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xii, 238 pp; illustrations. Original cloth. Near Fine, in dust jacket. First Edition. SIGNED BY PAUL OFFIT TO NOBEL LAUREATE THOMAS H. WELLER: "To Tom,/ Thanks again for all of your insights/ into this tragedy./ I m not sure I could have written/ this book without you./ All best wishes/ Paul A. Offit/ September, 2005." This copy does not have any ownership marking in it, but I know "Tom" is Thomas H. Weller because the book, as well as other items owned by Weller that do have his name written in them, were acquired by me from the family after Weller's death in 2008. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1954 was awarded jointly to John Franklin Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller and Frederick Chapman Robbins "for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue." In the book on pp. 80 and 130, Offit quotes Weller's negative views, which were shared by others who are also quoted by Offit, that Jonas Salk was not a good scientist, never having been elected to the National Academy of Sciences nor awarded the Nobel Prize. However Offit expresses his own contrary view that "although not appreciated by many scientists, Salk made several important conceptual and technological advances that led to one of the greatest public heath achievements of our time" (p. 131). As a footnote, I would note that Salk, and Stephen Hawking, are probably the two persons most cited by the media as having received a Nobel Prize who did NOT receive the Prize. Quoting Wikipedia about the "Cutter Incident": "On April 12, 1955, following the announcement of the success of the polio vaccine trial, Cutter Laboratories became one of several companies that was recommended to be given a license by the United States government to produce Salk's polio vaccine. In anticipation of the demand for vaccine, the companies had already produced stocks of the vaccine and these were issued once the licenses were signed. In what became known as the Cutter incident, some lots of the Cutter vaccine--despite passing required safety tests--contained live polio virus in what was supposed to be an inactivated-virus vaccine. Cutter withdrew its vaccine from the market on April 27 after vaccine-associated cases were reported. The mistake produced 120,000 doses of polio vaccine that contained live polio virus. Of children who received the vaccine, 40,000 developed abortive poliomyelitis (a form of the disease that does not involve the central nervous system), 56 developed paralytic poliomyelitis--and of these, five children died from polio. The exposures led to an epidemic of polio in the families and communities of the affected children, resulting in a further 113 people paralyzed and 5 deaths. The director of the microbiology institute lost his job, as did the equivalent of the assistant secretary for health. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Oveta Culp Hobby stepped down. William H. Sebrell Jr, the director of the NIH, resigned.". Seller Inventory # 17389
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Bibliographic Details
Title: The Cutter Incident. How America's First ...
Publisher: New Haven & London: Yale University, 2005.
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition
