The Cutter Incident, 50 Years Later

On April 12, 1955, Jonas Salk's polio vaccine — made by inactivating poliovirus with formaldehyde — was declared to be safe and effective. The trial of Salk's vaccine had included 1.8 million children who were inoculated with either vaccine (made by either Eli Lilly or Parke-Davis) or placebo or were not inoculated but only observed. That afternoon, an advisory committee to the Laboratory of Biologics Control (the federal agency that was responsible for licensing biologic products in the United States) recommended that licenses to produce the vaccine be granted to five pharmaceutical companies: Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, Wyeth, Pitman-Moore, and Cutter. . . .