Medicine: Qualified Polio Success

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With Salk polio vaccinations about to resume after the summer stoppage Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Marion B. Folsom and U.S. Surgeon General Leonard A. Scheele issued preliminary reports on the 1955 vaccination program:

¶ Among the 7,000,000 vaccinated children m the top-priority age group (5 to 9) many of whom received only one shot instead of the scheduled two, polio incidence was 25% to 50% lower than is expected in a non-vaccinated group.

¶ In the second month after vaccination reported polio cases among vaccinated youngsters were predominantly nonparalytic, suggesting that the vaccine cuts polios virulence even when it does not entirely prevent the disease.

¶ Since production and testing procedures were drastically revised (TIME, June 6) there has been "no association" of polio' with any of the cleared vaccine.