Customer Reviews

The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis

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There's a lot of noise about vaccines today, what with bird flu and who knows what over the horizon, but nothing compared with 50 years ago, when the Salk polio vaccine was introduced.
People younger than about 60 years old can hardly imagine the fear that gripped American parents every summer then. The shadow of the iron lung was far more terrifying than the shadow of the atomic bomb.
Salk vaccine worked and, under proper controls, was safe.
But controls were not proper, and vaccine made by Cutter Laboratories killed 10 people and paralyzed a few hundred more. At least several hundred thousand Americans were exposed to live polio virus. More did not become severely ill because fewer than one percent of people exposed to wild virus show symptoms.
Physician Paul Offit, a vaccine researcher and pediatrician in Philadelphia, says the "Cutter Incident" was more than just a forgotten medical mishap.
The net Offit casts brings back an amazing variety of things: research on aborted fetuses, Eddie Cantor and Nancy Reagan, Nobel Prizes and presidential politics, irresponsible journalists, backstabbing researchers.
Offit, a skilled expository writer, packs a lot of information into the first 130 pages to set up his current concern: That the fallout from Cutter Laboratories' bad vaccine led to legal precedents that continue to endanger lives today.
In other words, Offit has reached back half a century to find a hook on which to hang a plea for tort "reform."
Tort reform is a swamp with only a narrow causeway through it.
On the left hand lie the plaintiffs' lawyers, greedy, sensationalist and underhanded, as exemplified by the Milli Vanilli raid. On the right hand lie the corporate lawyers, who want their employers to enjoy all the benefits of legal personhood without any of the responsibility that flesh-and-blood persons bear.
However, it gets complicated.
For every flimflamming plaintiff's lawyer, there's a hard-fighting advocate who puts up his own money (in one case I know of, by taking out a second mortgage on his home) to get justified satisfaction for a penniless victim.
And for every Wall Street Journal editorial writer whose idea of reform is "loser pays" -- that is, the rich buy verdicts -- there's a corporation ruined by lies flogged by "consumer rights activists" -- Bendectin, for example, a safe drug no longer available to pregnant women.
Offit's proposal, not new but not catching on either, is for "drug courts," expert tribunals .
Instead of juries, his courts would have specially trained judges who could call on court-paid, neutral experts to assist judges to rule up or down on a vaccine's safety.
It is inevitable that when tens of millions are treated, some persons receiving even safe vaccines will have medical disasters, and it is not always easy to prove whether the vaccine was involved or not. In Offit's plan, a fund would compensate the authentically injured without necessarily affixing blame.
It would be not unlike no-fault auto insurance, although even closer to an existing federal National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
Offit believes it could recompense the injured (or merely unlucky) fairly while heading off frivolous lawsuits and encouraging pharmaceutical manufacturers to press on with research in risky, less lucrative areas of medicine.
Certainly Offit is on firm ground when he pleads to get decisions out of the hands of citizen jurors. If polls of Americans' beliefs and backgrounds are reliable, then on the typical jury of 12 persons, there are two or three who believe that disease is caused by demons, and not even one with any detailed knowledge about what viruses are or vaccines do.
As a result, we have got what Offit calls "a court system that functions as a national lottery for health care."

While some may find this book too 'pro-pharma', I found this book spot-on. The public wants 100% safe, inexpensive, readily available drugs and vaccines. This book explains why this isn't going to happen--at least, not until the trial lawyers are reined in.

Really enjoyable and readable by the layperson. A fascinating look at why we do some of the things we do -- and just why polio is so frightening.

The author presents the science and legal outcomes of this polio vaccine disaster in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. While telling a historical event, the author was aptly able to show how families today are still being affected-making this book a great read for those who have wondered just what is going on with vaccines, vaccine shortages, and the vaccine industry.

For anyone who is interested in medical or legal history, or both, this is a great read. With impeccable research and gripping detail, Dr. Offit delivers a fascinating glimpse into an age of great despair, great hope and great tragedy. Set in 1955 America, this non-fiction account of America's worst (and little known) biological disaster brings into stark focus the irony of the pre-FDA era; when a great discovery like the Salk polio vaccine could be rushed to market to stem a desvastating epidemic, but not without the risks that accompany anything of that magnitude done in haste. When the courts get involved the irony grows thicker, for only in America could the greatest triumph over disease, the Salk polio vaccine, bring to bare a legal legacy that could be the downfall of vaccines for generations to come.

This book is a remarkably balanced look at what could be considered one of the worst biological disasters in our history, and the impact it has had on today's diminishing supply of vaccines. Dr. Offit has successfully brought to light this little known incident in this compelling book, and he has given thoughtful insight to the current climate - and crisis - surrounding vaccines. It is extremely well written, and I recommed it highly.

In 1952, the United States suffered its worst ever polio epidemic, with 58,000 people affected. The race was on to perfect a vaccine that would bring this scourge under control. In 1955, following several breakthrough, a vaccine was created, and a huge trial was conducted, involving some 800,000 children, of whom 600,000 were given the vaccine (the rest were given a placebo). However, it quickly became apparent that something had gone wrong. Before all was said and done, 40,000 children contracted polio, 200 were permanently paralyzed, and 10 died. The race was on to find out what had gone wrong.

1955 was still the dawn of the vaccine era, and there was much to be learned. However, in the aftermath of the vaccine, liability law was changed in a way that seemed minor at the time, but has resulted in a dearth of vaccines and vaccine makers. Do you want to know why 2004 witnessed a shortage of flu vaccines? Read this book and find out!

Overall, I must say that I found this book to be quite fascinating. The author does a good job of retelling what happened, and what its ramifications were and are. It seems quite ironic that something that went wrong at the dawn of vaccines is bringing the era of vaccines to a close! If you want to know how we got from that seemingly glorious era of ever new vaccines, which seemed to promise a disease free future, to day, then you must read this book. I highly recommend it!

Dr. Offit brings to light a horrifying time in the history of vaccines. It's amazing how the ramifications of that incident echo down through the decades and affect our ability to get vaccines when we need them. His writing style is friendly and down-to-earth, making this an easy, enjoyable (given the subject matter) read.

No single medical advance has had as much a positive effect as the devlopment of vaccines. However, thee are now only 4 companies involved with vaccines in the USA and little vaccine R&D.

This shortage is the result of the 1955 Cutter Incident in which Cutter Labs released a defective polio vaccine that had a deadly virus that out of 700,000 distributed vaccines, crippled 200 and killed 10. The resulting court case resulted in a chilling effect as far as future vaccine development is concerned.

This book chronicles the behind-the-scenes drama of a company that took a noble product, the polio vaccine, and screwed everything up. This book shows what can happen when a company fails to follow the required safe production protocols for a medicine. This very well written book helps you understand just why so few resources are allocated towards new vaccines.

Are you aware of the real reasons there has been a chronic shortage of flu vaccine in the U.S. for the past several years? Are you concerned that there is the very real possibility of a major flu pandemic that could rival the 1918 outbreak that claimed 675.000 lives in this country? Would you be interested in learning why most pharmaceutical companies are no longer involved in the manufacture of essential vaccines? Paul Offit, M.D. sheds a great deal of light on these matters in "The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis". Offit recalls a long forgotten series of events from the polio epidemic in the mid to late 1950's that has resulted in the serious shortage of vaccines that we are seeing today. The consequences of these shortages and our inability to respond to an unexpected epidemic have the potential to be devastating to our nation.

I think that it is fair to say that most Americans take a rather dim view of the major pharmaceutical companies. These attitudes are really not that difficult to understand when one considers that these firms have been the target of all manner of accusations and frivolous charges by trial lawyers, public advocacy groups, assorted politicians and various media outlets over the past several decades. Certainly some of these criticisms are warranted but as Dr. Offit points out in "The Cutter Incident" many of these accusations proved to be totally without basis. As a result of costly and time consuming litigation, many companies simply chose to discontinue the production of the vaccines that are essential to the health and well-being of so many Americans. A half century ago there were more than two dozen companies engaged in the manufacture of various vaccines. Today that number has dwindled to a mere four! This is an extremely unfortunate and potentially dangerous set of circumstances that could have far reaching implications if a serious outbreak of disease were to occur.

"The Cutter Incident" just might change the way you view many of these issues. Beware of the lawyers and the politicians with an ax to grind. There is another side to this story and Dr. Paul Offit lays it all out in this thoughtful and well-written book. Our system is broken and needs to be fixed and time is of the essence! "The Cutter Incident" is a great way to get yourself up to speed on these very timely issues. Highly recommended!