Not Perfect

Nobody ever seriously expected the Salk vaccine to be 100% successful in preventing illness, paralysis or death from polio. But last September, news stories reported that, according to the U.S. Public Health Service, no child had died of polio after receiving the full course of three shots of Salk vaccine. In fact, at the time, the PHS already knew about one such death in July. A five-year-old boy who had been given his three shots died in Indiana ten minutes after admission to a hospital with a diagnosis of bulbar polio. Last week a second (and fully confirmed) case turned up: James Thomson, 15, of Mount Vernon, Wash, died of bulbar polio three months after getting his third Salk shot.

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