• 17:48 - 22:55
Ed Haslam | Dr. Mary’s Monkey, The Polio Vaccine, and Lee Harvey Oswald
Salk Vaccine Failure, Cutter Laboratories and Dr. Alton Ochsner
The initial rollout of the Salk polio vaccine in 1955 faced immediate crisis when batches from Cutter Laboratories caused paralysis and death. Dr. Alton Ochsner, a major stockholder in Cutter and a prominent New Orleans physician, famously inoculated his own grandchildren to prove the vaccine's safety, resulting in his grandson's death. Despite warnings from safety tester Bernice Eddy, the mass vaccination campaign proceeded under intense public and political pressure.