The Vaccine Race

by Meredith Wadman

  37. Webster, “Teratogen Update,” 17–20.

  38. Stanley A. Plotkin and Antti Vaheri, “Human Fibroblasts Infected with Rubella Produce a Growth Inhibitor,” Science 156 (1967): 659–61.

  39. W. E. Rawls, J. Desmyter, and J. L. Melnick, “Virus Carrier Cells and Virus Free Cells in Fetal Rubella,” Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 129 (1968): 477–83; Webster, “Teratogen Update,” 21.

  40. W. Dimech et al., “Evaluation of Three Immunoassays Used for Detection of Anti-Rubella Virus Immunoglobulin M Antibodies,” Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology 12, no. 9 (September 2005): 1104–8, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1235794/.

  41. Gisella Enders et al., “Outcome of Confirmed Periconceptual Maternal Rubella,” Lancet 331, no. 8600 (1988): 1445–47 (originally published as vol. 1, no. 8600).

  42. M. M. Desmond, “Congenital Rubella Encephalitis, Course and Early Sequelae,” Journal of Pediatrics 71, no. 3 (1967): 311–31.

  43. Jill M. Forrest, Margaret A. Menser, and J. A. Burgess, “High Frequency of Diabetes Mellitus in Young Adults with Congenital Rubella,” Lancet 297, no. 7720 (1971): 332–34.

  44. John F. O’Neill, “The Ocular Manifestations of Congenital Infection: A Study of the Early Effect and Long-Term Outcome of Maternally Transmitted Rubella and Toxoplasmosis,” Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society 96 (1998): 858–68.

  45. Stephen A. Winchester et al., “Persistent Intraocular Rubella Infection in a Patient with Fuchs’ Uveitis and Congenital Rubella Syndrome,” Journal of Clinical Microbiology 51, no. 5 (2013): 1622–24, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3647901/.

  46. Margaret A. Menser, Lorimer Dods, and J. D. Harley, “A Twenty-five-Year Follow-up of Congenital Rubella,” Lancet 290, no. 7530 (1967): 1347–50.

  47. Miller, “Rubella in the United Kingdom,” 32; John J. Witte et al., “Epidemiology of Rubella,” American Journal of Diseases of Children 118 (1969): 107.

  48. Stanley Plotkin to Alistair Dudgeon, November 4, 1963, folder, “Correspondence-out, October 1963–December 1964,” Stanley Plotkin private papers, Doylestown, PA.

  Chapter Ten: Plague of the Pregnant

  1. William S. Webster, “Teratogen Update: Congenital Rubella,” Teratology 58 (1998): 13, http://teratology.org/updates/58pg13.pdf.

  2. Stanley A. Plotkin memo to Hilary Koprowski, “Reference: Christmas Party,” December 11, 1963, folder “Correspondence-out, October 1963–December 1964,” Stanley Plotkin private papers, Doylestown, PA.

  3. Vincent Cristofalo, “Profile in Gerontology: Leonard Hayflick, PhD,” Contemporary Gerontology 9, no. 3(2003): 83.

  4. Eugene B. Buynak et al., “Live Attenuated Rubella Virus Vaccines Prepared in Duck Embryo Cell Culture, I: Development and Clinical Testing, Journal of the American Medical Association 204, no. 3 (1968): 195.

  5. David J. Rothman, Strangers at the Bedside: A History of How Law and Bioethics Transformed Medical Decision Making (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991, 2003), 40, 51–59.

  6. “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,” p. 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; Robert Dechert, “Memorandum of RD’s Discussion with Dr. Thomas Norton and Dr. Stanley Plotkin About the Work of the Latter,” p. 2, January 12, 1968, folder “DBS,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  7. Alan D. Lourie to Thomas Norton, “Discoveries or Inventions Developed Under Public Health Service Research Grants and Awards,” March 13, 1968, p. 3, folder “SKF Correspondence 1968,” Stanley Plotkin Private papers, Doylestown, PA.

  8. Stanley Plotkin to Alistair Dudgeon, November 4, 1963, folder “Correspondence-Out,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  9. Wolfgang Saxon, “Harry Martin Meyer Jr., 72; Helped Create Rubella Vaccine,” New York Times, August 25, 2001, www.nytimes.com/2001/08/25/us/harry-martin-meyer-jr-72-helped-create-rubella-vaccine.html.

  10. Paul D. Parkman et al., “Attenuated Rubella Virus I.: Development and Laboratory Characterization,” New England Journal of Medicine 275 (1966): 569–74; Harry M. Meyer Jr, Paul D. Parkman, and Theodore C. Panos, “Attenuated Rubella Virus II: Production of an Experimental Live-Virus Vaccine and Clinical Trial,” New England Journal of Medicine 275, no. 11 (1966): 575.

  11. Stanley A. Plotkin, Andre Boué and Joelle G. Boué, “The In Vitro Growth of Rubella Virus in Human Embryo Cells,” American Journal of Epidemiology 81, no. 1 (1965): 71–85; Stanley A. Plotkin and Antti Vaheri, “Human Fibroblasts Infected with Rubella Produce a Growth Inhibitor,” Science 156 (1967): 659–61.

  12. Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Managers, the Wistar Institute, June 22, 1964. These minutes are found on page 195 of a bound volume of Board of Managers’ minutes housed at the Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA.

  13. Communicable Disease Center, “Rubella,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 13, no. 12 (1964): 93–101.

  14. “Surveillance Summary: Rubella—United States,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 19, no. 34 (1970): 335; J. J. Witte et al., “Epidemiology of Rubella,” American Journal of Diseases of Children 118, no. 1 (July 1969): 107–11.

  15. Stanley Plotkin, index cards cataloging infants born with congenital rubella syndrome, Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  16. Stanley Plotkin, “List of Patients,” file folder “Rubella Patients,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  17. J. M. Lindquist et al., “Congenital Rubella Syndrome as a Systemic Infection: Studies of Affected Infants Born in Philadelphia, USA,” British Medical Journal 2 (1965): 1402.

  18. Stanley A. Plotkin, “Virologic Assistance in the Management of German Measles in Pregnancy,” Journal of the American Medical Association 190 (1964): 268.

  19. Name withheld, letter to Stanley Plotkin, April 2, 1964, folder “Correspondence-in,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  20. Plotkin, “Virologic Assistance,” 266–67.

  21. Ibid., 267.

  22. R. Beaver, letter to the editor, and J. D. Pryce, letter to the editor (both under the heading “Rubella and Termination of Pregnancy”), British Medical Journal 2, no. 5416 (October 24, 1964): 1075–76.

  23. Pryce, letter to the editor, 1076.

  24. Stanley A. Plotkin, “Rubella and Termination of Pregnancy” (unpublished letter to the editor of the British Medical Journal), November 20, 1964, folder “Correspondence-out,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  25. Stanley Plotkin, interview with the author, December 18, 2012.

  26. Minutes, “Meeting of the Committee on Congenital Malformations, American Academy of Pediatrics,” May 8, 1965, Philadelphia, file folder “Correspondence-in,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  27. Robert E. Hall, “Abortion in American Hospitals,” American Journal of Public Health 57, no. 11 (1967): 1934.

  28. Robert E. Hall, “Therapeutic Abortion, Sterilization, and Contraception,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 91, no. 4 (1965): 523.

  29. Leslie J. Reagan, Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010), 73–74.

  30. Ibid., 74–75.

  31. Ibid., 73.

  32. Stanley Plotkin to Dr. Henry Fetterman, February 5, 1965, folder “Correspondence-out,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  33. Stanley Plotkin to Dr. Leonard M. Popowich, October 13, 1964, folder “Correspondence-out,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  34. Alfred D. Heggie and Frederick C. Robbins,
“Natural Rubella Acquired After Birth: Clinical Features and Complications,” American Journal of Diseases of Children 118 (1969): 15.

  35. National Communicable Disease Center, “Estimated Morbidity Associated with the 1964–1965 U.S. Rubella Epidemic,” in Rubella Surveillance Report No. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health Service, June 1969), 12.

  36. Ibid., “Preface,” 1.

  37. Stanley Plotkin to Franklin Payne (head, Department of Pediatrics, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania), January 23, 1964, folder “Correspondence-out,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  38. Stanley Plotkin to Dr. Lester Eisenberg (Department of Obstetrics, Cherry Hill Hospital), November 24, 1964, folder “Correspondence-out,” Stanley Plotkin private papers.

  39. Ibid.

  40. Stanley A. Plotkin, David Cornfeld, and Theodore H. Ingalls, “Studies of Immunization with Living Rubella Virus: Trials in Children of a Strain Cultured from an Aborted Fetus,” American Journal of Diseases of Children 110 (1965): 382.

  Chapter Eleven: Rabies

  1. H. Koprowski, “Vaccines Against Rabies: Present and Future,” First International Conference on Vaccines Against Viral and Rickettsial Diseases of Man: Papers Presented and Discussions Held in Washington, D.C., November 7–11, 1966 (Washington, DC: Pan American Health Organization Scientific Publication No. 147, May 1967), 488.

  2. Roger Vaughan, Listen to the Music: The Life of Hilary Koprowski (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2000), 67.

  3. Deborah J. Briggs, “Human Rabies Vaccines,” in Rabies, 2nd ed., ed. Alan C. Jackson and William H. Wunner (London: Academic Press, 2007), 506.

  4. World Health Organization, WHO Expert Consultation on Rabies: Second Report, WHO Technical Report Series, No. 982 (Geneva: World Health Organization 2013), 8.

  5. W. Suraweera et al., “Deaths from Symptomatically Identifiable Furious Rabies in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey,” PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 6, no. 10 (2012): e1847; M. K. Sudarshan, “Assessing Burden of Rabies in India: WHO-Sponsored National Multi-Centric Rabies Survey,” Association for the Prevention and Control of Rabies in India Journal 6 (May 2004): 44–45.

  6. George M. Baer, ed., The Natural History of Rabies, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC, 1991): 523.

  7. Ibid., 524.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Elisabeth Emerson, Public Health Is People: A History of the Minnesota Department of Health from 1949 to 1999 (St. Paul: Minnesota Department of Health, 2002), 35, and 61–62, www.health.state.mn.us/library/publichealthispeople19491999.html.

  10. Communicable Disease Center, “Annual Supplement: Summary 1965,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 14, no. 53 (1966): 48.

  11. U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, National Office of Vital Statistics, “Annual Supplement: Reported Incidence of Notifiable Diseases in the United States, 1952,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1, no. 54 (1953): 7.

  12. Louis Pasteur, “Méthode pour Prévenir la Rage Après Morsure,” Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Sciences 101: 765–74. For a concise English rendition of Pasteur’s advance, see Hervé Bazin, “Pasteur and the Birth of Vaccines Made in the Laboratory,” in History of Vaccine Development, ed. Stanley A. Plotkin (New York: Springer Science + Business Media, 2011), 39–41.

  13. Madureira Pará, “An Outbreak of Post-vaccinal Rabies (Rage de Laboratoire) in Fortaleza, Brazil, in 1960: Residual Fixed Virus as the Etiological Agent,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 33 (1965): 177–82, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5294589.

  14. Ibid., 181.

  15. “Franklin B. Peck Jr., Horace M. Powell, and Clyde G. Culbertson, “Duck Embryo Rabies Vaccine: Study of Fixed Virus Vaccine Grown in Embryonated Duck Eggs and Killed with Beta-Propiolactone (BPL),” Journal of the American Medical Association 162, no. 15 (1956): 1373; Hervé Bourhy, Annick Perrot, and Jean-Marc Cavaillon, “Rabies,” in: Andrew W. Artenstein, ed., Vaccines: A Biography (New York: Springer Science + Business Media, 2010), 84.

  16. Franklin B. Peck Jr., Horace M. Powell, and Clyde G. Culbertson, “New Antirabies Vaccine for Human Use,” Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine 45, no. 5 (1955): 679–83.

  17. Peck, Powell, and Culbertson, “Duck Embryo Rabies Vaccine,” 1373.

  18. Koprowski, “Vaccines Against Rabies,” 489.

  19. Baer, Natural History of Rabies, 418.

  20. Communicable Disease Center, “Annual Supplement: Summary 1965,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 14, no. 53 (1966): 5.

  21. Ibid., 49.

  22. R. E. Kissling, “Growth of Rabies Virus in Non-nervous Tissue Culture,” Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 98, no. 2 (June 1958): 223–25.

  23. Tadeusz J. Wiktor, Stanley A. Plotkin, and Hilary Koprowski, “Development and Clinical Trials of the New Human Rabies Vaccine of Tissue Culture (Human Diploid Cell) Origin,” Developments in Biological Standardization 40 (1978): 4.

  24. Vaughan, Listen to the Music, 121.

  25. T. J. Wiktor, M. V. Fernandes, and H. Koprowski, “Cultivation of Rabies Virus in Human Diploid Cell Strain WI-38,” Journal of Immunology 93 (September 1964): 354–55.

  26. T. J. Wiktor, M. V. Fernandes, and H. Koprowski, “Potential Use of Human Diploid Cell Strains for Rabies Vaccine,” Proceedings: Symposium on the Characterization and Uses of Human Diploid Cell Strains: Opatija 1963 (no location given: Permanent Section on Microbiological Standardization, International Association of Microbiological Societies, 1963): 354–56.

  27. John A. Anderson, Frank T. Daly Jr., and Jack C. Kidd, “Human Rabies After Antiserum and Vaccine Postexposure Treatment: Case Report and Review,” Annals of Internal Medicine 64, no. 6 (1966): 1297–1302.

  28. Basil Rice, “Rabies Threat Worsens,” Kingsport (TN) Times-News, May 9, 1964, 2.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Richard R. Leger, “Alarm over Rabies: Disease Infects Wildlife in More Areas, Posing Threat to Vacationers; Rabid Foxes Terrorize County in Tennessee; Convicts May Test New Type of Vaccine; Skunks and Bats Are Carriers,” Wall Street Journal, May 19, 1965, 1.

  31. Communicable Disease Center, “Rabies in Animals and Man—1964: Annual Surveillance Summary,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 14, no. 31 (1965): 266.

  32. Leger, “Alarm over Rabies.”

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Anderson, Daly, and Kidd, “Human Rabies After Antiserum,” 1300–1301.

  36. Communicable Disease Center, “Human Rabies: Minnesota,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 13, no. 38 (1964): 330; Gary Sprick obituary, Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin, September 2, 1964, www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=114649224.

  37. Communicable Disease Center, “Rabies in Animals and Man,” 269.

  38. Communicable Disease Center, “Epidemiologic Notes and Reports: Human Rabies Death—South Dakota,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 15, no. 38 (1966): 3225–26.

  39. Leger, “Alarm over Rabies”; Centers for Disease Control, “Recommendation of the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (ACIP): Rabies Prevention,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 29, no. 3 (1980): 267.

  40. Communicable Disease Center, “Human Rabies Death: West Virginia,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 14, no. 23 (1965): 195.

  41. Wiktor, Fernandes, and Koprowski, “Cultivation of Rabies Virus,” 353–60.

  42. Wiktor, Plotkin, and Koprowski, “Development and Clinical Trials,” 5.

  43. T. J. Wiktor and H. Koprowski, “Successful Immunization of Primates with Rabies Vaccine Prepared in Human Diploid Cell Strain WI-38,” Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 118 (1965): 1069–73.

  44. Mario V. Fernandes, Hilary Koprowski, and Tadeusz J. Wiktor, “Method of Pr
oducing Rabies Vaccine,” U.S. Patent 3,397,267, filed September 21, 1964, and issued August 13, 1968, http://www.google.com/patents/US3397267.

  45. David Lansing, director of product acquisition and licensing, Research Corporation, to Thomas W. Norton, May 3, 1966, folder “SKF Correspondence 1968,” Stanley Plotkin private papers, Doylestown, PA.

  Chapter Twelve: Orphans and Ordinary People

  1. Claude Bernard, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, trans. Henry Copley Greene (New York: Dover, 1957), 101 (originally published in 1865).

  2. Stanley Plotkin, “Protocol for Rubella Study,” November 1, 1963, folder “St. Vincent’s,” Stanley Plotkin private papers, Doylestown, PA. Rosa Hoflacher, interview with the author, October 21, 2014; Jim Butler, “For Dependent Children, a ‘Home’ Is Not a Home,” Catholic Standard and Times (Philadelphia), January 19, 1968, 8.

  3. Mary Thérèse Hasson, telephone interview with the author, October 24, 2014; Hoflacher, interview with the author; Butler, “For Dependent Children,” 8.

  4. Ruth McClain, “St. Vincent’s Hospital for Women and Children: Report of Inspection and Evaluation,” Department of Public Welfare of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, April 1966, p. 5, Cardinal Krol Papers, Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center.

  5. Butler, “For Dependent Children,” 8.

  6. Hoflacher, interview with the author, October 21, 2014.

  7. Mary Thérèse Hasson, telephone interview with the author, October 24, 2014.

  8. Stanley Plotkin, interview with the author, December 18, 2012.

  9. “Court’s Abortion Rulings Termed ‘Tragic’ by Cardinal, Bishops, Pro-life Spokesmen,” Catholic Standard and Times (Philadelphia), January 25, 1973, 1. See also John Cardinal Krol, “Statement on Abortion: A Statement Issued by the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops,” January 22, 1973, www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/73-01-22statementonabortionnccb.htm (accessed February 1, 2016).