 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? From the CBS television news staff, Larry Lusser and Ned Kalmer. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Basel O'Connor, president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. In spite of all the miraculous advances made in medical science during our lifetimes, there's still one epidemic uncontrollable disease that's increasing every year, and this year, unfortunately, is no exception. Despite all our efforts, polio is affecting more people this summer than ever before. Mr. O'Connor, earlier this year, we were told that we might be on the verge of victory over polio through the new Salk vaccine. What has happened? Well, we still may be on the verge of victory. Of course, this last summer we put on the one great field trial of a vaccine that's ever been had in the history of the world. We gave the vaccine to 445,000 children. We gave another 200,000, what we call an innocuous substance, what we call a placebo. And in 217 places throughout the country, we tested out the validity of what we call the Salk vaccine. Some people didn't know what they were getting? That half the group in the placebo study, the control study, got vaccine, got something else, but nobody knows. We have the key to that. But when will the results be known? Well, right now, of course, we're going through the evaluation period, and that's a long, hard, laborious job. And I don't see how we can possibly know that until the epidemic season is over, say, around November 1st. Then it'll take time after that, and we can't possibly know the results until December 31st. Maybe not then. Well, Mr. O'Connor, is it possible that some of these people who are getting polio now are getting it from the vaccine? That could be possible, but we have no reason to believe it. And in any event, in the placebo study, we couldn't tell, because until you break the key and find out who got the vaccine, who got the placebo, you don't know. But so far, the safety of this vaccine has been really ruled out. Well, is there any more of it available now, sir? No, you see, this vaccine is simply now in the trial state. It's not commercially available. Can't be bought? Can't be bought, and if it's determined to be effective, of course, why then the manufacturing houses undoubtedly will produce it to the extent they can. Well, how's the efficacy of this Jonas Saw vaccine actually improved? Well, I think in the laboratory or rather experimental-wise, not the laboratory, it has in the laboratory monkeys. But in human beings, experimental-wise, it has been demonstrated that this vaccine will raise the antibody content of the blood sufficient, which should be sufficient to protect against paralytic polio when it's encountered in the natural stage. But until that happens, you see what we've done now, we've given the vaccine, and now we're waiting for the epidemics to come in those 217 areas so that these children will come in contact with the disease in the natural condition. Now, if the vaccine is effective, it should prevent them from getting paralytic polio. That's what we want to find out. Well, you said 217 various areas. Now, where are the most cases popping up now, sir? Most cases now, this year, we're in four spots so far, rather curiously. California, Texas, Florida, and Hawaii, believe it or not. Hawaii is having quite a relatively large incidence. I think my memory is right, I hope. They have 137 cases now, as against a five-year average, something like 17 cases. It's a hot weather disease. Well, we don't know anymore. It is, yes. We get our peaks in July and August and September, but now lots of places in this country. It's endemic. I don't ask me which places because nobody likes to have that set of their place, but it runs pretty well through the year. We'll have it from January 1st to December 31st. Well, Mr. O'Connor, how do you account for the fact that children get it more often in the summer when we think of them as getting more sun and more exercises and being generally healthier? Well, of course, you know, I'm a layman. I'm not a scientist, so all I can tell you is what somebody else tells me. I think it's probably due primarily to the fact that they make new contacts. They go from a place where they've had no immunity and they go to another place and get into other crowds where the disease is prevalent and they encounter it that way. They get into new groupings of children and I think it's probably movement in the summer plus getting overtired, over-exercising and then neglect not watching their headaches and their coals and so forth. Well, is it wise do you think to keep a child isolated during the summer or is it better to expose them to these new contacts that they normally would meet at camps and in pools? Well, I certainly wouldn't expose them to the disease itself, but I don't think one can go so far as to keep their child isolated and I think we really don't know. We do know that it doesn't come from water. We know it doesn't come from pools or milk or things like that. We know it's a contact disease and therefore I suppose the more contacts you make and the newer the contacts, the more you increase the likelihood. But, Emerson once, you know, wrote an essay saying that you can't run away from anything so that, but I think it is a good idea to see that they don't get tired, too tired, call the doctor the minute they show any symptoms. Well, supposing one's child develops a sore throat during the summer, what should the parent do about it? Do you immediately go and ask for a shot of a sore vaccine? No, they won't get it because it's not available, but the thing they should do is call the doctor and then first make sure it is polio and not get too excited about it. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. And if there's a large family, Mr. O'Connor, what will the others immediately be exposed? Don't be silly about that. If you have one case in the family, the others in the family will all have had that virus. Now, they may not have paralytic polio, but they will have had the virus. Well, Mr. O'Connor, should you immediately take the child and send it away or send the other children away to their grandmothers or to friends to get them away from the child which has polio? I shouldn't think so. I'm not a doctor or scientist, but I shouldn't think so. I think it all depends on what the family doctor feels is their condition. How seriously he thinks whether they're going to be paralytic polio, if they're going to be paralytic polio, the hospital is undoubtedly the best place for them in some cases, not all cases. If they look like they're going to be in a bought-up case, why they're just as well as homes, where else, provided they put to bed and get over the early symptoms. Well, Mr. O'Connor, you're talking about the soft vaccine this summer. And last year, there was tremendous run on what was called a gamma globulin. Now, the United States Public Health Service, I understand, doesn't feel that gamma globulin is effective anymore. No, no, no. The public health never said that. No. What happened was a committee that was set up by the Public Health Service and made a report out of Atlanta that said the use of gamma globulin in family context was no good. And we always said that. There was any basis for believing it was any good. And then they said that the use of gamma globulin in mass prophylaxis, giving it to in the mass, all they said was that as it was used last summer, they couldn't draw a conclusion whether it was good or not. But the fact remains that the only scientific test, the control test made by Dr. Hammond in 51 and 52, which we paid for on the National Foundation, that scientific test still proves that gamma globulin, given at the proper time before the virus gets into the host, and the proper kind of gamma globulin will protect from originally for five weeks, but his recent work in the laboratory shows that it will protect for eight weeks. So the only scientific evidence that exists shows that gamma globulin is as effective as it ever was and will protect temporarily against paralytic polio. Now it is available. The public health men have it. There will be a demand for this summer and it should and it will be used. But all that report said was that used in the contact method, you remember I've just said that once you have a case in the family, they've all got the virus. Well, obviously giving them gamma globulin then won't help them any and that was well known and why it was ever used that way. Well, do I understand, sir, that you cannot get an inoculation or a vaccination from the Salk vaccine now, but you still can get an inoculation of gamma globulin? That's right. There's about two million shots of gamma globulin available in this country and that's been distributed among the public health men, not all of it, but it's available. Half of it's gone out or is available. The other half will be available when the public health men want it. And they can use it much more liberally this year. That is, they don't have to do just great masses. They can use it in groups above the family group. For instance, if they have a school where there's a couple of cases and they want to, they can give it to the rest of the children in that school. That they couldn't do last summer. So it can be used much better, much more quickly this summer. And they have it, and to the extent they have it, to be sure it's still in limited supply, there will be a demand for it and it should be used. They've used a lot of it in Florida. And I think the reports out of Florida are going to be very encouraging as the use of gamma globulin when it is used in the proper time and in the proper way. Tell us, Mr. O'Connor, how did you get into this work in the first place and when was that? President Roosevelt, we were law partners and we went down to Warm Springs in 1924. That's the first time he went down here. Well, he got polio, you mean, when he contracted it. He got polio in 21. And then he got interested in Warm Springs. They had a pool there with hot water. And he went down to the place over and I went down with him. And then he started to take it over and make it a place available to other people. Then he was elected governor in 1928. He simply said to me, well, you take over and I took over. And you took over. Mr. O'Connor, it seems that the National Foundation is going to run another drive for funds, but I remember back in January you raised $55 million, which was the greatest sum ever raised in the history of the foundation. That's right. Why do you need more money? Well, you see in January we asked for $75 million for our big four programs. Now one of our big programs is patient care, another one is polio prevention. For polio prevention this year, we needed $26.5 million over and above our usual needs. That's what ran us from 50 to 75 million. Now our patient aid program, that's where we give aid to those who need it financially, runs approximately $29 million. Now unless and our professional education and scientific research program runs 19, if you'll add those up, you'll get 75. Now we did not get 20 of that to 75, and if we do not have it, we can't carry out those programs. Now see what that would mean in patient aid. That would mean that we cannot give the patient aid that we always have given for 16 years. You're giving patient aid to people who have already incurred polio? That's right. And how long does that patient aid last? Well, it can last anyway from 30 days to an indefinite period of time, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 10 years really, depending on the case. As a matter of fact, we spend, in the last 5 years, we spent half of our money on patient aid on old cases, what we call old cases, and the other half on current cases. Now if we don't get this $20 million, we simply can't take care of those patients. And that would be a catastrophe because that would mean that patients that we're cared for might eliminate some of those crippling effects which they may not eliminate if we can't care for them. Do you still feel so that we are on the verge of victory over this dread disease? I don't have any doubt about it. I think we're very hopeful that this salt vaccine will prove to be effective. And if it does, of course, that will be the answer to that. We'll still have a tremendous load of back cases that we'll have to take care of, and we'll have refinements to make in the vaccine. But unless the immunology of polio is entirely different from every other disease, we feel very encouraged about the success of this vaccine. Thank you very much. Connor, we're coming here tonight. The opinions expressed on the Launcine Chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the Launcine Chronoscope was Larry LeSir and Ned Kalmer. Our distinguished guest was Basil O'Connor, president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. A Launcine watch is one of the most perfectly functioning mechanisms made by man. On first acquaintance, one is astonished by its day-to-day performance and, as months pass into years, its qualities of great accuracy and reliability become truly priceless. Now these persuasive words are backed by facts. In competition with the finest watches of all the world, Launcine watches have won highest honors. Ten World's Fair grand prizes and twenty-eight gold medals are some of these honors. For greater accuracy, Launcine watches have won countless honors from great government observatories, honors too in sports, aviation, and in science. 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