[Watershed]

Wow…. I remember our elementary school class being ushered into the library for one of these vaccines. What were our parents thinking? What didn’t they know?

[WLusvardi]

Ten years before the polio vaccines polio started decreasing rapidly parallel with modern water sanitation, sanitary sewers and the use of chlorine in swimming pools. The decline of polio had nothing to do with vaccines. There is an urban myth however that Salk and Sabin saved the world from polio by vaccines.

[Bernard]

What parents didn't know was if their child would be one of the people who would be adversely affected by the cure. But, there were millions of children administered this vaccine and some number (40,000 in the article) were affected by it.

I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade when all of us were given the vaccine in a sugar cube. I don't recall anybody in my school or in my extended family of cousins having any issues or knowing anybody who was affected. It seemed like a miracle at the time.

And that was shortly before thalidomide turned into a problem. Medical science, and science in general, has always had to deal with uncertainties, unknowns, and failure. Look at the relatively small number of failures in the space program from the 1950's and 1960's.