Dr. Albert Sabin's Discovery of the Oral Polio Vaccine
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman - Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Chemical, Biochemical, Biomolecular Engineering History of Science and Technology Life Sciences |
| Learning Resource Type: | Reference - Article/Document |
| Media Type: | WWW |
| Author(s): | Cincinnati Children's Hospital |
| Description: | Site is organized around research, vaccine discovery, and other historical events associated with the oral polio vaccine. "Born in Poland in 1906, Albert Sabin, MD, and his family left in 1921 to escape anti-Semitism. He came to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Ohio, in 1939. Dr. Sabin's research, documented in some 350 scientific papers, would include work on pneumonia, encephalitis, toxoplasmosis, viruses, sandfly fever, dengue and cancer. But his passion was poliomyelitis, and this was where he turned his attention after World War II. Dr. Sabin first thought the polio virus gained entrance through the respiratory tract, then found evidence that entry was through the digestive system. His studies of incidence showed that, contrary to many diseases, acute polio was rare in urban populations with poor sanitation conditions (as existed in many parts of China). Dr. Sabin scoured the world looking for weak strains of polio virus, found three, and began to develop his oral, "live" vaccine, administered at first on a lump of sugar or in a teaspoonful of syrup. In 1957 the World Health Organization (WHO) decided Dr. Sabin's vaccine deserved world-wide testing. He was invited to administer the vaccine to large groups of children in parts of Russia, Holland, Mexico, Chile, Sweden and Japan. But at home in the United States, Dr. Sabin had a hard time convincing the Poliomyelitis Foundation and the U.S. Public Health Service his method was any better than Jonas Salk's "killed" vaccine method. An advantage of Dr. Sabin's oral vaccine, especially in less developed countries, is ease of administration: no shots. But two other pluses are even more important. First, the live vaccine gives both intestinal and bodily immunity; the killed vaccine gives only bodily immunity and allows the immune person to still serve as a carrier or transmitter. Second, the Sabin vaccine produces lifelong immunity without the need for a booster shot or vaccination." |
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| Keywords: | polio vaccine, Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, Albert Bruce Sabin |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: | History of technology or social implications of technology segment. |
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Interactivity Level: | Very Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | 2008 |
| Platform/Format: | WWW |
| Cost: | Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/about/history/sabin.htm |
| Metadata: | IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
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