| Physical Description |
436 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 415-419) and index. |
| Summary |
The story of a major breakthrough in cell biology that led to the creation of some of the world's most important vaccines. Until the late 1960s, tens of thousands of American children suffered crippling birth defects if their mothers had been exposed to rubella, popularly known as German measles, while pregnant. In June 1962, a young biologist in Philadelphia, using tissue extracted from an aborted fetus from Sweden, produced safe, clean cells that allowed the creation of vaccines against rubella and other common childhood diseases. Two years later, in the midst of a devastating German measles epidemic, his colleague developed the vaccine that would one day wipe out homegrown rubella. The rubella vaccine and others made with those fetal cells have protected more than 150 million people in the United States, the vast majority of them preschoolers. The new cells and the method of making them also led to vaccines that have protected billions of people around the world from polio, rabies, chicken pox, measles, hepatitis A, shingles, and adenovirus. |
| Subject |
Rubella vaccines -- Research -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
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Rubella vaccines -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
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Rubella -- Vaccination -- History -- 20th century.
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MMR vaccine -- Research -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
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Human experimentation in medicine -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
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Human experimentation in medicine -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
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Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine -- history.
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Human Experimentation -- history.
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History, 20th Century.
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United States. |
| Local Special Collection |
Curtis Memorial Library (Brunswick, Me.) CHIP Collection.
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