Before COVID there was polio, sometimes called infantile paralysis. First identified in the late 18th century it was not isolated as a virus until the early 20th century. Epidemics of polio were identified occurring in Europe in the late 19th century in the US in the early 20th century where it became one of the most serious childhood diseases. In those days up to 5% of children and up to 30% of adults died after contracting polio with many more left paralyzed to a greater or lesser extent, usually in their legs. Many spent weeks, months, or years, in an iron-lung as part of their recovery. Perhaps the most identifiable polio sufferer for Americans is Franklin Delano Roosevelt who it’s thought contracted the disease as a young man and was left mostly paralyzed in his legs by it.
Before the advent of vaccines for common childhood diseases and their widespread use, being a child involved running a gauntlet of hazards such as typhoid, measles, whooping cough, mumps, diphtheria, tetanus, chickenpox, and polio. In the early part of the 20th century, large families were common. While these large families were probably a consequence of a lack of contraception, it is also likely that they were also a response to the higher rate of childhood mortality than we see today. Death in childhood was not an unusual occurrence and polio was a major contributor.
The first successful and widely used polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk and others in the mid-1950s. This vaccine used an inactivated virus that was grown in kidney tissue taken from Rhesus Macaques (monkeys). It was delivered by injection. A later vaccine was developed by Albert Sabin and others used an attenuated live virus and was delivered on the more familiar sugar cube. It is this later formulation that is widely used today.
This then brings me to the story of my uncle and his involvement with the polio vaccine.
My uncle Tommy lived in the south of England in the county of Kent. In the 1960s one of the jobs he had was working for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer where he drove a truck. This is the same company now in the news for its production of the COVID vaccine. Back then they were a producer of polio vaccine. My uncle had the job of driving his truck up to London Airport, now called Heathrow, every week to pick up the monkeys that were used to make the virus vaccine. Since the monkeys were flown in on a transport aircraft that arrived at night, these journeys were nocturnal. He drove to the airport in the evening, arriving after dark, waited around for the plane to land, and then loaded up with the monkeys in cages before heading back to the factory, arriving in the early morning.
On one of these trips, as he was headed home he was pulled over by the police. For some reason, they wanted to know what was in the truck. “A wagon load of monkeys” he replied. The police were not impressed with this reply and demanded that he open up the truck for their inspection. Now it turns out that the truck he was driving had a side door that could be used to check the health of the cargo. It also had a rear roll-up door that was used for loading and unloading. Since he was by now a bit miffed, he led the boys in blue around the back of the truck to the rear door. It was pitch black as he threw up the roll-up door so one of the constables shone his flashlight into the cargo bay to see what was there. He illuminated a large rhesus monkey that was seriously irritated at having been removed from his home, stuffed into a cage, transported in a cold and noisy airplane, locked into the back of a smelly truck, and now woken up by a dazzling flashlight in his face. His annoyance overflowed, so he pissed right in the face of the cop.
You may imagine that the policeman’s displeasure became magnified as he discovered that the urine of large male rhesus macaques is particularly noxious. He and his partner left in a rush, got back in their police car, and roared off, leaving my uncle with a barroom story that would entertain his audience for decades to come.
In 1961 there was a serious outbreak of polio in the city of Hull in England. Like with COVID today there was not much that could be done other than to immunize the whole population as soon as possible. They eventually immunized over 300,000 people to suppress the epidemic. However, at the beginning of this campaign, they did not have nearly enough vaccine available; my uncle Tommy came to the rescue. His truck was filled with vaccine doses and he headed off to Hull to deliver these urgent supplies. His journey encountered no holdups so he arrived at the outskirts earlier than anticipated. He was so prompt that he arrived at the town hall before the mayor, his entourage, or the media were ready for him. He was immediately turned round to head back to the outskirts where a police escort accompanied his truck to be greeted by the assembled dignitaries and the TV cameras. Delivery of the vaccinations to those in need was not much delayed but I am reminded today in the COVID era that symbolism aways triumphs substance in politics.
It turns out that all vaccines have their side effects. The polio vaccine is no different. In its early days, the inactive vaccine created from monkeys caused a number of serious infections in the US. These infections were traced to faults in the inactivation process leaving the vaccine contaminated with live virus. After this production problem was corrected the vaccine has been shown to be widely effective with an infection rate of slightly more than one case in one million inoculations. The early, monkey-based vaccine used from 1950 to 1960 is thought to have contained a monkey virus that may have increased the cancer risk for the 100 million US citizens who were vaccinated at that time.
As I listen to the news I hear chatter asking why the Pfizer vaccine has to be kept so inconveniently cold, and why isn’t there enough vaccine to inoculate everybody who wants it now, and who should get it first. I’m struck by the lack of thanks that the entitled have within themselves. In their ignorance, they have no idea how long it took to develop vaccines in the past. It took decades from the discovery of the polio virus to develop a safe and effective vaccine that was cheap and simple enough to produce that it could be manufactured in sufficient volume to inoculate the entire population. Would that the naysayers and moaners knew just how remarkable this achievement is. They might also get a taste of how easy it might be for someone to develop a new virus that is more infectious than smallpox and more deadly than Ebola.
