You may have heard of the Polio Pioneers, the kids who got Jonas Salk‘s original inactivated polio vaccine in 1954.
They were part of a large clinical trial, getting either the polio shot or a saline placebo, and helped prove that the vaccine was safe and effective.
Do You Remember Sabin Sundays?
Of course, that wasn’t the end of the story though.
After the Cutter Incident, Albert Sabin soon proved that his live, oral polio vaccine was better than Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine.
And it was first given in the United States on April 24, 1960 – the first Sabin Sunday, when 20,000 children came to Cincinnati Children’s to receive his sugar cube vaccine.
“On three consecutive Sundays — “Sabin Sundays” — in 1960, millions of families lined up at churches and schools across the country to swallow a spoonful of pink syrup or a sugar cube treated with a life-saving polio vaccine, developed by UC researcher Albert Sabin.”
Sabin Sunday, 1960
Sabin Oral Sunday immunization programs continued over the next few years all over the country as kids got caught up on their polio vaccines.
Can you imagine taking your kids to school to get them vaccinated on a Sunday?
Millions of parents did it!
They lined up to get their kids vaccinated and protected.
More on Sabin Sundays
- VAXOPEDIA – Milestones Towards the Eradication of Polio
- VAXOPEDIA – Why Do We Still Vaccinate If Polio Has Been Eliminated?
- VAXOPEDIA – What Is the Morbidity/Mortality Rate of the Polio Vaccine vs the Wild Virus
- VAXOPEDIA – Myths About Polio and Acute Flaccid Paralysis
- VAXOPEDIA – Polio Survivor Stories
- VAXOPEDIA – How Quickly Can You Debunk Anti-Vaccine Propaganda?
- VAXOPEDIA – Is the Polio Vaccine Linked to Outbreaks of Hand Foot Mouth Disease
- VAXOPEDIA – Is There a DDT-Polio Connection?
- VAXOPEDIA – John Salamone and the Oral Polio Vaccine
- VAXOPEDIA – Did Modern Ventilators Replace the Iron Lung for Folks with Polio?
- VAXOPEDIA – Why Are the DPT and OPV Vaccines Still Used in Some Countries?
- Remembering Sabin Sunday
- The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Sabin Sundays
- Sunday Advertiser Polio Message Cruiser
- Sabin Sunday, 1960
- Sabin Oral Polio Vaccine Brochure