Medicine: One-Swallow Vaccine

An all out drive by backers of oral, live-virus vaccines for the right to succeed the Salk killed-virus injections as the first line of defense against poliomyelitis reached the U.S. last week. Biggest offensive was launched in Miami and surrounding Dade County, where the entire under-40 population, estimated at 520,000, was marshaled in an effort to show that a single swallow of the three-way vaccine is not only safe but superior to Salk. By week's end the campaign's sponsors tallied more than 75,000 who had taken the vaccine. They hoped to run the total close to the half-million mark before April, which would make this the biggest test of any live vaccine in U.S. medical history, and surpass the figure of 440,000 children covered by the 1954 trials of Salk vaccine.

Paper Cup. From the skyscraper hotels and high-life restaurants of Miami Beach to country schools and community centers back in "the 'Glades," adults and children lined up from morning until night. It was all free. New York's Lederle Laboratories donated the vaccine. Physicians, nurses, and a host of assorted volunteers gave their services. Paper work was at a minimum. For each person to be vaccinated, there was a short form listing how many shots of Salk vaccine he had had, and for minors, a form for parental consent.

Even for the busy workers, everything was gratifyingly simple. The vaccine, colored the faintest of pinks by cherry flavoring, arrived in 1,000-cc. bottles (about a quart), enough for 500 doses. A nurse drew 2 cc. (half a teaspoonful) at a time with a bulb-type dropper, put it in a tiny paper cup. Another worker added about a tablespoonful of water—distilled, to guard against the possibility that chlorinated tap water might reduce the vaccine's potency.

Adults and schoolchildren downed the mixture at a gulp. For infants, the vaccine was usually put in a plastic teaspoon, sterile from a fresh pack. The teaspoon was thrown away after use.

This straightforward procedure contrasted sharply with the complications of needle sterilization and alcohol swabbing with the injected Salk vaccine. And it was free of pain and the slight risks of needle jabs. Though a few vaccine swallowers (including adults) made wry faces, they need not have; the almost imperceptible flavor was pleasant. (But one pediatrician, knowing his clientele, took the added precaution of mixing the vaccine with a cola drink.) 700 an Hour. Almost 200,000 requests for the vaccine were in before the test began, and the biggest problem was getting the stuff to all who wanted it. Tourists were not invited, but a few horned in at a mobile unit set up in front of a Collins Avenue restaurant to take care of hotel personnel. In the elementary schools, classes of 30 or more children all took their medicine in elapsed time as short as seven minutes. At Sunset Elementary School, just south of Miami, 732 children ran through the line in less than an hour.

At Homestead A.F.B., home of the Strategic Air Command's 823rd Air Division, corpsmen and nurses carried the vaccine out to flight crews and ground crews in the alert areas to avoid any break in their availability.