Utah In Focus

A man administers a polio vaccine to a girl in elementary school, April 26, 1954. In the early 1950s, American physician Jonas Salk developed the first successful vaccine against polio, a debilitating disease that killed or paralyzed half a million people a year by the mid-twentieth century. In 1954, Salk began testing his vaccine on 1.6 million people in the United States, Canada, and Finland. Approximately forty thousand children in eight counties in Utah, between first and third grades, were part of the vaccine trials beginning April 26, 1954. These children, known as “polio pioneers,” could only participate with written permission from their parents. One mother, whose son's arm was paralyzed after a bout with polio, remarked, “If you had gone through what we have, you'd be happy to take anything to avert polio.” After the vaccine proved successful, polio cases dropped tenfold by 1957. Salk declined to make money from the lifesaving vaccine. Utah Historical Society, MSS C 400 Salt Lake Tribune Negative Collection, photo no. 24138-1.