26. Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime, 204–7.
27. Hall, “Abortion in American Hospitals,” 1933.
28. Betsy Meredith, telephone interview with the author, July 16, 2014.
29. Photograph of I. S. Ravdin and Dwight D. Eisenhower, UPT 50 R252, box 182, file folder 13, Isidor Schwaner Ravdin Papers, University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
30. John M. Mitchell to I. S. Ravdin, October 29, 1952, series UPC 1.4, box 1, file folder “1952–Marriage Council of Philadelphia, Contract with University of Pennsylvania,” University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
31. “The Roman Catholic Church and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania,” undated, series UPC 1.4, box 2, file folder “Department of Ob-Gyn,” University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
32. I. S. Ravdin to Franklin Payne, July 15, 1960, series UPC 1.4, box 2, file folder “Department of Ob-Gyn,” University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
33. Photograph of I. S. Ravdin and Pope Pius XII, UPT 50 R252, box 182, file folder 56, Isidor Schwaner Ravdin Papers, University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
34. I. S. Ravdin to Mrs. Roland T. Addis, December 24, 1964, series UPC 1.4, box 15, file folder “VPMA,” University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
35. I. S. Ravdin’s growing distrust of Hilary Koprowski is on display in his correspondence from the period. “Dr. Koprowski may be a distinguished person, but I have previously questioned his ethics and I am questioning them again,” Ravdin wrote to University of Pennsylvania president Gaylord P. Harnwell on April 8, 1960, after Koprowski reneged on funding he had told the Wistar’s board of managers that he would use to support a scientist that he had recruited to the Wistar from England. (See I. S. Ravdin to Gaylord Harnwell, April 8, 1960, UPA 4, box 114, file folder 17, “Wistar Institute IV 1955–1960,” Office of the President Records, Gaylord Probasco Harnwell Administration, University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.)
36. I. S. Ravdin to Margaret Reed Lewis, January 11, 1947, UPT 50 R252, box 68, file folder 15, Isidor Schwaner Ravdin Papers, University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
37. I. S. Ravdin to William F. McLimans, March 21, 1956, UPT 50 R252, box 68, file folder 15, Isidor Schwaner Ravdin Papers, University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
38. Hilary Koprowski, “The Viral Concept of the Etiology of Cancer” (publication title unknown), page 57, UPT 50 R252, box 22, file folder 24, Isidor Schwaner Ravdin Papers, University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania; Betsy Meredith, telephone interview.
39. Leonard Hayflick, e-mail to the author, July 18, 2014.
40. Hugo Lagercrantz and Jean-Pierre Changeux, “The Emergence of Human Consciousness: From Fetal to Neonatal Life,” Pediatric Research 65 (2009): 255–60, www.nature.com/pr/journal/v65/n3/full/pr200950a.html.
41. Leonard Hayflick, interview with the author, October 3, 2012.
42. Leonard Hayflick and Paul S. Moorhead, “The Serial Cultivation of Human Diploid Cell Strains,” Experimental Cell Research 25, no. 3 (1961): 587.
43. Ibid., 588.
44. Ibid.
45. Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, Biennial Report: 1958–1959, cover and “Contents” page.
46. Ibid., 26.
Chapter Five: Dying Cells and Dogma
1. Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864; New York: Bantam/Dell, Bantam Classic Reissue, May 2006), 143.
2. Alexis Carrel, “On the Permanent Life of Cells Outside the Organism,” Journal of Experimental Medicine 15 (1912): 516–30, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2124948/pdf/516.pdf.
3. “Dr. Carrel’s Miracles in Surgery Win the Nobel Prize,” New York Times, October 13, 1912, pp. 78–79. http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/10/13/100594519.html?pageNumber=78.
4. “Isolated Tissue Holds Life 12 Years in Test,” New York Tribune, January 6, 1924.
5. “Medicine: Carrel’s Man,” Time, September 16, 1935; Alexis Carrel, Man, the Unknown (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935).
6. Wilton R. Earle et al., “Production of Malignancy in Vitro IV: The Mouse Fibroblast Cultures and Changes Seen in the Living Cells,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 4 (1943): 165–69.
7. Leonard Hayflick and Paul S. Moorhead, “The Serial Cultivation of Human Diploid Cell Strains,” Experimental Cell Research 25, no. 3 (1961): 591.
8. Leonard Hayflick, interview with the author, November 19, 2014.
9. John F. Kennedy to American Association of Newspaper Editors, Washington, DC, April 21, 1960, Papers of John F. Kennedy. Prepresidential Papers. Senate Files. Series 12.1. Speech Files, 1953–1960. Box 908, Folder “American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, DC, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-Society-of-Newspaper-Editors_19600421.aspx.
10. Paul Moorhead, interview with the author, November 14, 2012.
11. Hayflick and Moorhead, “Serial Cultivation,” 601.
12. Ibid.; Leonard Hayflick, “Citation Classics,” Current Contents 26 (1978): 144.
13. Leonard Hayflick, interview with the author, October 4, 2012.
14. Leonard Hayflick, How and Why We Age (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994), 127–29.
15. Associated Press, “Pneumonia Study Points to Vaccine: U.S. Scientists Isolate Agent That Causes a Prevalent Form of the Disease,” New York Times, January 23, 1962, p. 1.
16. Hayflick and Moorhead, “Serial Cultivation,” 619.
17. Ibid., 616–19.
18. Ibid., 605.
19. Ibid., 600–601.
20. Ibid., 589.
21. Ibid., 607–8.
22. Chester M. Southam, Alice E. Moore, and Cornelius P. Rhoads, “Homotransplantation of Human Cell Lines,” Science 125 (1957): 158.
23. Elinor Langer, “Human Experimentation: Cancer Studies at Sloan-Kettering Stir Public Debate on Medical Ethics,” Science 143 (1964): 552; Robert D. Mulford, “Experimentation on Human Beings,” Stanford Law Review 20 (1967): 110.
24. Mulford, “Experimentation on Human Beings,” 100; Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (New York: Crown, 2010), 135.
25. Southam, Moore, and Rhoads, “Homotransplantation of Human Cell Lines,” 158.
26. Hayflick and Moorhead, “Serial Cultivation,” 608–9.
27. Steve Hale, “Noted Cancer Researcher Urges ‘Imaginative’ Tests on Human,” Deseret News and Salt Lake Telegram, March 23, 1964, p. B1.
28. William Elkins, interview with the author, June 25, 2014.
29. Leonard Hayflick et al., “Preparation of Poliovirus Vaccines in a Human Fetal Diploid Cell Strain,” American Journal of Hygiene 75 (1962): 250.
30. Ibid.
31. Hayflick and Moorhead, “Serial Cultivation,” 609.
32. World Health Organization Scientific Working Group on the Human Diploid Cell, “Report to the Director-General,” Geneva, July 16–18, 1962, 14.
33. Leonard Hayflick, “The Limited in Vitro Lifetime of Human Diploid Cell Strains,” Experimental Cell Research 37 (1965): 628–29.
34. Ibid., 631.
35. Peyton Rous, “A Sarcoma of the Fowl Transmissible by an Agent Separable from the Tumor Cells,” Journal of Experimental Medicine 13, no. 4 (1911): 397–411.
36. Paul Moorhead, interview.
37. Leonard Hayflick, interview with the author, November 19, 2014.
38. J. H. Tjio and Theodore T. Puck, “Genetics of Somatic Mammalian Cells II: Chromosomal Constitution of Cells in Tissue Culture,” Journal of Experimental Medicine 108 (1958): 260–62.
39. Leonard
Hayflick, interview with the author, October 4, 2012.
40. Peyton Rous to Hilary Koprowski, April 24, 1961. Courtesy of Leonard Hayflick.
Chapter Six: The Swedish Source
1. David Maraniss, Barack Obama: The Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), xxiii.
2. Leonard Hayflick and Paul S. Moorhead, “The Serial Cultivation of Human Diploid Cell Strains,” Experimental Cell Research 25, no. 3 (1961): 585–621.
3. A. M. Rosenthal, “Red Tape Tangles India’s Monkeys: Policy Shift Strands 5,000 Animals at Airport on Way Abroad for Medical Use,” New York Times, March 2, 1958, p. 26.
4. Leonard Hayflick, interview with the author, October 3, 2012.
5. Erling Norrby, Nobel Prizes and Life Sciences (Singapore: World Scientific, 2010), 70, and 123.
6. Per Axelsson, “The Cutter Incident and the Development of a Swedish Polio Vaccine, 1952–1957,” Dynamis 32, no. 2 (2012): 312.
7. Erik Lycke, telephone interview with the author, October 24, 2013; Erling Norrby, interview with the author, September 20, 2013.
8. World Health Organization, “Report to the Director-General,” July 24, 1962, MHO/PA/140.62 (World Health Organization Scientific Group on the Human Diploid Cell, Geneva, July 16–18, 1962); Erik Lycke, telephone interview.
9. Erik Lycke, telephone interview.
10. Hayflick and Moorhead, “Serial Cultivation,” 588.
11. Eva Herrström, interview with the author, September 26, 2013.
12. Eva Herrström, diary, April 24, 1961. Courtesy of Eva Herrström.
13. Ibid., May 2, 1961.
14. Leonard Hayflick et al., “Preparation of Poliovirus Vaccines in a Human Fetal Diploid Cell Strain,” American Journal of Hygiene 75 (1962): 245.
15. Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, Biennial Research Report 1962–1963, 22, Wistar Institute Archives, Philadelphia, PA.
16. Department of Health Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, NIH, Contract No: PH43-62-157, Feb., 6, 1962, 1. Courtesy of Leonard Hayflick.
17. Ibid., 1; “Wistar Institute Comparative Balance Sheets as of 4/30/66,” p. 4, UPT 50 R252, box 68, file folder 14, “Wistar Institute, 1966,” Isidor Schwaner Ravdin Papers, University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania; “Wistar Institute Comparative Balance Sheets as of 10/31/67,” pages 2 and 4, UPT 50 R252, box 68, file folder 12, “Wistar Institute, 1966–1967,” Isidor Schwaner Ravdin Papers, University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
18. “The Wistar Institute Board of Managers Meeting, June 19, 1962,” page 1, series UPC 4.1 VPMA, box 14, file folder “Wistar Institute,” University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania.
19. National Institutes of Health, Contract no: PH43-62-157, Section 30: “Termination for the Convenience of Government,” part (g), p. HEW-315-6.
20. This and other personal information about Eva Ernholm is from interviews with Elisabeth, Håkan, and Lars Ernholm and with Osborne Carlson on September 21 and 22, 2013, and from documents provided by Elisabeth Ernholm.
21. “Eva Ernholm: Bättre Upplysning—Färre Aborter Hävdar Ung Kristinehamnsgynekolog” (“Eva Ernholm: Better Education—Fewer Abortions, Claims Young Kristinehamn Gynecologist”), Nya Wermlandstidningens (Karlstad, Sweden), October 5, 1963. Original article in Swedish; translation by Lisa Tallroth.
22. Per Gunnar Cassel, “Induced Legal Abortion in Sweden During 1939–1974: Change in Practice and Legal Reform,” Working Paper 2009:1 (Stockholm: Stockholm University Demography Unit Department of Sociology, 2009), 4–5.
23. “Swedish Medical Association: Rules for Physicians (Codex Ethicus Medicorum Svecorum),” Swedish Medical Journal 49, no. 1 (1951): 1–3.
24. Lena Lennerhed, Historier om ett brott (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Atlas, 2008), cited in English in Cassel, “Induced Legal Abortion in Sweden,” 5.
25. Hayflick and Moorhead, “Serial Cultivation,” 604.
26. This calculation is based on Merck’s annual use of WI-38 cells for making rubella vaccine. The company begins making the vaccine with about 120 million cells with population-doubling levels in the low 20s.
27. Hayflick and Moorhead, “Serial Cultivation,” 604.
28. “Phoenix Abortion Ruling Delayed,” New York Times, July 28, 1962.
29. Eero Saksela and Paul S. Moorhead, “Aneuploidy in the Degenerative Phase of Serial Cultivation of Human Cell Strains,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 50 (1963): 390.
30. J. P. Jacobs, C. M. Jones, and J. P. Baille, “Characteristics of a Human Diploid Cell Designated MRC-5,” Nature 227 (1970): 169.
31. Riseberg Memo; Factual Chronology, 5–6.
32. Factual Chronology, 5–6; Hilary Koprowski to Dr. W. C. Cockburn, World Health Organization, October 6, 1962, 1, investigations 9, folder 4, Directors’ Files, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health.
33. Factual Chronology, 5–6.
34. D. G. Evans to Ronald Lamont-Havers, August 20, 1975, attachment, 1–2, investigations 9, folder 1, Directors’ Files, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health.
35. Schriver Report, 3.
36. Leonard Hayflick letter to the author, October 27, 2015.
Chapter Seven: Polio Vaccine “Passengers”
1. Edward Shorter, “The Health Century Oral History Collection,” interviewee: Dr. Bernice Eddy, December 4, 1986, page 1, transcript at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
2. Ibid., 12–15.
3. J. A. Morris et al., Memo to Robert Q. Marston (director of the National Institutes of Health), September 27, 1971. This memo is reprinted in Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization and Government Research of the Committee on Government Operations, Consumer Safety Act of 1972: Hearings on Titles I and II of S. 3419, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., April 20 and 21 and May 3 and 4, 1972, 519, 779.
4. Shorter, “Health Century,” Bernice Eddy interview, 3–4.
5. Neal Nathanson and Alexander Langmuir, “The Cutter Incident: Poliomyelitis Following Formaldehyde-Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccination in the United States During the Spring of 1955 II: The Relationship of Poliomyelitis to Cutter Vaccine,” American Journal of Hygiene 78 (1963): 39.
6. Paul A. Offit, “The Cutter Incident, 50 Years Later,” New England Journal of Medicine 352 (2005): 1411.
7. David M. Oshinsky, Polio: An American Story (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 237–238.
8. Ibid., 519.
9. Bernice E. Eddy and Sarah E. Stewart, “Characteristics of the SE Polyoma Virus,” American Journal of Public Health 49, no. 11 (1959): 1492.
10. Hilary Koprowski, “Live Poliomyelitis Virus Vaccines: Present Status and Problems for the Future,” Journal of the American Medical Association 178, no. 12 (1961): 1153–54.
11. Robert N. Hull, James R. Minner, and Carmine C. Mascoli, “New Viral Agents Recovered from Tissue Cultures of Monkey Kidney Cells III: Recovery of Additional Agents Both from Cultures of Monkey Tissues and Directly from Tissues and Excreta,” American Journal of Hygiene 68 (1958): 40.
12. Bernice E. Eddy et al., “Tumors Induced in Hamsters by Injection of Rhesus Monkey Kidney Cell Extracts,” Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 107, no. 1 (1961): 191–97.
13. Ibid., 193.
14. Leo Morris et al., “Surveillance of Poliomyelitis in the United States, 1962–65,” Public Health Reports 82, no. 5 (1967): 418.
15. Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher, The Virus and the Vaccine: Contaminated Vaccine, Deadly Cancers and Government Neglect (New York: St. Martin’s, 2004), 71–73. This book renders the SV40 story in far greater detail and is recommended for interested readers.
16. B. H. Sweet and M. R. Hilleman, “The Vacuolating Virus SV40,”
Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 105 (1960): 420–27, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13774265. This paper is accessible at pages 561–68 of Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization and Government Research of the Committee on Government Operations, Consumer Safety Act of 1972: Hearings.
17. Bernice E. Eddy, memo to Joseph Smadel, “The Presence of an Oncogenic Substance or Virus in Monkey Kidney Cell Cultures,” July 6, 1960, Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization and Government Research of the Committee on Government Operations, Consumer Safety Act of 1972: Hearings, 551.
18. Joseph E. Smadel, memo to Bernice Eddy, “Requirements for Outside Lectures,” October 24, 1960, Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization and Government Research of the Committee on Government Operations, Consumer Safety Act of 1972: Hearings, 549–50.
19. Shorter, “Health Century,” Bernice Eddy interview, 9.
20. Sweet and Hilleman, “Vacuolating Virus SV40,” 425–26.
21. Ibid.
22. H. Koprowski, “Tin Anniversary of the Development of Live Virus Vaccine,” Journal of the American Medical Association 174 (1960): 975.
23. Hilary Koprowski and Stanley A. Plotkin, “Notes on Acceptance Criteria and Requirements for Live Poliovirus Vaccines” (World Health Organization Study Group on Requirements for Poliomyelitis Vaccine [Live, Attenuated Poliovirus], Geneva, November 7–12, 1960), 8–9. WHO/BS/IR/85/1 November 1960.
24. Ibid., 10.
25. Leonard Hayflick et al., “Preparation of Poliovirus Vaccines in a Human Fetal Diploid Cell Strain,” American Journal of Hygiene 75 (1962): 240–58.
26. Alan P. Goffe, James Hale, and P. S. Gardner, “Letter to the Editor,” Lancet 277, no. 7177 (1961): 612.
27. D. I. Magrath, Kate Russell, and J. O. Tobin, “Preliminary Communications: Vacuolating Agent,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 5247 (1961): 287, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1969653/.
28. Hilary Koprowski letter to Representative Kenneth Roberts, Chairman, House Health and Safety Subcommittee, House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, April 14, 1961, in Polio Vaccines: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House of Representatives, Eighty-Seventh Congress, First Session, on Developments with Respect to the Manufacture of Live Virus Polio Vaccine and Results of Utilization of Killed Virus Polio Vaccine, March 16–17, 1961, 311–12.
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