot of talk in the papers about
0:54:31 > 0:54:36the danger of it, you know, that I was a bit afraid of her being done.
0:54:36 > 0:54:39Are you terrified of the immunisation?
0:54:39 > 0:54:41I don't know, I feel a bit sort of, er,
0:54:41 > 0:54:45guilty about immunisation - I want other people to see
0:54:45 > 0:54:48how it goes before I give my child to be a guinea pig.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54In the end, it was the shock of a celebrity succumbing to the
0:54:54 > 0:54:57disease that made the difference.
0:54:57 > 0:55:00ARCHIVE: Birmingham's defence have Wembley nerves and are marking badly.
0:55:00 > 0:55:03Right back Jeff Hall challenges him.
0:55:03 > 0:55:06Jeff Hall was a star player for Birmingham City and England.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11He caught polio at the peak of his playing career.
0:55:12 > 0:55:16He was playing down at Portsmouth and he wasn't very well
0:55:16 > 0:55:17when he came off and one or two
0:55:17 > 0:55:21of the Birmingham players said to him, "You don't look very well.
0:55:21 > 0:55:25"Just take two...two aspirins and you'll be all right."
0:55:25 > 0:55:28Monday morning, he couldn't get out of bed.
0:55:28 > 0:55:30He couldn't move his legs.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34- So he wasn't vaccinated. Was anyone vaccinated in those days?- No, no.
0:55:34 > 0:55:36Nobody knew anything about it.
0:55:36 > 0:55:38It was something out of the blue.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45Within a week, Jeff had died,
0:55:45 > 0:55:48and suddenly everyone in Britain wanted the vaccine.
0:55:48 > 0:55:50Emergency clinics were set up
0:55:50 > 0:55:54and extra supplies of the vaccine had to be flown in from America.
0:55:55 > 0:55:59The attitude on Britain's streets now was quite different.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03I ain't thought nothing about it but I'm now going to have 'em done now.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06I haven't been but my mother doesn't really believe in it.
0:56:06 > 0:56:09- She doesn't? - But my father said that I should.
0:56:09 > 0:56:12- I see. You believe your father more than your mother?- Yes!
0:56:12 > 0:56:13Thank you very much indeed.
0:56:13 > 0:56:16Mass immunisation began in 1959.
0:56:19 > 0:56:22By the mid-'60s there were only 70 deaths a year in
0:56:22 > 0:56:27Britain from polio, and by 1978, it had been officially eradicated here.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31What's really interesting about this success, though,
0:56:31 > 0:56:35is that the vaccine most of us remember taking in those years,
0:56:35 > 0:56:37wasn't Salk's injected vaccine.
0:56:37 > 0:56:41We took Sabin's oral vaccine - on a sugar lump or in a cup.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48Albert Sabin had continued to develop methodically his live
0:56:48 > 0:56:52vaccine despite Salk's success, believing it to be superior.
0:56:53 > 0:56:58Once Albert Sabin began testing his vaccine in the Soviet Union
0:56:58 > 0:57:03and came back with great numbers, he went out of his way to make
0:57:03 > 0:57:07certain that Jonas Salk's vaccine was pushed right of the picture.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10And he did.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13By the early '60s, most of the world was using Sabin's vaccine
0:57:13 > 0:57:16because it was cheaper and easier to take.
0:57:18 > 0:57:21So what looked to me in doing this history like an incredibly costly
0:57:21 > 0:57:26rivalry that produced two vaccines rather than one, ironically all
0:57:26 > 0:57:30these years later, looks like that rivalry had a purpose after all.
0:57:34 > 0:57:38To end polio in the world, and we are close,
0:57:38 > 0:57:42you are going to need both vaccines.
0:57:42 > 0:57:46You cannot end polio just by using the Sabin vaccine
0:57:46 > 0:57:49or just by using the Salk vaccine.
0:57:49 > 0:57:51You are going to have to use them together.
0:57:51 > 0:57:55And these are two scientists who despised each other -
0:57:55 > 0:57:59both of whom believed the other's vaccine was inferior.
0:57:59 > 0:58:05Both of whom went to their graves just feeling that they had to
0:58:05 > 0:58:08do everything possible to push their own vaccine at the expense
0:58:08 > 0:58:14of the other and now we found out that to end polio, you need both.
0:58:14 > 0:58:16You can't do it with one.
0:58:16 > 0:58:21So the men have been linked in ways that not only could
0:58:21 > 0:58:25they not imagine but they would be disgusted with.