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The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.5490973
EAN: 9780300126051
ISBN: 0300126050
Label: Yale University Press
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: September 28, 2007
Publisher: Yale University Press
Studio: Yale University Press
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Editorial Review:
Vaccines have saved more lives than any other single medical advance. Yet today only four companies make vaccines, and there is a growing crisis in vaccine availability. Why has this happened? This remarkable book recounts for the first time a devastating episode in 1955 at Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley, California, thathas led many pharmaceutical companies to abandon vaccine manufacture.
Drawing on interviews with public health officials, pharmaceutical company executives, attorneys, Cutter employees, and victims of the vaccine, as well as on previously unavailable archives, Dr. Paul Offit offers a full account of the Cutter disaster. He describes the nation’s relief when the polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk in 1955, the production of the vaccine at industrial facilities such as the one operated by Cutter, and the tragedy that occurred when 200,000 people were inadvertently injected with live virulent polio virus: 70,000 became ill, 200 were permanently paralyzed, and 10 died. Dr. Offit also explores how, as a consequence of the tragedy, one jury’s verdict set in motion events that eventually suppressed the production of vaccines already licensed and deterred the development of new vaccines that hold the promise of preventing other fatal diseases.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - A real problem and a contentious solution
There's a lot of noise about vaccines today, what with bird flu and who knows what over the horizon, but nothing compared with 50 years ago, when the Salk polio vaccine was introduced.
People younger than about 60 years old can hardly imagine the fear that gripped American parents every summer then. The shadow of the iron lung was far more terrifying than the shadow of the atomic bomb.
Salk vaccine worked and, under proper controls, was safe.
But controls were not proper, and vaccine ... Read More
Rating:  - The Cutter Incident
The author presents the science and legal outcomes of this polio vaccine disaster in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. While telling a historical event, the author was aptly able to show how families today are still being affected-making this book a great read for those who have wondered just what is going on with vaccines, vaccine shortages, and the vaccine industry.
Rating:  - Pure Tripe
Frighteningly, Offit argues that Cutter should have been exonerated from liability for killing and maiming children because it was found to have followed government requirements in the manufacture of vaccine found to be harmful, EVEN THOUGH, despite having "followed the right instructions" it KNEW the vaccine still contained live virus and thus was harmful. This is analogous to manufacturing cars that meet all safety requirements stipulated by the government, but then having knowledge that the cars will ... Read More
Rating: - Quite fascinating
In 1952, the United States suffered its worst ever polio epidemic, with 58,000 people affected. The race was on to perfect a vaccine that would bring this scourge under control. In 1955, following several breakthrough, a vaccine was created, and a huge trial was conducted, involving some 800,000 children, of whom 600,000 were given the vaccine (the rest were given a placebo). However, it quickly became apparent that something had gone wrong. Before all was said and done, 40,000 children contracted polio, ... Read More
Rating: - A very timely read as we consider the possibility of a worldwide flu pandemic
Are you aware of the real reasons there has been a chronic shortage of flu vaccine in the U.S. for the past several years? Are you concerned that there is the very real possibility of a major flu pandemic that could rival the 1918 outbreak that claimed 675.000 lives in this country? Would you be interested in learning why most pharmaceutical companies are no longer involved in the manufacture of essential vaccines? Paul Offit, M.D. sheds a great deal of light on these matters in "The Cutter Incident". ... Read More
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