Polio: An American Story
by David M. Oshinsky
My verdict: it's strong in the beginning, okay at the end, weak in the middle. In the beginning there was the disease and the crusade--Franklin Roosevelt, Hollywood studios, the March of Dimes, the Mothers' March--all joined to raise the money to develop a vaccine and test it. The tests of the killed-virus vaccine, Salk's, were called the "biggest public health experiment ever." The sheer amount of paperwork involved in tracking the results seem darn near impossible to me now. Remember: 1955 = no integrated circuits.
In the middle, the book seemed to disintegrate into a morass of conflicting personalities as Salk's killed-virus vaccine fought against Sabin's live-virus one. And we all know the ending...but did we know that after 1980, when the percentage of polio cases has dropped to about a dozen a year, almost all cases would be attributed to the live vaccine? Do we know of the many cases where live monkey viruses (not polio!) could be found in the supposedly inactive vaccination doses? Will we someday discover that the polio vaccine brought AIDS to the world?
Maybe not, but it's still scary. I also learned about Post-Polio syndrome, a partial recurrence of the symptoms in the later years of life, even among those who had fully recovered.
My only disappointment in the book, other than the confusion of the middle part, was its concentration more on social history than medical history. Others might disagree with me on this, but I didn't get enough science. For example, did we ever find out why it strikes mostly children? Did we ever get a grip on the apparent link between improved sanitation and increased polio? The author kept his story firmly in its time, never giving away the future. But...I would have enjoyed a second epilogue called "What we know now."
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