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Carolyn Adams, East Dorsey Lone, Town of Hyde Pork, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., receives the first triol polio vaccine in the Hyde Park home of FDR from Dr. Raymond Kosloska. Volunteer worker Mrs. Paul Reutershan assists.
importance of the educational aspects of tlie trial and the value of visual materials. To help teachers brief the "polio pioneers," a Teacher's Guicle was prepared, along with a filmstrip, Bob and Barbara, to be used with the children. These tools were sent into each of the 44 states included in the trial, and teachers were luged to use their own good judgment on how best to use them.
The psychological effect of the experiment on the children was of primary concern, sincie no one wanted these little ones to be treated or considered as "guinea jiigs." Nor did anyone overlook the fact that chikiren don't like to be stuck with a needle, even though they are accustomed from infancy to inoculations. Teachers set the stage so that yoimgsters could profit from a practical health lesson and take pride in participating in an historic occasion. Nowhere else could this be brought about better than in the schools, and the classroom preparation was a magnificent demonstration of meaningful health education.
As usual, there were differences in how the topic was presented in the classrooms. Teachers showed skill and imagination in interpreting a scientific subject in terms little children could understand. Wliile some felt "the less said, the better," the majority planned
Polio Pioneers
by MARIAN V. MILLER
LAST SPRING more than 50,000 classroom teachers faced a new problem — how to prepare their primary-grade youngsters for the polio vaccine tests. For everyone concerned this was an entirely new experience, with no precedent for guidance. True, "shots" bad been given to children in schools before, but the new polio shots were different. They were first inoculations of the trial polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh. What's more, there was no assurance that the vaccine would protect the youngsters from paralytic polio, though it was hoped that they would. The 600,000 boys and girls who received the shots participated in an extensive, medical trial to determine the vaccine's effectiveness.
Teachers were anxious to make this unprecedented trial a learning experience for the children. They could not turn to textbooks or other standard teacliing material — there simply weren't any. But teachers were not left without guidance for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis had sensed this need.
In planning the countless complex details of the production, administration, and evaluation of the vaccine, the National Foundation did not overlook the
Miss Miller xuas Assistant Director, Division of Public Education, The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, at the time this article was written. She is at present Program Consultant for the American Heart Association.
classroom discussions which were related to elementary health, social studies and history.
The objectives were to help children imderstand that:
(1) Polio is a disease that some children get.
(2) Vaccinations help keep children fiom getting certain diseases (or sicknesses).
(3) This vaccination may help keep them from getting polio.
(4) The doctor, nurse and others who help vaccinate them are kind and want to help them keep well.
The fidl-color filmstrip, Bob and Barbara, was effectively used in many places. Its simple story was piirposely placed in the Teacher's Giude so that it coidd be told, with comments and additions by the potential pioneers themselves.
Later, as they lined up in the vaccination clinics, the children showed an amazing understanding of what the polio vaccine field trials were all about. Many of them took their shots smiling, some were stoics; only a few gave way to brief tears. After it was all over and the polio ])ioneer pins had been awarded, no prouder group could be foimd anywhere.
Whether this vaccine actually will be the answer to polio can be known only after the evaluation of some 1,800,000 field trial records by a scientific team directed by Dr. Thomas J. Francis, Jr., eminent epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The announcement will be forthcoming sometime early in 1955.
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Educational Screen