Sabin and Salk

While the large-scale clinical trial with Salk vaccine went ahead in 1954, Albert Sabin continued developing his live-virus vaccine. Like many researchers of the day, Sabin strongly disagreed with Salk’s approach of using injected, “killed” virus. He believed that long-term immunity could only be achieved with a live, attenuated—or weakened—virus. In the race to develop a safe and effective polio vaccine, accidents occurred with both types. In 1955, for instance, insufficiently killed virus in the vaccine from Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley, California, infected some 200 children; many were paralyzed and several died. But the global end to polio transmission would have been inconceivable without both the “killed” (Salk) and “live” (Sabin) vaccines. Neither Jonas Salk nor Albert Sabin patented their vaccines; they donated the rights as gifts to humanity.