National Congress of Parents and Teachers (PTA) and the Salk Polio Vaccine Field Trial

Field Trial in New York City, April 27, 1954 Dr. Emanuel Dubow gives an injection to Jeffrey Coles at Public School 61 in New York City as Dr. Leona Baumgartner, Dr. Hart van Riper, and Basil O’Connor look on. By May 4^th the New York City Department of Health announced that over 21,000 children had been vaccinated. Dr. Baumgartner praised the work of the 1600 volunteers recruited by the National Foundation Greater New York Chapter to administer the field trial program in New York City.

            Several educational organizations assisted the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP; now the March of Dimes) with logistical and educational aspects of vaccinating children in schools in the Salk polio vaccine field trial of 1954. These organizations included the American Association of School Administrators, National Education Association, National Catholic Educational Association, and American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. A key player in the educational effort was the National Congress of Parents and Teachers (PTA). On December 18, 1953, the national PTA president, Mrs. Newton P. Leonard sent the following message to PTA state presidents: “The National Congress of Parents and Teachers will cooperate fully with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in the great program of public education necessary, not only in the counties selected for the trials but also in the rest of the communities across the country.”1 The statement followed Jonas Salk’s historic report on the polio vaccine at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics (October 9, 1953) and NFIP Medical Director Hart van Riper’s article “Will 1954 Be the Year of Decision for Polio?” published in the November 1953 issue of the PTA National Parent-Teacher.

 

            Mrs. Leonard’s letter of support directed PTA leaders to educate parents about the design of the field trial, parental consent, vaccination clinics, vaccine safety, and medical records through meetings and standard information bulletins developed by the NFIP and distributed by the PTA. The PTA Leader’s Alert bulletins explained the overall plan for the field trial and difference between the vaccine and gamma globulin. Further, Leonard directed state and community representatives to deploy its volunteers to augment the resources of NFIP chapters. In the few months before the field trial began, Elaine Whitelaw (NFIP Director of Women’s Activities) continually sent letters and telegrams to state and local leaders – name lists of volunteers who were referrals from the national PTA. By March 1954, these volunteers were working with local health authorities to interpret the field trial to the parents involved and to obtain written consent and staff the school vaccination clinics that began on April 26, 1954.

 

The success of the school vaccination clinics that were the core of the inoculation phase of the field trial was thus made possible by the combined efforts of volunteers of the NFIP, the PTA, and other organizations. On August 16, 1954, Henry F. Helmholz, MD, the National Chairman of the PTA Committee on Health, broadcast the following message of gratitude from Basil O’Connor to PTA members across the U.S.:

 

                        The splendid participation of the P.T.A. in the conduct of the trials exemplified the wholehearted cooperation of the communities in this unique and unprecedented project. In countless schools your members worked as school unit chairmen, classroom mothers and clinic aides, and as the all-important record keepers. Reports from all parts of the country tell of their outstanding service.

 

February 19, 2004 / David Rose / March of Dimes Archives