Polio Crusade, The 1x57

It was the largest public health experiment in American history: a crusade that eradicated one of the twentieth century’s most dreaded diseases.  The polio epidemic terrified Americans for decades, affecting thousands of children, leaving many crippled, paralyzed, or condemned to life in an iron lung. But on April 26, 1954, hope emerged. At the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia, six-year-old Randy Kerr stood at the head of a long line of children, and waited patiently while a nurse gently rolled up his sleeve, then filled a syringe with a cherry-colored liquid containing the world’s first polio vaccine. Developed just a few years earlier by virologist Jonas Salk, the polio vaccine had not yet been widely tested on humans. No one was certain it was safe, or whether it could provide effective protection against the disease. In the coming weeks nearly two million school children in forty-four states received the shots. The Salk vaccine trials were the dramatic culmination of years of research and a multi-million dollar investment, made up in large part by public donations.  Based in part on David Oshinsky’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Polio: An American Story, this one-hour film chronicles a decades-long crusade, fueled by the bold leadership of a single philanthropy and its innovative public relations campaign, and featuring a bitter battle between two scientists and the breakthrough of a forgotten woman researcher.

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