The Polio Vaccine Arrives! (1954) [Archive Episode]
This Day
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2024
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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[Today we're bringing you an episode from the archives]
It’s February 23rd. This day in 1954, children in Pittsburgh began to receive vaccines as part of the first clinical trials for Dr Jonas Salk’s polio eradication efforts.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the arrival of the vaccine, the initial distrust, and the inequities in development and distribution of the vaccine to various communities.
Find a transcript of this episode at: https://tinyurl.com/esoterichistory
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, Jody here. A quick word that we are bringing you an episode we did in the past about the |
| 0:04.9 | rollout of the polio vaccine. As you'll hear in this episode, we recorded it in 2021 in February, |
| 0:10.8 | just as the coronavirus vaccine was rolling out. So we were very interested in another major |
| 0:16.3 | rollout. We're interested in rerunning this now because there is this reporting that RFK Jr., who is |
| 0:22.4 | slated to become the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, while he is vetting |
| 0:26.7 | some folks who might have very important roles in that department who are skeptical of the polio |
| 0:31.5 | vaccine, there's some reporting that they may ask to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. |
| 0:36.3 | So this episode feels, once again, particularly timely. |
| 0:39.7 | Look, we are unabashedly pro-vaccine here at this day, both because I think it is good public health |
| 0:44.8 | and also because this was a show that was kind of born during the coronavirus epidemic. And so we've |
| 0:49.4 | thought a lot about vaccines and public health and so forth. So anyway, take a listen and we will be back soon |
| 0:55.6 | with more new episodes. Thanks for listening. Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric |
| 1:03.8 | political history from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. This day, February 23rd, 1954, children from the Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh |
| 1:16.4 | received injections of the new polio vaccine. |
| 1:19.9 | The polio vaccine was developed by Dr. Jonas Sulk. |
| 1:22.9 | He'd been developing it for about two years, and the spring of 1954 was when the field trials for this |
| 1:29.1 | vaccine actually began shots in arms thousands of kids including salk's own were part of this |
| 1:35.2 | first effort some received the vaccine some received a fake shot and some received nothing at all |
| 1:40.1 | and the start of this the announcement of vaccine trials as imagine, was a major, major milestone a cause for celebration. |
| 1:48.0 | It is one of those, I remember where I was moments for, I think, an entire generation. |
| 1:52.5 | I don't need to convince anyone listening now how good that kind of news can feel. |
| 1:57.0 | And generally speaking, the vaccines were incredibly successful in knocking back polio over the next few years. |
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