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Show Salic L, 9 i . v rf J ' t : - K1 lfl'llf)- ' .-- . f t II 1 X . n stir II 11 'I iJpt ' . JL " ' W- IP 1. - - -l -- able this year was made possible by every one of you who has given a dime or a dollar to the March of Dimes. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis committed $9,000,000 to purchase vaccine many months before it was known to be effective so that if it was found efficacious there would be quantities on hand, and pharmaceutical houses would be ready to produce more without delay. What, then, is the vaccfne situation today? There naturally is not enough for every man, womanandTchild in the United States. It would be too much to expect such huge supplies of a product only approved on April 12. But enough has already been distributed to vaccinate many millions of children whose rate is highest, polio-attaand more vaccine is being shipped each day. year ago I developed by Dr. Jonas E. Salk at the University of Pittsburgh with March of Dimes support In the last 12 months we have witnessed two historic events in medical history. The first was the report by Dr. Thomas Francis, Jr., of the University of Michigan, that the vaccine is effective in pre- vaccine ) ...... ffV i- a wrote in family weekly that "we should have an effective, proven weapon against polio before too many Summers have passed. j Today millions of American youngsters already have received injections of the polio x7 :! 3 M IMS J ust v, - id'" -- I I ; IL When the effectiveness of the Salk polio vaccine was announced in April, mass inoculation of the nation's This youngsters was started in only four days' time. achievement, unparalleled in the history of medicine, was made possible by the millions of people who supLike ported the March of Dimes crusade against polio. the two bpys here, many children grimaced when given their shots, but they were mighty happy to get them. -- IS ck Good sews for pereats US' " You parents naturally want to know how good the vaccine is and what it can do for your XY: "mm children. First, it should be emphasized that the evaluation study by Dr. Francis reaffirmed our knowledge that the vaccine is wholly m 113-pa- ge '7y 1 venting paralytic polio. The second was the beginning of safe. Second, it must be realized that no vaccine works with 100 percent efficiency. mass inoculations of school children with the new vaccine only jour short days after it was licensed for use. Those who remember tne advent of sulfa drugs, of in- 90 sulin, of cortisone, will recall that it took months, sometimes years, before the gen- eral public could obtain these products. Think, for example, of penicillin, discovered in 1929 but unavailable to the average man until the end of World War IL The unprecedented planning that resulted in supplies of polio vaccine being avail iuii uiitriv uir.lTIUI HIM 1A 1043 . Dr. Francis estimated the polio vaccine as up to 80-percent effective. This means that in the 1954 field trials some children who were vaccinated did contract paralytic polio. Thus the child who is vaccinated this Summer will have his chances of getting paralytic polio enormously reduced, though not completely eliminated. Last year, in the field trials, vaccine was given in three injections within a five-weperiod. But from his more re- ek - |